We remember back in the days going to Blockbuster or other stores to rent or purchase VHS tapes, then DVD’s, to enjoy a nice movie or even TV series. Other than watching live this was our goto to consume media. If we wanted to play games we went to Gamestop or another store to get the cartridge or disk. What’s changed?
Well, we know this has gone online to mostly, recurring monthly services like Netflix, Hulu and now, Disney Plus. It was great to finally have the ability to stream so conveniently with just a monthly charge and piracy rates dropped. Alls well right? Well, Netflix is a pretty big streaming service and even they don’t have everything. Games also don’t have too big of a market for subscription access for many games.
What if we were able to connect consumers and creators a bit closer. Blockchain may have the answer and it may go far beyond just movies. The goal we have is to give people ownership of digital content conveniently without having to go back to the physical copy era. I need to be able to prove I own something to get the content for it but also be able to sell it, gift it to someone, or collect it and know It retains monetary value.
I think this calls for a non-fungible token. You’ve probably heard of Bitcoin which is a fungible token. Meaning Every Bitcoin, while being divisible, is exactly the same. You can own it, and prove ownership of it with your keys, which nowadays are becoming very user-friendly to control. non-fungible tokens are like that except they are not divisible, if you own one NFT for, say, a video game, you can’t divide it in half. and while many NFT’s for certain ownership might exist they are completely unique and have a unique hash number for each one.
Wait, so I buy this NFT for a nice action-packed thriller. How do I know I can enjoy that movie? If I truly collect and want to send them to my kids and their kids so they can watch the movies Grandpa watched? How do I know they will be able to? Well unlike say Amazon Video or Steam, when you buy media backed by blockchain ownership, you could, in fact, be buying an NFT where the content itself is on a decentralized blockchain. This means it gets the full lasting effect of blockchain technology so you don’t have to worry if a single entity shuts down or even changes their site in a way you don’t like.
How does this help?
For starters, for the first time since DVD’s, when you buy a movie, game, piece of software, you own it! Since you’ll be able to sell it on a marketplace or gift it, it retains its monetary value! What’s more, we can bring back collectors editions that have only a limited number sold which many NFT collectors may want to keep to gain value or show off. Many in the industry have been faced with needing to get on a large platform like Netflix, or steam to monetize their content but they know those who enjoy it will never be able to own it. The guys over at ultra.io have this figured out and are trying to help. They believe that consumers are more likely to buy a digital item they will truely own and be able to sell one day if they want. They believe this will actually increase sales.
I for one am very excited about the possibilities this brings, I would love to stop worrying if I’m about to buy a game I might only play an hour of, also get that additional content for a special or collectors edition of a game I cherish. Movies, games, in-game items, software, books, digital art. Together these industries are huge and when implemented can change a lot about how we own digital content.