Why is Grand Theft Auto 6 unlikely to incorporate cryptocurrencies?

Please fol­low and like us:
Pin Share

Rumors sug­gest­ing that Grand Theft Auto 6 will incor­po­rate cryp­tocur­ren­cies sur­face every once in a while, fuel­ing expec­ta­tions that the high­ly await­ed game may incor­po­rate dig­i­tal assets as rewards for play­ers, non­fun­gi­ble tokens (NFTs) as in-game goods, or even as part of the sto­ry­line’s humor.

The most recent spec­u­la­tions in the cryp­to com­mu­ni­ty emerged last week on Twit­ter, but so far, there’s no indi­ca­tion that Rock­star Games, pub­lish­er of the Grand Theft Auto fran­chise, plans to jump into Web3. Coin­tele­graph looked at the lat­est rumors and facts about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of an upcom­ing cryp­to GTA.

Play-to-Earn is no longer seen as an efficient business model

Play-to-earn (P2E) games allow users to earn cryp­tocur­ren­cies by play­ing games. The busi­ness mod­el, how­ev­er, has been deemed as unsus­tain­able, despite the excite­ment over blockchain-based games.

Dur­ing the NFT.NYC in April, game pub­lish­ers and devel­op­ers high­light­ed that the indus­try is explor­ing alter­na­tives to replace the P2E busi­ness mod­el amid the cryp­to prices downturn. 

“It’s a mod­el that is not sus­tain­able at all,” said Chase Freo, CEO of gam­ing plat­form OP Games dur­ing a pan­el at the event, giv­ing the exam­ple of Axie Infinity’s shift in some of its flag­ship titles. 

Dur­ing the pan­el dis­cus­sion, Paul Flana­gan, the head of busi­ness devel­op­ment at CM Games, an Eston­ian mobile game devel­op­er, voiced his opin­ion on the core issue sur­round­ing P2E mod­els. He described them as “zero-sum” and high­light­ed their resem­blance to Ponzi schemes. Flana­gan men­tioned that while brand­ing spon­sor­ship could poten­tial­ly serve as a viable rev­enue source, its effec­tive­ness in prac­tice remains to be seen.

Accord­ing to Sta­tista, Grand Theft Auto 5 has sold over 180 mil­lion units world­wide since 2015, mak­ing it one of the most suc­cess­ful game titles ever released. Based on esti­mates on the rev­enue of Rock­star’s par­ent com­pa­ny Take-Two Inter­ac­tive, over $8 bil­lion has been gen­er­at­ed by the fran­chise over the last decade. Con­sid­er­ing these fig­ures, Grand Theft Auto has been a prof­itable title so far. Shift­ing to a P2E mod­el would be a risky ven­ture for Rockstar. 

Life­time unit sales gen­er­at­ed by Grand Theft Auto 5 world­wide as of May 2023. Source: Take-Two Inter­ac­tive, Statista.

Rockstar’s NFT ban

Last Novem­ber, Rock­star updat­ed its web­site to make clear that fan-oper­at­ed servers for Grand Theft Auto 5 could no longer uti­lize cryp­to assets, specif­i­cal­ly NFTs. 

A fan-oper­at­ed serv­er allows mod­i­fi­ca­tions to a PC game and inter­ac­tion between play­ers. As for Grand Theft Auto, some servers imple­ment­ed NFTs to give play­ers own­er­ship of in-game goods, such as cars and weapons. Rock­star’s ban was a set­back to fans hop­ing for NFTs in the franchise. 

Last­ly, the fran­chise is known for its humor­ous style. Many cryp­to enthu­si­asts believe that the next Grand Theft Auto could include cryp­to ele­ments in its nar­ra­tive, which would jus­ti­fy the years of rumors about the game tak­ing a cryp­to approach. 

Coin­tele­graph reached out to Rock­star regard­ing the rumors, but did not receive an imme­di­ate response. As of now, the com­pa­ny has nei­ther denied nor con­firmed GTA6’s cryp­to sta­tus. The title is expect­ed to be released in 2024.

Mag­a­zine: Why join a blockchain gam­ing guild? Fun, prof­it and cre­ate bet­ter games



Source link

Please fol­low and like us:
Pin Share

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *