No Man’s Sky Community Creates Exclusive Cryptocurrency For In-Game Trading
One of the glaring problems in No Man’s Sky is that player who’ve reached the endgame often find themselves with a boatload or in-game currency and almost nothing to spend it on. This is apparently because currency in the sci-fi sandbox MMO can easily be duplicated or gained through exploits that it doesn’t have any real value. This also the same reason why attempts to create a player-run economy have always failed.
According to Vice, a group of players called the Galactic Hub have decided to create their own economy that’s backed by a new cryptocurrency called Hub Coin. But, unlike other cryptocurrencies, Hub Coin doesn’t have any real world value and can only be used amongst the game’s community. The players even hope that that the coin remains worthless.
Hub Coin can only be used on Ethereum’s testnet which is basically a fully-functioning platform where new cryptocurrencies can be tested without giving them any real-world value. Players earn Hub Coin by performing various tasks for the Galactic Hub and can be used to pay other players for in-game items or services such as designing a base, gathering resources, or having a PC player design a custom pet companion, a feature that isn’t available on consoles. It can also be used to buy Galactic Hub merch instead of using real money.
The inherent value of Hub Coin, however, may still entice players to throw their money at it and thereby turn No Man’s Sky into another play-to-earn game. The Galactic Hub wants to avoid this which is why they’ve prohibited players from exchanging it for real currency.
“When players can ‘cash out’ into dollars the crypto wallet becomes the main goal and the video game becomes a means to that end,” said a member of the Galactic Hub. “In-game economies can become trivial for end-game players, and time-consuming for developers to protect from exploits.”
“People don't play games because they want to trade currencies or NFTs, they play games to have fun and be creative,” added the group’s founder. “If your game is ‘play-to-earn’ because no one would ever play it for free, your game is bad and will not succeed.”
