Unlike 'physical' things like money, precious metals, or other things that can be seen or touched, anything that involves software consists of bytes that are 'invisible' to the human eyes.
These things can only be made visible through a medium, like a screen. However, they can live forever, as long as they are stored properly, can be replicated without any chances of degradations, and can be anywhere at any time.
Since the world started realizing the use of blockchain, and saw Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies flourish using the technology, people started wondering what would the next product born from the technology. It didn't take long before the world saw non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, as something extremely important.
Important because they can cost millions of dollars.
As people started realizing that NFTs mean business, enthusiasts love them. But to the rest, some suggested that NFTs are nothing more than scams.
The differences in opinions also happen between big companies in the gaming industry.
While big publishers such as EA and Ubisoft have a more positive thoughts about NFTs, Xbox doesn't have the same idea.
From the first house sold as an NFT, to the first tweet sold as an NFT and many others, the most famous should be the collage of artwork made by Beeple, which was sold for $69 million.
NFTs deliberately disrupted traditional forms of showcasing and collecting arts.
As NFTs surged in prominence, lots of enthusiasts create communities on the internet and beyond.
Others however, are cautious about the technology.
Xbox's head Phil Spencer is among the latter.
He feels that NFTs are more exploitative than they are creative, at least at this time.
In an interview with Axios, Spencer said that the is cautious about how NFTs should be considered part of gaming.
NFTs are also known as 'non-fungible tokens'.
Based on the blockchain technology, NFTs have made their ways into the gaming industry, where the games are put inside the blockchain, and players can generate and spend cryptocurrencies on available NFTs.
These games are usually pay-to-play games, or play-to-earn, whereas others require purchases before players can even start playing the game.
While Spencer suggested that NGT games are exploitative, he went on to clarify that not all of them are.
Spencer didn't deny that Xbox was also looking into NFT games. But the thing is, NFTs are relatively new, and the space NFTs are in games is still young.
People need to understand NFTs more, and know what they can be used for, before the technology can really benefit the gaming industry.
Developers are yet to discover the true potential of NFTs, and are still trying to figure out how to properly implement them into games.
"I think anything that we looked at in our storefront that we said is exploitive would be something that we would, you know, take action on," Spencer added. "We don't want that kind of content."
Spencer didn't firmly decline about embracing NFTs. It's only that he sees no reason to get into it too early.