ALL THE LATEST NEWS ABOUT THE BUSINESS OF PC GAMES

News

Ubisoft says gamers "don't get" NFT advantages

Ubisoft says gamers "don't get" NFT advantages

French publishing giant Ubisoft reckons that consumers don't understand what non-fungible tokens (NFTs) can do for them.

That's according to the VP of the company's Strategic Innovations Lab Nicolas Pouard, who told Finder recently that gamers view NFTs in a negative light at the moment but aren't aware of the advantages that the business model could represent.

"I think gamers don't get what a digital secondary market can bring to them," he 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."

Pouard went on to say that Ubisoft expected a negative reaction to the news that Ubisoft was bringing NFTs to Ghost Recon: Breakpoint with its Quartz platform and Digits cosmetics.

"Well, it was a reaction we were expecting," he said. "We know it's not an easy concept to grasp. But Quartz is really just a first step that should lead to something bigger. Something that will be more easily understood by our players.

"That's the way we think about it and why we will keep experimenting. We will keep releasing features and services around this first initiative. And our belief is that, piece by piece, the puzzle will be revealed and understood by our players. We hope they will better understand the value we offer them."


Tags:
PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.