Former Valve Economist Says “Ten Years Ago, the Metaverse Was Already Up and Running”

[Peter_Brosdahl]

Image: Meta



Former Valve Economist Yanis Varoufakis recently gave an interview in which he shared some interesting insights into digital economies. These days, it’s difficult to go even one day without a company, or some form of news media, mentioning either cryptocurrency, NFTs, or perhaps the new Metaverse, but he explains that Valve saw a digital marketplace where players were already interacting with each other over 10 years ago.



Ten years ago, the metaverse was already up and running within gaming communities. Valve’s games had already spawned economies so large that Valve was both excited and spooked. Some digital assets that had previously been distributed for free (via the game’s drops) began to trade for tens of thousands of dollars on eBay, well before anyone had thought of NFTs.



What spooked people at Valve, which he jokingly said caused some loss of sleep...

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[MadMummy76]

Trading cards are nothing like NFTs, we don't burn down the planet by trading them. If someone wants to waste their money on collecting virtual cards, that's fine by me. As long as it does not involve blockchain.

 

[Brian_B]

Trading cards are nothing like NFTs, we don't burn down the planet by trading them. If someone wants to waste their money on collecting virtual cards, that's fine by me. As long as it does not involve blockchain.

You are right in that you don't need to grind a huge blockchain for a trading card, but from the end user perspective, it works and acts very similarly.

There's a limited number of them. You can trade them to people for real cash value. They only exist digitally. You can't just copy it and have it retain the same value.

Just add the magic of Blockchain and it would be an NFT, here they are just using your Steam account to perform that function (with a lot fewer resources and energy required, but it lacks the cool buzzwordyness)