According to a top Ubisoft executive, the video game company will not ditch its plans to implement NFTs in its games.
Ubisoft’s Strategic Innovations Lab VP Nicolas Pouard has defended the company’s plans to add NFTs to its games during an interview with the Australian financial comparison site Finder.
Ubisoft Accuses Players Of Not Understanding NFTs
The publisher has been drawing flak for implementing NFT (non-fungible tokens) in its games. Responding to the huge player backlash its Quartz NFT system has been receiving, Pouard said, “Well, it was a reaction we were expecting.”
“We know it’s not an easy concept to grasp,” Pouard added.
“But Quartz is really just a first step that should lead to something bigger. Something that will be more easily understood by our players.”
Throughout the interview, Pouard implied that the players do not understand the benefits of NFTs and this triggered players’ backlash. He did not approve the speculation that the publisher has come under fire due to legitimate concerns about the scheme.
“I think gamers don’t get what a digital secondary market can bring to them,” Pouard said. “For now, because of the current situation and context of NFTs, gamers really believe it’s first destroying the planet and second just a tool for speculation.
“But what we [at Ubisoft] are seeing first is the end game. The end game is about giving players the opportunity to resell their items once they’re finished with them or they’re finished playing the game itself.
“So, it’s really, for them. It’s really beneficial. But they don’t get it for now.”
“It’s saddening to see there’s still some resistance based on misunderstanding,” he said. “But I’m not sure we can really compare what Stalker 2 was trying to do with what we are trying to achieve with Quartz. It’s not the same use-case to the players, I would say.”
Ubisoft Developers’ Reaction To Adding NFTs To Games
According to a report by Kotaku, many Ubisoft developers are not happy with Ubosft’s decision to add NFTs to its game.
The site claims that it has seen messages posted on Ubisoft’s internal social media hub, MANA, wherein the staff is expressing confusion and disappointment over the Ubisoft Quartz platform announcement.
“I still don’t really understand the ‘problem’ being solved here. Is it really worth the (extremely) negative publicity this will cause?” one developer reportedly wrote.
Another staff member added, “How can you look at private property, speculation, artificial scarcity, and egoism, then say ‘yes, this is good, I want that, let’s put it in art’?”
There is a significant surge in NFT schemes lately. However, a recent GDC survey of more than 2700 game developers suggests that 70 percent do not plan to add NFTs in their games.
