Ubisoft has announced that it plans to develop blockchain games and non-fungible tokens.
The company will integrate blockchain technology into future games, as reported by the International Business Times. It will also employ play-to-earn techniques that allow players to earn content from playing Ubisoft’s games.
“As you see, this industry is changing regularly with lots of new revolutions happening,” Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said during a recent earnings call. “We consider blockchain one of those revolutions. It will imply more play-to-earn that will enable more players to actually earn content, own content, and we think it’s going to grow the industry quite a lot. So we have been working with lots of small companies going on the blockchain, and we’re starting to have a good know-how on how we can impact the industry. We want to be one of the key players there.”
Ubisoft has been looking into blockchain for years, according to IBT. More specifically, its Strategic Innovation Lab has been investigating its use of since 2018.
The Verge reports that blockchains and NFTs are partly responsible for ongoing planet damage due to the millions of carbon dioxide emissions generated from mining and the use of cryptocurrencies.
As a result, some major players have criticized their emerging use in various industries, including Steam, which will not allow developers to publish “applications built on blockchain technology that issue or allow exchange of cryptocurrencies or NFTs.” Others, however, such as Epic Games and its digital storefront, are fine working with developers using blockchain technologies, despite Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney stating that the company wouldn’t be “touching NFTs as the whole field is currently tangled up with an interactable mix of scams, interesting decentralized tech foundations, and scams” just one month prior.”
It seems Ubisoft will follow in the footsteps of Epic Games, rather than Steam. Only time will tell how that goes for the company.
For more about Ubisoft, read about how Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is already its second biggest game of all time and then check out this story about Valhalla’s new and free Discovery Tour Mode. Read Game Informer’s Far Cry 6 review after that.
