Nestled in the new Dev Blog about the upcoming AT tomorrow, was a weird and unexpected mention of NFTs. These NFTs will be automatically generated for the character who scores the Final Blow on any kill during the Alliance Tournament.
As an artist and member of many creative communities, both inside and outside of Eve Online, I am diametrically opposed to the entire concept of NFTs. And I don't want to get into a long explanation of what they are, why they are bad, and how easily they can exploit the work of those that often generate them. NFTs are dumb and slightly insane. But there are a lot of dumb and insane things in this world, many of which are much worse, so let's just leave it there for now.
I am disappointed that this has now entered our community. I'm disappointed that we have no method for opting out of this activity if we wanted to. It is totally out of our control. And that is unfortunate. As someone who has avoided all of this up until now, I'm not super keen on being dragged unwillingly into it. I would rather not have, thank you very much.
I can only guess that CCP is using this as a PR opportunity, probably at the urging of Pearl Abyss, and a potential additional revenue stream. A trial balloon if you will. Since eventually such "cards" could be traded for real world currency and CCP would get a percentage of that sale. And I'm not against CCP making revenue from Eve Online, as I've stated many, many times in the past. This just seems like a pointless, potentially harmful, way to go about it.
"We are keenly aware of the environmental impact of cryptocurrencies", they do spend a lot of time in the Dev Blog mitigating the impact of this decision, so they are aware of the consequences of their actions.
As for me personally I'll just be pretending this never happened and completely ignore any potential NFT kill-mails that I may generate. It really is the only option at this point.
I have much more important things to deal with and concentrate on.
The Alliance Tournament begins tomorrow.