In a recent interview, the CEO of French gaming giant Ubisoft, Yves Guillemot stated that the firm was currently in “research mode” in regards to Web3 tech integrations. This news appears to have calmed the hype surrounding the company’s NFT game project Quartz.
The Ubisoft executives had made somewhat different statements in the past, however.
For instance, the company’s chief financial officer Frédérick Duguet stated in October that the firm intends to “be one of the key players”, and allow users to own and earn content with the help of some blockchain integrations.
In an interview with gamesindustry.biz on September 10, Guillemot seemed to be retracting some of those previous statements. He stressed that Ubisoft is mostly interested in learning how NFTs may be included in games and if they will benefit players or not at this point.
Ubisoft revealed its first venture into NFTs after releasing the test version of Ubisoft Quartz on December. Quartz is designed to provide players with playable NFTs that could be used in games like Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint
Some of the gaming community members who carry a disdain for NFTs strongly opposed Ubisoft’s moves, accusing the company of “milking” its well-known game franchises dry by incorporating NFTs into the games.
When defending the company’s NFT initiatives in January, the vice president at Ubisoft’s Strategic Innovations Lab Nicolas Pouard said: “I think players don’t get what a digital secondary market might bring to them.”
In retrospect of Ubisoft’s NFT launch, Guillemot says the company eventually failed to convey the approach of the company to the project.
“We probably weren’t good at saying we’re researching,” said Guillemot. “We should have said we were working on it, and when we have something that gives you a real benefit, we’ll bring it to you.”
The environmental impacts of blockchain technology is also brought up when the CEO of Ubisoft was questioned. Gamers frequently draw attention to this issue because they believed that energy-intensive Proof-of-Work (PoW) chains are the industry norms for all initiatives.
Although Guillemot said he’s “very cautious” about the environmental impacts of the sector, he is confident that these problems will be resolved in due course.
