FIFA 22
Image: EA Sports

Recently, Ubisoft stated that it wants to be one of the key players in the world of video game-related NFTs (non-fungible tokens), and now publishing rival Electronic Arts has noted that it too is looking at how to breaking into "play to earn" market.

During an earnings call this week, EA boss Andrew Wilson referred to NFTs and blockchain gaming as an "important part about the future of our industry", which echoes what Ubisoft CFO Frédérick Duguet said earlier this week. Duguet believes that the technology "will enable 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".

However, EA's Wilson added a cautionary note, stating that "it's still early to figure out how that's going to work".

An NFT, in case you were wondering, is a one-of-a-kind version of a digital asset. So for example, a digital art piece (which you would usually be able to share endlessly) can be "tokenised" as a way of making it unique. The token acts as a kind of certificate that cannot be copied, meaning that you could feasibly sell your NFT asset at a later date, complete with this authenticity.

Ubisoft and EA will no doubt be joined by other publishers looking to leverage this approach, which will see players earning cryptocurrency by playing a game. Sega has already said it will start selling NFTs based on its IPs.

[source eurogamer.net]