Gamers seem to dislike non-fungible tokens (NFTs), ever since big studios announced their interest to integrate them with their products, consumers have expressed their discontent. As Bitcoinist reported back in October, videogame giant Ubisoft was getting ready to into blockchain and digital assets; it has seen its fair amount of backlash since then.
In a recent interview with Finder, Nicolas Pouard Vice-President at Ubisoft’s Strategic Innovations Lab, and the head of the gaming giant NFTs initiate, addressed gamers’ negative feedback on digital assets. Pouard, the frontman of Ubisoft’s Quartz and Digits was accompanied by Didier Genevois, the company’s Blockchain Technical Director.
According to its official website, Ubisoft Quartz is a new platform for players to acquire “Digits”, a form of NFTs that will be integrated with the company’s games. Every single one of these Digits is supposed to be a unique “high-quality asset”. The platform was set to launch with the popular franchise Ghost Recon: Breakpoint.
The entire NFTs initiative was deployed, according to Ubisoft, to advance the company beyond “current limitations”. Quartz is supposed to be a first step at building a foundation for “an ambitious and existing new ecosystem”, gaming communities will allegedly have more power and be more autonomous on this new paradigm.
Ironically, gamers seem to be the ones pushing back on Ubisoft’s blockchain-based efforts. Pouard told Finder the following on this reaction from its consumers:
Well, it was a reaction we were expecting. 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.
The company expects players to get behind Quartz and other initiatives as the project, and each part of its puzzle, are revealed. In that sense, Pouard called the reaction from players something that it’s “part of the process”.
What Players Don’t Get About NFTs?
Pouard said Ubisoft will continue with its NFTs project but will also keep an ear for its fans and consumers. The executive admitted there is a “bit” of frustration within the studio but called it “something we can really understand”.
In that sense, he referred to those aspects of blockchain and digital assets which can supposedly benefit gamers. The executive said:
I think gamers don’t get what a digital secondary market can bring to them. 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.
Thus, the company claims it is pushing digital assets “for them”, the players. The company will play the long game with blockchain and digital assets to create a “paradigm shift” in the industry.
Players seem to have two major concerns about these assets, their alleged impact on the environment, and the fact companies are pushing them to increase their profits. On the first item, Ubisoft has attempted to address it by leveraging Tezos and its “energy-efficient” network.
On the second item, players are still skeptical and seem to believe, at least a portion of them, that NFTs will just be used by big studios to increase their profits. At the moment, some of them see digital assets as another form of microtransactions.
