Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot held a Q&A video this week to try to reassure developers about the company controversial new advance behind NFTs, according to several sources present. But they said his answers were vague and relied on buzz words like “Metaverse” and “Web 3.0”, which still left some discouraged by the company’s recent public relations disaster.
The meeting sources said had not happened yet planned when the week started, came after the official reveal of Ubisoft’s new blockchain-based technology called Quartz was widely ridiculed online, with a video showing that it was about 40,000 downvotes on YouTube. Kotaku previously reported that the company’s developers were also critical of the rollout, with an internal announcement exploding into hundreds of comments ranging from skeptical to negative.
The initiative started with three cosmetic NFTs in Ghost Recon Breakpointincluding one that players must have logged in to over 600 hours in the game redeem. Axios reported Earlier this week, players have already started reselling the tokens, at least on third-party platforms, for amounts ranging from hundreds of dollars to hundreds of thousands, as desired.
In the studio of Ubisoft Paris, that does Breakpoint, some developers are concerned about a game that they rehabilitated after years a disastrous start to 2019 Its reputation is being dragged through the mud just so the company can make its claim on the latest speculative tech fad. According to a recent report from the Ubisoft community published by Kotaku, Quartz’s announcement sparked unprecedented negative sentiment among gamers over the live service open world shooter.
And so Guillemot parachuted into a Q&A with developers at the Paris studio earlier this week, an action the sources said Kotaku he didn’t even plan on this last summer when the company was completely turned upside down widespread allegations of sexual misconduct. Accordingly, the co-founder of Ubisoft said the backlash to the Quartz announcement was to be expected and compared it to the initial public outcry over previous new developments in the gaming industry such as DLC, microtransactions and loot boxes. The implication seemed to be that NFTs would be similarly accepted over time. Some employees were concerned about the comparison, as even Ubisoft’s own microtransactions, such as XP boosters, still regularly attract players’ attention
When asked Guillemot for details on what new types of gameplay NFTs and blockchain technology would be possible, sources said Kotaku the CEO didn’t actually provide any. Instead, he talked in more detail about how concepts like the Metaverse would enable gamers to build and sell virtual houses and have freedom of choice in the game development process themselves.
Sources said Guillemot is also frequently quoted Robloxwho have favourited hybrid gaming / social media platform recently valued at over $ 45 billion. But it wasn’t clear to them what aspects of Roblox‘s wild success would be easier to achieve with quartz. They were also concerned about the Guillemot’s apparent craze for a gaming model, the youngest
In addition to concerns about the environmental impact of blockchain technology and the reputation of NFTs as pyramid schemes, some Ubisoft developers are also concerned about how integrating the technology will affect game development. The size of many existing Ubisoft games already leads to many crunch and cut functions, and adding another type of microtransaction economy that needs to be managed could drain even more resources.
“I’m here to make games and to promote fun and entertainment,” said a recent developer Kotaku. “And I don’t see how it goes in that direction, it’s just another way of milking money.”
Whatever those compromises, sources said Guillemot made one thing very clear: Ghost recon‘s NFTs are just the beginning. Ubisoft currently has many more and much broader plans to incorporate blockchain technology into its other games in the future.
A Ubisoft spokesman declined to comment.
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