Yves Guillemot, the CEO of French gaming large Ubisoft, seems to have cooled the rhetoric behind the corporate’s nonfungible token (NFT) gaming challenge Quartz, noting in a latest interview that it was merely in “analysis mode” regarding Web3 tech integrations.
It’s a comparatively completely different take from different Ubisoft execs prior to now, together with chief monetary officer Frédérick Duguet who in October acknowledged that blockchain integrations will allow customers to personal and earn content material and the agency needs to “be one of many key gamers right here.”
Throughout a Saturday interview with gamesindustry.biz, Guillemot seems to be strolling a few of these feedback again, emphasizing that at this stage, Ubisoft is primarily seeking to uncover how NFTs could be utilized to video games and whether or not they are going to profit players or not.
“We’re very a lot on cloud, on the brand new technology of voxels, and we’re all of the Web3 capabilities. We examined just a few issues just lately which can be giving us extra info on how it may be used and what we should always do within the universe of video video games,” he mentioned, including that:
“So we’re testing floor with some video games, and we’ll see in the event that they actually reply the gamers’ wants. However we’re nonetheless in analysis mode, I might say.”
Ubisoft introduced its first foray into NFTs in December after launching a beta model of Ubisoft Quartz, aimed toward providing players playable NFTs that might be utilized in video games akin to Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint.
The transfer was met with robust pushback from some members of the NFT-hating gamer neighborhood, with some accusing the agency of “milking” each cent potential out of its common sport franchises by introducing NFTs into the combo.
Nicolas Pouard, the vice chairman at Ubisoft’s Strategic Improvements Lab, defended the corporate’s NFT efforts in January, stating: “I believe players don’t get what a digital secondary market can carry to them.”
Reflecting on Ubisoft’s NFT rollout, Guillemot says the agency finally didn’t talk the corporate’s strategy to the challenge successfully sufficient.
“We in all probability weren’t good at saying we’re researching,” he mentioned, including that “we should always have mentioned we have been engaged on it, and when we now have one thing that offers you an actual profit, we’ll carry it to you.”
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The Ubisoft CEO was additionally questioned in regards to the environmental impacts of blockchain tech, one thing which is commonly highlighted by players who typically confuse energy-intensive proof-of-work (PoW) chains because the business commonplace for all initiatives.
Guillemot famous that whereas he’s “very cautious” in regards to the environmental impacts of the sector, he’s optimistic that these points might be ironed out over time:
“Like so many issues, firstly it’s inferior to it might be, however like different new applied sciences they are going to discover the fitting method.”
