The topic is still controversial in the games industry, but major developers have already signaled interest in this new business model.
The popularity of NFT games is a topic that is at the top of discussions in the billion-dollar video game industry. Gambling with “non-fungible tokens” — in free translation — is yet another initiative by this industry, which has reinvented itself several times throughout its history to attract players and create new consumer relationships.
But the adoption of cryptocurrencies in big-budget video games is still not unanimous, being eagerly awaited by the community, but repelled by others, who do not think it is a good idea to insert financial speculation in the gaming world. Among the industry’s concerns is the uncertainty of how the arrival of NFTs could change the current settings of online gaming communities or influence the creative process of developing or pricing skins and other items.
According to the lawyer specialized in Games and eSports Marcelo Mattoso Ferreira, a partner at Barcellos Tucunduva Advogados (BTLaw), this is still a very controversial topic. “The major developers have already signaled their interest in this new business model and are studying how to introduce NFTs in the market in which they operate. But there is still a lot of uncertainty about how they can, in fact, change the already consolidated market, as electronic games have their own characteristics and some of them take years to be produced. The way in which the NFTs should impact this entire cycle is still very nebulous”, points out Marcelo.
According to the expert, NFTs, both in investments and in games, use the same blockchain technology and represent something unique and non-fractionable. “It is precisely this digital asset exclusivity that makes NFT valuable in the market. For now, what NFT games are doing is creating a way to try to monetize users’ gameplay and the term “play-to-earn” has already been coined. They are aggregating concepts from some games and inserting NFT into them. As a game, it is still very much in its infancy and users are seeing this move more as an investment than entertainment,” he explains.
Regarding the legislation for NFT games, which may address the sale of items, the participation of minors, among other important aspects, the lawyer explains that there is no specific regulation in Brazil for the electronic games market, and the laws already among them the Civil Code, the Consumer Code, the Industrial Property Law, the Software Law, the indicative classification of the Ministry of Justice and the Civil Rights Framework for the Internet. “There is also no Brazilian regulation on NFTs or crypto-assets, but we have bills in progress to try to regulate this issue. In addition, the CVM regularly issues alerts about crypto-assets, making it clear that if such assets have the characteristics of Securities, their offer on the market requires prior authorization from the body”, he concludes.
What is NFT?
NFT is an acronym that stands for non-fungible token. non-fungible tokens are assets that cannot be exchanged, due to their individual specifications, so they have undefined values. Even if copies exist, the original NFT is unique.
Source: Marcelo Mattoso Ferreira — lawyer specialized in Games and eSports — partner at the BTLaw office – Graduated in Law from UNESA — LL.M. in Law, Innovation and Technology, at the FGV/RJ Law School.
