“Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t”: Ubisoft calms its enthusiasm for NFTs

Yves Guillemot, CEO of Ubisoft, talked about the NFT in less enthusiastic terms than last time. It must be said that this is a controversial market, on which his company launched at the end of last year with a huge outcry — even internally where the initiative had been deemed disastrous.

In an interview given to GamesIndustry on September 10, he explained that the famous “Quartz” attached to the video game Ghost Recon Breakpoint, would have been developed only to explore possibilities of evolution of the video game. ” Exploring does not mean throwing “, he says. “ We weren’t very good in the way we explained that we were doing research (…) We should have said that we were working on the subject, and that when we have something that will bring you a real benefit, we will bring it to you. »

It must be said that at the time, however, it was indeed possible to buy Ubisoft’s “Quartz” (NFTs) with cryptocurrency. What was saying the original press release, dated December 7, 2021? that Ubisoft launched ” the first platform of eco-responsible NFTs playable in triple A games “. She was both a new experiment ” and ” the first step (…) for the development of a true metaverse “.

Nicolas Pouard, vice-president of the Strategic Innovations Lab department, had even assured, not without a touch of condescension, that gamers just didn’t fully understand what NFTs were and their potential: I think players don’t yet understand what such a market can bring them. At the moment, due to the context surrounding NFTs, players first think they are destroying the environment, since they are just for speculation. But, within Ubisoft, we see much further. “Words that already seem very far away…

Ubisoft regrets NFTs

Yves Guillemot justifies the gesture by Ubisoft’s ability to get started very quickly in new technologies – a sometimes laudable intention, it is true. ” We got into VR and Wii very early on. [motion gaming] — we are always trying new things. Sometimes it works. Sometimes not (…). The goal of a company is always to create the best possible experience and new technologies help because there is less competition and people are more interested “, he says. Ubisoft was therefore afraid of missing the bandwagon, but de facto contributed to strengthening the craze for a very controversial product.

Beyond the ecological argument, on which Ubisoft wanted to be as reassuring as possible with the eco-responsible Tezos blockchain (2.5g of Co² per transaction), its Quartz had never been convinced of the real benefit for the players.

Officially, the CEO does not totally bury the NFTs: ” It’s a rapidly changing industry and it’s very cautious about its impacts. Like many things, in its early stages, it’s imperfect, but like other technologies, they’ll manage to find the right path. ” To be continued.