Ubisoft slows down its activities related to blockchain and NFTs. In 2021, Ubisoft surprised the video game world by announcing its intention to include NFT elements in several of its games from now on. An announcement that has generated mixed reactions from both his fans and the general public.
Although the company has repeatedly reaffirmed its desire to embrace NFTs and cryptocurrencies in its universe, it recently chose to revise its priorities downward. In an interview conducted a few days ago, the CEO of Ubisoft, Yves Guillemot, seems to comment on the company's enthusiasm for the previously announced NFT Quartz project.
Ubisoft's foray into the world of NFTs and cryptos.
Ubisoft is not just an independent video game publisher and developer. It is a massive company with a market cap of over $6.5 billion. It represents an immense force whose actions have an impact, whether positive or negative, on the sector.
So it's no surprise that after officially announcing its desire to enter the NFT business, the company found itself in the midst of deep disagreement with its fans.
This announcement came just after the launch of the beta version of a brand new service called Ubisoft Quartz. The latter is intended to offer players NFTs that can be used in Ubisoft games such as Tom Clancy's: Ghost Recon Breakpoint.
Nevertheless, Ubisoft is not in its infancy in the cryptocurrency sector. Indeed, was already participating in the shadows in the blockchain and NFT space since 2017. Even before these terms became popular with the general public, the video game publisher was already investing heavily in the scene.
It was also during this year that the company formed the Strategic Innovation Lab. It was basically a lab of entrepreneurs whose role was to study and support blockchain.
Thus, Ubisoft had already been experimenting on the blockchain for a few years even if it was not until December 2021 that it decided to formalize its plans with the launch of its first NFTs in Ghost Recon: Breakpoint.
Ubisoft under fire from critics.
Despite its best efforts to design and provide its community with an offering capable of avoiding a lot of criticism, the company still had to deal with extremely negative reactions from players.
This new initiative has angered and outraged many players. The reaction was particularly intense among players who don't like NFTs. Several of them even accused the company of maximizing its popular game franchises by introducing NFTs into them.
Nevertheless, this reaction did not seem to have slowed Ubisoft's momentum. Indeed, where several other gaming platforms have deflated and abandoned their initiatives in the field of NFTs and cryptos, the company had spoken out just after the wave of criticism to defend its project.
In January, the vice-president of Ubisoft's Strategic Innovations Lab, Nicolas Pouard, said that such an initiative represented a real innovation for the video game industry. According to him, players were simply unaware of the impact that the crypto and NFT sector could have on the market as a whole.
Pausing the NFT Quartz project.
Although Ubisoft wanted to persist in the implementation of its project, criticisms still continued to fuse from everywhere. This is how the CEO of the French video game giant ended up clarifying the status of the NFT Quartz project in a recent interview.
According to him, the project is still in “research mode” regarding its possible future integrations with web3 technologies. A point of view that is clearly the opposite of that of other Ubisoft executives who have spoken in the past.
During this interview which he granted on September 10 to the Games industry, Guillemot returned to some of the comments made by the executives of the company. According to him, Ubisoft is primarily looking to find out how NFTs and cryptocurrencies can be applied to games and whether they will benefit players or not.
He was also asked about the environmental impacts of blockchain technology. An opportunity for him to indicate that he himself is worried about the consequences that the crypto sector may have on the planet. However, he declares himself to be very optimistic and thinks that these problems will be quickly solved with time.
He took the opportunity to add:
"Like many things, at first, it may not be very good, but over time it gets better. So like many new technologies, cryptos will find a way to do it right."
A few months ago, it was Mojang, the studio behind Minecraft, expressed their opinion and their desire not to include anything from the cryptocurrency industry in their game.
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