| The confusion comes from how NFTs that represent images have become so popular right now (I believe it’s because it’s the easiest use case of an NFT and people want to make a quick buck). NFTs themselves are just a cryptographic representation of something unique. It can be a token that says “you own this image”, but it can also be an in-game virtual item, a software license, a digital trading card, etc... There is some level of centralization in many cases. For example, a trading card game will likely own the contract that can mint cards and own the art for the cards. Other services can read that contract to see what cards you own and use that data inside their own game logic (though probably not the images due to legal reasons). This would already be useful for something like Magic the Gathering where unofficial online services exist to play by whatever rules you want. The last time I used one, you just put your deck list in so everyone used the rarest cards. They may have evolved now to check your Magic Online account, but you can’t do that as easily in Magic Arena. Assuming the creators don’t limit your freedom in their smart contract, you can also buy, sell, or trade the NFT to whoever and for whatever you want unlike a centralized service which wouldn’t enable access to an open market outside of the game’s ecosystem. |
EDIT even something like a domain name - which is arguably a better example as only one of such a thing can actually exist in that only one owner can derive the value from it.