Ubisoft plans on cooling its rhetoric behind NFT gaming projects

After facing a huge backlash, Ubisoft focuses on market research. The CEO blames lack of communication for the backlash

By Shashank Bhardwaj

Image Courtesy: Ubisoft

Ubisoft raises concerns about Web3 integrations in its gaming projects after the pushback on Project Quartz. The company takes a step back from the NFT projects that it had planned earlier. The French gaming giant seems to have understood the requirement for proper planning before releasing blockchain tokens and NFT gaming projects.

The CEO, Yves Guillemot, said that Project Quartz was in its ‘research mode’. The company's take towards tokenisation and Web3 integrations has changed with the change in leadership. Earlier, Ubisoft planned to be the key player in blockchain integrations of gaming projects, letting users play and earn their content. The company now released a new plan of looking at NFT applications to the game and if they will benefit the gamers or not.

"We are very much on cloud, on the new generation of voxels, and we’re looking at all the Web3 capabilities. We tested a few things recently that are giving us more information on how it can be used and what we should do in the universe of video games," said the CEO, adding that the company is testing grounds for NFT gaming projects.

Towards the end of last year, Ubisoft launched its first foray into NFTs after the launch of Ubisoft Quartz. The move aimed to provide gamers with playable NFTs that could be utilised in games in Ghost Recon Breakpoint.

The gaming community did not take this move well and backlashed the Ubisoft plans saying that the company was trying to milk money out of the NFT integrations. After the backlash, the company released a statement suggesting that they think 'gamers do not understand what a digital secondary market can bring them.' The CEO suggested that it all happened due to a lack of proper communication regarding the company’s approach to the NFT gaming projects. The research phase of Ubisoft plans thus got extended.

Guillemot also expressed his concern about blockchain and NFT implementation in gaming projects. The proof-of-work concept integrated with tokenisation is an energy-intensive task. He suggests that the company is completely cautious and plans to be optimistic about the future. "Like so many things, at the beginning, it’s not as good as it could be, but like other new technologies, they will find the right way," his official statement read in the context of the company’s future approach.

Shashank is the founder at yMedia. He ventured into crypto in 2013 and is an ETH maximalist. Twitter: @bhardwajshash

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