CNN announces the end of their NFT news stories market.

https://twitter.com/ParkerMolloy/status/1579582286735224832

"Fellow collectors,

We have news to share with you today: we are saying goodby to Vault by CNN.

The Vault team is honored to have partnered with amazing journalists, producers, artists, photojournalists, and collectors from all over the
world during our time together. Vault was originally launched as a
6-week experiment, but the support and engagement from our community let
us expand this project into something much larger. Thank you to each of
you for your interest and engagement in what we built together.

At CNN's core is a spirit of innovation and experimentation, going right
back to our founding in 1980. We learned a lot from our first foray
into Web3, and we are excited to carry Vault's concepts around community storytelling into future projects."

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Wed, 12 Oct 2022 12:52:34 -0700, Dimensional Traveler
<dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:

CNN announces the end of their NFT news stories market.

https://twitter.com/ParkerMolloy/status/1579582286735224832

"Fellow collectors,

We have news to share with you today: we are saying goodby to Vault by CNN.

The Vault team is honored to have partnered with amazing journalists, >producers, artists, photojournalists, and collectors from all over the
world during our time together. Vault was originally launched as a
6-week experiment, but the support and engagement from our community let
us expand this project into something much larger. Thank you to each of
you for your interest and engagement in what we built together.

At CNN's core is a spirit of innovation and experimentation, going right
back to our founding in 1980. We learned a lot from our first foray
into Web3, and we are excited to carry Vault's concepts around community >storytelling into future projects."

Oh no! Another CNN service nobody ever heard of or used is dead! ;-)

Apparently the Vault wasn't - as the tweet makes it sound and you
might expect - just a CNN thing where they were reporting about NFT/blockchain/crytpocurrency stories, but where you could buy NFTs of
news stories themselves. Which is... I mean, it comes to a point I
actually don't have words to describe the stupidity of that.

Of course, the question now arises: why the shutdown? Because CNN
recognized NFTs for the scam they were? Or because they weren't making
bank the way they expected? (Sadly, I think we can all figure out the
answer to that).

Still, I see this as a good sign that more and more people are
becoming aware of how pointless and awful NFTs are, and hopes this
only speeds the blockchain market implosion. I doubt it will ever die
away completely - grifters being what they are - but if its never
taken seriously by business again, that'd be great.

(And despite what people may think, I'll be /thrilled/ if I never have
to talk about NFTs again. I mean, I quite enjoy the schadenfreude of
watching NFT schemes collapse, but crypto-bro's philosophy is
abhorrently corrosive that I'll cheerfully sacrifice those moments of
happiness if NFTs were to vanish off the face of the earth tomorrow.)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 10/12/2022 1:13 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

On Wed, 12 Oct 2022 12:52:34 -0700, Dimensional Traveler
<dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:

CNN announces the end of their NFT news stories market.

https://twitter.com/ParkerMolloy/status/1579582286735224832

"Fellow collectors,

We have news to share with you today: we are saying goodby to Vault by CNN. >>
The Vault team is honored to have partnered with amazing journalists,
producers, artists, photojournalists, and collectors from all over the
world during our time together. Vault was originally launched as a
6-week experiment, but the support and engagement from our community let
us expand this project into something much larger. Thank you to each of
you for your interest and engagement in what we built together.

At CNN's core is a spirit of innovation and experimentation, going right
back to our founding in 1980. We learned a lot from our first foray
into Web3, and we are excited to carry Vault's concepts around community
storytelling into future projects."

Oh no! Another CNN service nobody ever heard of or used is dead! ;-)

Apparently the Vault wasn't - as the tweet makes it sound and you
might expect - just a CNN thing where they were reporting about NFT/blockchain/crytpocurrency stories, but where you could buy NFTs of
news stories themselves. Which is... I mean, it comes to a point I
actually don't have words to describe the stupidity of that.
It is scary to realize that there are more head backsides in need of

smacks than there are smacks available in the universe :D

--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Meanwhile...

Will Wright - of SimCity fame - is introducing a new blockchain-based
game called VOXVerse*. "Almost everything in this world is actually
going to be constructed by the players" and "There will also be
jobs... when you're offline your Vox is still going to be online as an
NPC, so when I'm offline my Vox can still be working at a job and
earning me money."

I don't even know where to start. Maybe with my usual complaint about
how we shouldn't keep putting aging designers on pedestals, that just
because they made some good games twenty or thirty years ago doesn't
mean they're automatically destined to make worthy games today simply
by virtue of a past hit? Or that none of the ideas he's suggesting
need processor-intensive blockchain technology? Or that maybe - just
maybe - the guiding principal of a game shouldn't be that it can make
you money, but instead it should be something fun to play? More
practically: NFT and blockchains are increasingly seen by laymen as a
scam and embarrassment, so maybe publicly associating your game with
the tech isn't the best way to get people interested?

Incidentally, this is Wright's /second/ attempt at a blockchain game.
His first, "Proxi" was announced a year ago. Why not finish that one
first, Will? Or was it just a 'rugpull', to use crypto-bro
terminology? Why should people care about this one anymore than the
first?



=================================
* https://www.pcgamer.com/the-sims-creator-will-wright-is-making-a-blockchain-game-because-of-course-he-is/

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 22/10/2022 15:40, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

Meanwhile...

Will Wright - of SimCity fame - is introducing a new blockchain-based
game called VOXVerse*. "Almost everything in this world is actually
going to be constructed by the players" and "There will also be
jobs... when you're offline your Vox is still going to be online as an
NPC, so when I'm offline my Vox can still be working at a job and
earning me money."

I don't even know where to start. Maybe with my usual complaint about
how we shouldn't keep putting aging designers on pedestals, that just
because they made some good games twenty or thirty years ago doesn't
mean they're automatically destined to make worthy games today simply
by virtue of a past hit? Or that none of the ideas he's suggesting
need processor-intensive blockchain technology? Or that maybe - just
maybe - the guiding principal of a game shouldn't be that it can make
you money, but instead it should be something fun to play? More
practically: NFT and blockchains are increasingly seen by laymen as a
scam and embarrassment, so maybe publicly associating your game with
the tech isn't the best way to get people interested?

Incidentally, this is Wright's /second/ attempt at a blockchain game.
His first, "Proxi" was announced a year ago. Why not finish that one
first, Will? Or was it just a 'rugpull', to use crypto-bro
terminology? Why should people care about this one anymore than the
first?

=================================
* https://www.pcgamer.com/the-sims-creator-will-wright-is-making-a-blockchain-game-because-of-course-he-is/

Every time I see stuff like this I still have the same two questions,
what's in it for gamers and why do you need blockchain technology?

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sun, 23 Oct 2022 11:14:49 +0100, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:

On 22/10/2022 15:40, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

Meanwhile...

Will Wright - of SimCity fame - is introducing a new blockchain-based
game called VOXVerse*. "Almost everything in this world is actually
going to be constructed by the players" and "There will also be
jobs... when you're offline your Vox is still going to be online as an
NPC, so when I'm offline my Vox can still be working at a job and
earning me money."

Every time I see stuff like this I still have the same two questions,
what's in it for gamers and why do you need blockchain technology?

Arguably, there is benefit to "gamers" in that they can create an
asset for the game, and then sell it to other players. An entire
industry has grown up around this idea (see Roblox). It's nothing I'm
in support of, though. For one, it turns you from 'gamer' to 'worker',
which is the antithesis of what a game should do. I also think the
drive to commercialize every aspect of creation - be it game assets,
or video LetsPlays, or even game reviews - is horribly corrosive to
our creativity and society. I detest games that try to leverage our
greed that way.

As for the blockchain question... um.... err... yeah, I got nothing.
There's really no need for it. There's nothing this game uses it for
that couldn't be done by simply flipping some bits in a standard
database, and at a fraction of the computational cost.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 23/10/2022 14:39, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

On Sun, 23 Oct 2022 11:14:49 +0100, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:

On 22/10/2022 15:40, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

Meanwhile...

Will Wright - of SimCity fame - is introducing a new blockchain-based
game called VOXVerse*. "Almost everything in this world is actually
going to be constructed by the players" and "There will also be
jobs... when you're offline your Vox is still going to be online as an
NPC, so when I'm offline my Vox can still be working at a job and
earning me money."

Every time I see stuff like this I still have the same two questions,
what's in it for gamers and why do you need blockchain technology?

Arguably, there is benefit to "gamers" in that they can create an
asset for the game, and then sell it to other players. An entire
industry has grown up around this idea (see Roblox). It's nothing I'm
in support of, though. For one, it turns you from 'gamer' to 'worker',
which is the antithesis of what a game should do. I also think the
drive to commercialize every aspect of creation - be it game assets,
or video LetsPlays, or even game reviews - is horribly corrosive to
our creativity and society. I detest games that try to leverage our
greed that way.

That's kinda my point what benefit is it to gamers if you turn it into non-gaming. In addition, even if you don't want to do it as 'work' what positive effect does it have on gameplay.

As for the blockchain question... um.... err... yeah, I got nothing.
There's really no need for it. There's nothing this game uses it for
that couldn't be done by simply flipping some bits in a standard
database, and at a fraction of the computational cost.

At least with NFT's as 'digital collectables' a can see how a market of
sorts can develop but what the point of using that technology in a game
when the only market exists within that game.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

I've been so quiet on this topic for weeks, c'mon, you gotta allow me
this one.

'Cause with the collapse of FTX, we might finally be seeing (hearing?)
the death knell of crypto-currencies (and their bastard offspring,
NFTs) as any sort of serious consideration.

FTX is probably an unknown entity (unless you follow the nonsense that
is cryptocurrency), but it was a major stabilizing force of that
'industry'. In essence, it was a currency exchange, allowing you to
transfer funds between different crypto-coins. Backed by its own
cryptocurrency (which it pegged to a specific US dollar value) it was
seen as one of the steadiest parts of the crypto-scam. It staked the
industry to the real-world economy, providing actual value to what
might otherwise be entirely speculative betting on a series of
valueless electrons.

FTX's worth value existed its owner had billions of dollars invested
into the company. But these billions were as fictitious as the rest of cryptocoin's value, based entirely on an unbacked promise to keep FTT
- FTX's own coinage - valued at $22USD per token. People bought and
sold Ethereum and Dogecoins and Bitcoins based on this promise, and
used FTX to store their digital wealth. But when the owners admitted
they couldn't maintain that promise, the bottom dropped out of the
market. Billions of (speculative) dollars are gone, and people are
locked out of their accounts, probably never to get any of their money
back.

Binance - FTX's competitor - still exists and provides similar
services, but even they didn't have the resources to save FTX. Doing
any sort of 'real-world' business in the cryptocurrency world is
becoming increasingly chancy; you can still trade the coins, but
turning those coins into real money is getting harder. Even if
businesses weren't wary about crypto and NFT before, this likely will
spook all but the least risk-averse away. There's practically no
bottom to how low cryptocoins can fall in value now.

In other words, it's a good day.

Crypto won't die entirely, of course. There are already markets that
are buying the accounts of people locked out of FTX - often for
pennies on the dollar - in the vain hope that maybe one day those
coins will be freed and the investors will be able to make good on
their bet. But the odds of that ever happening are extremely low, and
FTX's demise may very well be the pin that bursts the crypto-bubble.
After this (we can only hope) crypto will join the other low-tier
scams like pyramid schemes and perpetual motion machines. Ever
present, sure; profitable for some? Definitely. But no longer
something any serious economist considers as a business plan.

So yeah, I'm wallowing in the schadenfreud. I'm enjoying my
opportunity to gloat. It's a big story, and the only reason it isn't
making bigger waves is that Elon Musk is throwing away billions even
faster than FTX can. So you gotta allow me this. If we're all lucky,
I may not have another opportunity to bitch about crypto and NFTs ever
again. ;-)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Saturday, November 12, 2022 at 5:17:58 PM UTC-8, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

I've been so quiet on this topic for weeks, c'mon, you gotta allow me
this one.

So yeah, I'm wallowing in the schadenfreud. I'm enjoying my
opportunity to gloat. It's a big story, and the only reason it isn't
making bigger waves is that Elon Musk is throwing away billions even
faster than FTX can. So you gotta allow me this. If we're all lucky,
I may not have another opportunity to bitch about crypto and NFTs ever
again. ;-)

It's looking like his stunt may wipe him out, I'm just hoping he doesn't
take space-x and tesla with him (not even considering the damage
to other companies that aren't headed by him.)

- Justisaur

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)