Here's where I always get stuck though. The second anything in the game has real tradeable value, players WILL find ways to extract. Doesn't matter how clever the separation is. You wall off the currency? Cool, now the items become the extraction vector. People farm items, flip them, and you end up in the same place just with extra steps. I watched this happen in real time with equipment drops. Took me way too long to see it coming honestly.

Yes, I agree. Something else becomes a vector but those vectors are not as terrible as managing a token. This also happens on traditional games as well. Trading accounts, selling in-game currency, items. There is not an escape from it as you say, as long as there is value to be had.

Difference I think comes from divorcing yourself from those vectors. No body blames an MMO developer if they buy an account and some mechanic of that account gets nerfed or something. Unless, of course, they are crazy.

And honestly? I wish more people thought about it the way you do. Not as an investment vehicle. Just a game that happens to have real value flowing through it. That framing matters more than people realize.

Tokens are mostly the culprit I think, tokens automatically create the connotation of investment for most people. I always write-off whatever I put into web3 games, I probably lost a few thousand. Worse investor ever :mrtats/pained_laugh: