While the NFT industry struggles to find product/market fit, Sony patents the future of gaming
From 1971 to 1991, legendary hockey player Guy Lafleur helped the Montreal Canadiens win 7 Stanley Cup Championships. During that time he also became the first player in National Hockey League history to score 50 goals in six consecutive seasons.
Now, 32 years later, a signed Guy Lafleur photograph rests on a hook on the wall of my Dad’s office where I’m currently writing this article from. My dad, who’s a die hard Habs fan, grew up watching ‘The Flower’ win and win and win again with his favourite team. To him, the legend of Guy Lafleur is more than a great hockey story, it’s the tale of his childhood—from the moments he spent watching him to the moments he spent pretending to be him on the shinny rink out back. So what does it mean to my Dad to own an authentic, one-of-a-kind, signed photograph? I don’t want to speak for my old man, but I’d reckon to say it means a hell of a lot.
The Flower
And there’s a lot of people like my Dad out in the world. Sports fans, Kim K stans, and the girl with the t-shirt she wore front row for her favourite band (apologies for the rhyming). Like my Dad, and me, and probably you as well, it means something to these people to own something that one of their idols has touched. Whether it’s Barry Bond’s 700th homerun bat, a shirt worn by a celebrity, or simply an autographed moment. It creates a unique bond you alone share with your hero.
But what happens when your hero and his/her moments live in the digital world?
The rise of Esports and platforms like Twitch have created room for Esports stars and streaming legends to develop massive followings of devoted fans. But, unlike a bat that has nicks and marks, or a shirt with unique rips and stains, in-game items and moments are represented with lines of code that are duplicated across copies of games and indistinguishable after the fact. So while a bat used by Barry Bonds is not the same as another bat; a Samurai Fortnite skin use by famous pro gamer Ninja in a championship match is exactly the same as a Samurai Fortnite skin your nephew bought for 8 Vbucks.
Houston, we have a problem.
A human problem that humans care about. A problem Sony is working on the solution to.
“In traditional video games, there is no way to differentiate a specific instance of an in-game item that a famous player of the video game used to win a famous tournament from any other instance of the in-game item,” Sony says in a patent that became public just recently but was filed in 2021.
The Patent Design… I don’t understand it either :)
Using distributed ledger technology (the blockchain), Sony has patented systems and methods for creating, modifying, tracking, authenticating, and/or transferring unique digital assets associated with a video game.
Technically these assets are NFTs or Non-Fungible Tokens. Fungible means same (like how 1 USD bill is equal to 1 USD bill). Non-Fungible means not same (like how Barry Bond’s bat is not equal to the one in your garage). But let’s go back to calling them unique digital assets because NFTs is a naughty word these days.
What are they anyways?
The digital assets may be things like in-game items or characters; or media, such as video clips, images, or audio clips. They can basically be anything from a Ray Gun to a no scope highlight. Most of all, they will completely change the experience of being a gamer and Esports fan.
Essentially Esports and streaming fans will soon be able to verifiably own a digital in-game asset or moment—like Ninja’s Samurai skin (I keep saying Samurai skin but I don’t watch Ninja and I don’t know if this is accurate, it’s probably not), or a highlight clip of him winning the championship (he did definitely do this a lot), or anything across any game Sony has access to. This means in the future your experience in Fortnite could even unlock a unique experience over in Call of Duty, where you get to use special guns or access special maps based on the items or moments you own. But at the least, it immediately lets you start doing what (e)sports fans do best. Worship your heroes and collect their stuff.
And that’s reason enough for me to love this move by Sony. They’re approaching blockchain technology from the basis of a real human insight, and solving a problem in a way that only the blockchain could. It’s exactly the type of innovation this exciting world promises.