If I can’t hang it on my wall, why should I pay for it?
An argument for older generations to understand the value of a digital asset.
I was telling a friend of mine recently about my transition from a stable position at a prestigious public university to a MarTech Saas technology start-up in Web3 called GenCity Labs. The conversation went something like this:
FRIEND: “So you make and sell NFT’s?”
ME: “Yes, but there’s more to it.”
FRIEND: “I don’t get NFTs. Why would someone pay for this cartoon jpeg? I can’t even hang it on my wall.”
My friend has four kids all under the age of 12. He lives in a delightfully mad house. There is always something going on. Kids are generally running about getting messy, except when they have a screen in front of them. Then the house is quiet as a church.
I asked him how much he has spent on video games in the past year, specifically in-game purchases. His answer was staggering. His oldest kid plays Fortnite and Minecraft, much like my own 11-year-old son. Fortnite has a freemium model, where the game is free but you can upgrade your characters using V-Bucks. V-Bucks cost real money. The incentive for a kid to upgrade to flex on their friends and level up is a very real driver to beg their parents to purchase for them.
Other than the computer and a pair of nice headphones, all my kid wants for birthdays and holidays are digital goods. He lives in a digital world where your skin (avatar) has meaning to him. His digital identity in many ways is WAY more important to him than his physical one.
My son sees no difference in the value of a digital asset over a physical one.
I then asked my friend, “What if your kid could develop their own skin, win a bunch of in-game tournaments, and then sell the skin to someone else?”
This was the “a-ha” moment.
How many kids that grew up in the 80’s wanted Michael Jackson’s one glove, or a pair of Air Jordan’s back in the day? Those items had value to us because we wanted to “Be Like Mike.”
The only difference between a Fortnite skin and a digital collectible on-chain (NFT) is that I can’t resell the Fortnite skin or take it out of the digital world of the game. I spent the money for my kid to play as that avatar, and that’s it. The game company keeps all that value to themselves, even though my kid might be creating content that drives more value to the game.
An NFT offers a way to truly own some thing that isn’t beholden to the confines of the world of the game. It’s interoperable. I could now increase the value of my asset by getting really good at playing the game, gain a community of followers who would buy my assets that I have made more value through spending time playing it.
When I ask my kid what he wants to be when he “grows up” he says he wants to be a gaming YouTuber.
Go get em’ kid! You have my blessings.
/fin
