Ubisoft's NFT escapades just keep on going, even if there's already been massive backlash against it.
Gamers and show attendees play video game at Ubisoft booth during the Electronic Entertainment Expo on June 7, 2011 in Los Angeles, California. More than 45,000 people are expected to attend the annual three-day convention to see the latest games and announcements from the gaming industry.
According to Kotaku, the studio is now turning to its employees to get their non-fungible token project up and running. It was reported that the company held a workshop intended for skeptical employees. A few others (members of the "Ghost Recon" dev team, specifically) got special tokens to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the game franchise.
As per the report, Ubi gave out a few special Quartz NFTs to people working on "Ghost Recon Breakpoint" in the form of 20th anniversary edition caps. It was mentioned in a company-wide announcement, and is reportedly due to be credited into people's crypto wallets on March 9.
This news comes after Ubi exec Nicolas Pouard basically claimed that "gamers don't get NFTs" in a highly controversial interview.
In the interview, Pouard kept on saying that non-fungible technology is actually made to help players benefit. He claimed that it's good for players to be able to resell their in-game items once they're done using them, or once they've finished playing the game.
Pouard then went on to say that Ubisoft actually considers NFTs as an "endgame" and a "paradigm shift" in the gaming industry. He believes that whatever negativity that NFTs face in gaming these days is all due to hard-to-break habits, which will always take time to change.
A lot of gamers will definitely disagree with Pouard, though. A quick look at how Ubisoft's NFT attempt with "Ghost Recon" is all you need.
When they announced the project called Quartz last year, the announcement video got absolutely bombed by dislikes. As per PCGamer, the Quartz announcement video on YouTube was "overwhelmingly disliked," which led to it being taken down shortly after.
But despite this, Ubi is intent on keeping the non-fungible token thing going.
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Ubisoft's NFT Attempts Aren't The Only (And Last) One
There are multiple reasons that explain why a lot of gamers hate NFT and blockchain implementation (except if they actually go for play-to-earn games). Among the biggest is also the simplest: gamers see NFTs as just another form of extra monetization, like the universally hated microtransactions.
It can be understandable why they'd hate microtransactions and these blockchain-based tokens. They did pay to get the game already, so why monetize it even more? A lot of people see this as an extremely scummy practice designed to just help game companies squeeze every last dollar out of players' wallets.
Furthermore, there's also all the negative press surrounding gaming NFTs lately. If you haven't heard, there was another alleged "rug pull" scam concerning a new NFT project called "Blockverse," which is essentially a play-to-earn "Minecraft" server.
The rug pull reportedly saw the project's creators run away with $1.2 million from backers, reports PC Gamer. After selling out a total of 10,000 NFTs at 0.05 ETH each (around $150 US at the time of this writing), the creators deleted their Discord and game servers, website, and deactivated their social media profiles. They eventually resurfaced to clarify that they didn't run, but the damage was already done.
If Ubisoft still wants to keep pushing NFTs to their player base, this is the kind of scummy public image they'll have to change.
Related Article: Exploring the Popularity of NFTs and Its Impact on Esports and Gaming
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Written by RJ Pierce
