(Parody) Bethesda Announces Skyrim NFTs

Video game companies are looking into non-fungible tokens, or NFTs for short, to see if this recent trendy blockchain technology could lead to a new source of revenue. Some companies are optimistic, while others are skeptical, but Bethesda has decided to go all-in.

Unlike other companies who are using this technology for items within a game, Bethesda has decided to make the entirety of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim a non-fungible token. With a new program called the ‘Skyrim Computerized Adventure Mechanism,’ it can create unique copies of Skyrim on the blockchain.

“The team at Bethesda is proud to announce our new Skyrim Computerized Adventure Mechanism program that looks into the future of how we re-release Skyrim,” said Bethesda Game Studios director Todd Howard in a video posted on the Bethesda website. “Not only will this free up more of the studio to work on new projects, but it also gives the company a stable revenue stream while still being able to develop on the same game engine.”

How this program works is that every week, it spits out a new copy of Skyrim that exists on the blockchain. Every version of this game is the same with one exception. This could be a unique mechanic, item, character, quest, or even a unique name in the credits.

As for what exactly these items are, Todd Howard explained in an interview by Polygon that “while we would like to show what is unique in each version of Skyrim on the blockchain, we cannot divulge that information as we don’t want our extensive modding community to recreate these differences and devalue each version of Skyrim by allowing everyone else to have it. We hope that the threat of devaluation is enough for players to keep their copy’s unique difference a secret…if they find it that is.”

Bethesda guarantees something unique in every blockchain copy and hopes to make a large part of their sales on customers who keep buying re-releases of the game. “Once players realize that the one difference in their copy isn’t enough to make their version of Skyrim any different than a normal copy they’ve already tried playing multiple times, they’ll likely want to sell it. Because of that, we hope this program will gain traction with those who do enjoy playing this game over and over again in the hopes that once they’re done, they’ll trade copies with other likeminded blockchain players so they can keep searching for those differences,” said Todd in the interview.

As a precaution, Bethesda set up the price and release schedule to fully capitalize on the scalping market, as they believe people will buy into anything even if they don’t know what it is so long as it looks valuable. “Even if people don’t believe in the game,” said Todd to Polygon, “people still believe in NFTs and scalping, and this program is great for both.”

When asked about if this new program will speed up the development progress of Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6, Todd said “What? Oh, right, those games. Uh, no it won’t, but this new program allows us to go from developing Skyrim for the present to thinking about Skyrim for the future.”

S.C.A.M. will start releasing blockchain Skyrim in early 2022 and can only be played on PC.

(For legal reasons, this is a joke)

I know your takin' the piss, but... I could 100% see Liar-for-Hire, Todd "It just works" Howard involved in some bullshit like this.

@nameredacted: My goal in writing these satire pieces is to have fun with it while also writing something that sounds believable enough to feel real, and I could definitely see Bethesda using the blockchain in some way to resell Skyrim (the more realistic answer would likely be NFT items in the Creation Club). To be fair though, they only re-release them because people keep buying them, so I can't entirely fault Bethesda for the re-releases.

@nameredacted: Seems pretty unlikely considering that Phil Spencer is not a fan.

Spencer doesn't rule the idea out and who knows how much of what he says is genuine (he seems genuine in interviews but there are people who can fake that), but he is smart and savvy enough to know how it would play right now and he's obviously working hard to rehab Microsoft's reputation.

It would just be a bizarre move for Microsoft at this time (the whole company is working hard to improve its rep, including around environmental issues) and seems like such a huge strategic shift that if they did it at all I think it would have to be a much bigger move than this.

@bigsocrates: When writing this, I did remember Spencer and Xbox being on the skeptical side of NFTs (which I personally believe is the right side to all this, but that's besides the point). Whether or not he will regulate the companies owned by Microsoft to follow suit, though, will be interesting to see. I think a title made by a Microsoft-owned studio that is exclusive to Xbox (and PC) probably won't be allowed in on the NFT business, but I could possibly see it for a Microsoft-owned studio that releases a multiplatform title. Deathloop was allowed to remain a Playstation exclusive, so I could maybe (unlikely, but just maybe) allowing it for certain multiplatform titles if they were planning it before being acquired by Microsoft.

@brg: Microsoft released Psychonauts 2 and Deathloop on the PlayStation platform because the companies they acquired were contractually required to do so (Psychonauts 2 because of some of its crowd funding stuff that allowed people to pick PS4 as their platform and Deathloop because of a deal made between Sony and Bethesda.) To break those contracts would have been expensive and gotten Microsoft bad publicity so they decided to honor them as a business decision. This has nothing to do with giving studios freedom or allowing their subsidiaries to do anything. These were pre-existing legal commitments.

They also were releases that had no implications for Microsoft's business as a whole, or were possibly beneficial to it. You'll note that Microsoft the company does business with Sony in other areas so for all they are portrayed as rivals in the video game press the situation is much more complicated. Put simply, the larger Microsoft corporate entity has nothing to lose from releasing some stuff on Sony platforms.

NFTs are a totally different issue. They are a hot button topic and have complex regulatory, PR, and political implications. There could be all kinds of issues for Microsoft if they get involved in them, ranging from bad press to losing business from governments or companies who disapprove of them, to legal issues for a massive multinational corporation like Microsoft.

That's not to say that Microsoft will never get involved with NFTs. It's a cutthroat big tech company and it's going to do what it perceives to be in its interest. What it is to say is that the decision will be made at a much higher level than Todd Howard. Microsoft mostly leaves the studios alone when it comes to creative decisions so Todd Howard can decide where the next Elder Scrolls game will be set and probably what engine they (poorly) use and all that stuff, but there's no way he's allowed to make decisions that could have strategic implications for the whole multi-trillion dollar corporation that he runs a tiny little corner of.

@bigsocrates: My two-cents: Phil Spencer ain't gonna be at Xbox forever, nor is Microsoft's current CEO. All it takes is a change in leadership or enough pressure from shareholders and shit changes real quick.

@brg: Fuckin' Skyrim... I feel like the sum total of that game's existence has been a net negative, insofar as it set the bar among developers and normalized among consumers the idea of the launch totally broken full price game, which will (maybe) get fixed in the future. The "paid public beta," where games launch buggy, broken messes and still get perfect scores from games media and sell in the millions or tens of millions of copies.

And for the record, I actually like Skyrim.

@nameredacted: Absolutely. And I think I acknowledged that. In addition Spencer or Nadella could turn out to be pro NFT after all. My point is just that this isn't going to be Todd Howard's decision. Unless he replaces Spencer, which seems unlikely.