Ubisoft has announced its foray into blockchain technology with Ubisoft Quartz, which will serve as a platform for the developer to add NFTs to its AAA experiences. Starting with Ghost Recon Breakpoint, the French gaming giant will be exploring the viability of NFTs over the time span of the next four years.
Called Digits, Ghost Recon Breakpoint will feature unique in-game cosmetic items such as vehicles, weapons, and other equipment that will be unique to the users who own them (much like all NFTs are). Digits will be added to Ghost Recon: Breakpoint‘s Ubisoft Connect version in a beta update.
“Our long-term efforts led us to understand how blockchain’s decentralized approach could genuinely make players stakeholders of our games, in a way that is also sustainable for our industry, placing back into their hands the value they generate through the time they spend, the items they buy or the content they create online,” said Nicolas Pouard, VP of Ubisoft’s Strategic Innovation Lab. “Ubisoft Quartz is the first building block in our ambitious vision for developing a true metaverse. And it can’t come to life without overcoming blockchain’s early-form limitations for gaming, including scalability and energy consumption.”
Interestingly an the video released by Ubisoft that announces and introduces Quartz has been met with an overwhelming amount of dislikes. Even though YouTube changes a short while ago made it so that dislikes would no longer be public on videos, Ubisoft has gone ahead and unlisted the video.
Steam has already banned all games with NFTs and cryptocurrencies, stating that they are exploitative in nature. Head of Xbox Phil Spencer also shares similar sentiment, although many big-name publishers are insistent on earning more revenue through this technology. EA has expressed wanting to expand in the same space before as well, for instance.