Last week Ubisoft gave its Q2 earnings presentation for investors outlining its fortunes so far this financial year (not bad) and detailed its outlook for the rest of 2021 and the future.
As reported by IGN, the gaming giant is looking to explore the potential of blockchain gaming in a significant way with future projects. The company has already invested in other companies creating games using the blockchain to provide digital ownership of items and spaces, and CEO Yves Guillemot and CFO Frédérick Duguet both discussed the controversial subject while speaking on the investor conference call.
Specifically, Duguet described how using NFTs and the blockchain "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". While that comment seems relatively vague and non-committal, he went on to say how Ubisoft's ambitions are to be at the top of the tree when it comes to this growing area of the industry:
We've been working with lots of small companies going on blockchain and we're starting to have a good know-how on how it can impact the industry, and we want to be one of the key players here.
Ubisoft is an investor in Animoca Brands, a blockchain gaming company that recently had a round of funding that brought in $65 million. Animoca has had significant success in the NFT market already with projects such as The Sandbox, described as "a community-driven platform where creators can monetize voxel ASSETS and gaming experiences on the blockchain" which counts Snoop Dogg, Richie Hawtin and Atari (of course) as partners.
Not quite sure what an NFT is and how any of this makes sense? Here's how we previously described non-fungible tokens when Sega said it would start selling NFTs earlier in the year:
Essentially, an NFT 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.
The much reported environmental impact has made the subject a controversial one, but with money to be made in the growing field, it's little surprise that Ubisoft are keen to investigate. The company is no stranger to getting involved with new technology and ideas early, although it's arguable they're jumping on the bandwagon a little late when it comes to the blockchain.
Then again, there are still vast swathes of the gaming public that haven't quite got their head around the concept, so perhaps Ubisoft hasn't missed the NFT-belching blockchain boat yet.
[source staticctf.akamaized.net, via ign.com]
Comments 57
From the same company that thinks it's a good idea to bug you with mocking emails if you stop playing their game for a while, or entirely.
Ubisoft wants to be one of the key players in dismantling concept of video game ownership, and ending the used game market.
"Woah there! Our NFT check shows you bought this game pre-owned! Please pay $70 to continue."
@DomGC Blockchain would be the one thing? Not the, you know, everything else Ubisoft has done for decades?
Ok, my first question is... WTF is Blockchain Gaming?? And NFT??
Thought the article would explain, but had to go to google, even then it doesn't make any sense to me.
Maybe i'm just out of touch with everything, but it does help if you explain the jargon.
To paraphrase a great woman. "Of all the reasons to actively avoid buying Ubisoft products, this ranks... somewhere in the middle."
I am very excited to get a ubi coin to reward me for completing escorting missions in assassins creed
sighs, shakes head, and goes back to playing Manic Miner
Ubisoft accountants been doing the math again, Great news for all, NOT!
@Bunkerneath So this is my understanding:
NFT is a non-fungible token and it's meant to be an entirely unique and un-copyable piece of data. A thing it achieves by being part of a blockchain, which is lots of computers performing lots of increasingly complicated maths to determine that this token is indeed, the token it claims to be.
Which is why it has a lot of environmental issues. There are some things that are trying to negate the environmental impact, but it's mostly a lot of computers doing a lot of hard work constantly to guarantee this thing is real. They can be VERY bad on the environment in their current state.
There's also a ton of scams around NFT art and games. It's all entirely unregulated, people can pay in, then the blockchain closes and disappears and all money is lost.
Honestly. If they push this i won't even support a new Rayman game from them.
I read this article twice with thought and the only thing I got from it is that I probably should start collecting older game consoles and physical copies of games.
(Looking at Just Dance screenshot)
I just want Dance Dance Revolution returns on modern game consoles, not Just Dance.
Also, I keep support traditional way of physical games. Viva old style gaming !
#keepgoingphysical 🤟
@kupocake Blockchain, microtransactions, sexual assault - if you took a cross-section of all the things wrong with the game industry, you'd find UbiSoft's swirly logo staring back at you.
Publishers are becoming increasingly... “progressive” and progressively anti-consumer by the day, which is probably a bit of a blessing as I will likely forgo modern gaming entirely sooner or later and work on my ridiculous Switch/Wii U/3DS backlogs until the day I kick the bucket.
To quote a certain recurring unnamed Pokémon character, “Technology is incredible!” But that seems to be the extent of our collective development.
Greed is a mysterious thing…. Some people seem not happy with millions and millions profits. Not sure why people seem intent on ruining an industry that was already very lucrative
They are going to introduce in-game cryptocurrency.
There's no such thing as "blockchain gaming". Ubisoft are just trying to get gullible investors who are easily dazzled by buzzwords excited by something that they can't even properly describe themselves. More generally, blockchain is a problem, not a solution, and as for NFTs... fool, money, parted etc.
@Rosalinho 100%. They basically said "this looks exciting, we're trying to get in on the know-how and you should be excited too - please buy and hold our stock."
God i hate Nft's so much
🤢
Solution
Looking
For
Problem
My haiku:
What's a Blockchain game?
Or a Voxel, come to that?
Better ask Snoop Dogg.
Consider ever EULA ever makes it clear you don't "own" anything at all (you're only using a license), these seems likely a load of BS.
@NoTinderLife Technically, ever online game ever has its own cryptocurrency already.
@Ogbert Erm...right, still have no clue what it is, all I got from that is a load of computers running at the same time and wasting energy for nothing that is worth nothing except for gullible people who think its worth something.
So we got Ubisoft:
If this isn't a sign on their moral priorities I don't know what is.
@Bunkerneath I've read the article twice..read through everyone's comments and I still don't understand a lick of what NFTs or Blockchain gaming means. I guess I could go on a deep, Google dive to figure it out. But to be fair, sometimes it takes something being into practice for me to grasp the concept.
Ubisoft Declares It Wants to be at Forefront of Tech Investors are Buzzing About
You could run this headline every day of the calendar year, and be ahead of the news, daily.
@Bunkerneath Yeah that’s basically it.
I don't know much about the blockchain tech but this is because of Axie Infinity right? My bro-in-law told me about it recently since it was really popular and he knew I was into gaming. I had no idea what it was though lol!
If blockchain grants digital ownership that is as good or better than physical ownership, that could be acceptable. But that's never going to happen because, media ownership is a never-ending anti-consumer battle.
Prove me wrong Ubi.
@CharlieGirl That would truly be horrifying but not surprising
So basically they want games that everyone wants to play to earn something that no one else has got or probably wants?
I have only the broadest understanding of how this all works, but if Ubisoft are this excited about I'm going to assume it's very bad for gamers' wallets.
But seriously, even my very broad comprehension of the concept tells me there's absolutely no way to avoid having an ever-increasing number of computers running constantly to verify the assets. Which means ever-increasing environmental impact, and ever-increasing costs to the company, which they will DEFINITELY pass on the consumers.
Tl;dr version: "we found a new way to charge even more for our games".
@CharlieGirl
Indeed, who doesn't remember when they dumped toxic waste in a spring near a orphanage, kidnapped the us president to gain money for their secret moon base and hostet underground one on one battles to fight over the destiny of the world.
Fun aside
Ubisoft follows every stupid trend in the gaming industry and even teaches this psychologic stuff in their schools to train their employees to do such games in mobile style (seen on arte, french/german channel).
Thats enough to skip most of their games.
But some normal folks is still work there.
Farcry Blood Dragon, Heroes of Might and Magic VII and Might and Magic X show that they still throw out games that are made in a classical or creative way.
It seems even EA learned that they can't bet only on "whales and dlc" stuff, so they bring up the C&C Remake.
But i'll not bet that they change completly, the money they gain from the other stuff is too huge.
Its sad, but most of the money in the gaming industry isn't made by games and customers as they were in the 90s and 2000s.
I would say, it needs a new term, since the games and how they are craftet to gain money are brutally different.
Its wrong to throw games as Mario, Tekken and Turok in with the "gambling suprise mechanics"-Titles, even if the difference is fluent in their design.
I think NFT is a ***** concept and hope it'll die in a not-so-distant future.
@UmbreonsPapa Really it's their job to sell you the concept. If you don't grasp it, you don't buy it. (I've got no idea!)
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the last 39 years worth of gaming (yeah I’m old, meh). I’ve had a cracking time so far. I’ve avoided micro-transactions, loot boxes etc but this just smells entirely of gauging as much money out of people as possible, just like those other stellar inventions I mentioned above.
There does need to be some kind of morality reset but I’ll be long gone before that happens.
Whatever happened to making good games that are fun & not broken that also sell? People get the profits from that and there’s no need to rinse ever last penny out of someone because they can.
Ah well
Fun read: https://techcrunch.com/2021/06/16/no-nfts-arent-copyrights/
One of the only reasonable things to use NFT tech for in video games would be making sure that digitally sold instances can be re-sold, given away, or loaned out to a friend.
Sort of a virtual cartridge.
But I'm not imagining that this is what Ubisoft suits have in mind.
About 18 years ago I listed a (terrible) piece of digital art for sale on eBay for a laugh, the joke being that you could just right click and copy it from the image in the listing. It made me chuckle as it was such a daft idea. Now NFTs are a thing...
I don't know how in the future "blockchain" gaming will be implemented or for what types of game will be a good thing but I think for competitive multi-player based games (such as Fortnite, Doom, CoD etc) could be really revolutionary.
From what I understand, this is a new paradigm: not free-to-play (with ad), not pay-to-win (with microtransactions), not free-to-start but instead PLAY-TO-EARN (real money).
Just think of a future Fortnite style game where players just get paid based on their ranking, winning true money in reaching a top position in the leaderboard or in a tournament. Now apply this to games you like.. Street Fighter, Tetris 99, Pac-Man 99, FIFA or any other VS game.
Looks interesting and promising to me
@RupeeClock Wait the hell up..they do that?! Good thing i didn't make a Ubisoft Connect account, the damned people made the switch version requiere you to make an account to unlock a character that's everywhere else on scott pilgrim except but the switch
@TryToBeHopeful A voxel is to a pixel what a cube is to a square. It’s a volumated pixel, or ‘voxel’ for short.
It’s not related to NFTs and blockchains and such, though no doubt soon someone will try and make a Minecraft clone and have every voxel be an NFT and that’s when the planet instantly sets aflame.
@Edwirichuu
Yeah, that's something that's come under fire very recently for Far Cry 6.
If you stop playing the game for a while you get an in-character email from the main antagonist mocking you for "giving up".
@DeusX that is not something that requires NFTs and blockchains. Companies could make games that allow players to earn money now if they wanted. There are a bunch that already allow content creators to do just that.
I really hope "blockchain gaming" never becomes a thing.
@RupeeClock @Edwirichuu The emails are weird, but it's not just for not playing, it emails you congrats if you beat it, if you start the DLC, etc....it's just account tied "involving" emails based on your game progress. Creepy on one hand, but innocuous overall compared to.....everything else.
@DeusX On a different planet, playing games to win money would be called "gambling".... I think there's a rocky future with "play to win prize money" and gambling commissions. If the laws actually work (spoiler: They don't) this kind of thing would get rolled into online gambling/casino games and stay separate from retail games. Once we're talking blockchain and currency we're talking about earnings. And where there's earnings theres odds, taxes, gambling taxes, all sorts of fun ways for governments to get their piece of the pie by reclassifying it. Defining them as "tokens" doesn't escape that. Lots of casinos already tried that. The tokens are still taxed and regulated at their currency conversion. And if these assets are unique, they have currency assignment.
@NEStalgia I would not see this as a gambling because you do not risk your own money. Let's say you buy the next Street Fighter or Tekken at the regular price, you enjoy it offline and make practice. Then you have the possibility to get a revenue if you are good at it by ranking in the online tournaments and earning crypto-tokens. Enjoyment and earning at the same time does not seem too bad to me. I agree with you on the legal implications.
@Ogbert yeah I agree, but surely this new tech will make it easier and cheap for companies and players.
@DeusX Fair point in not having risked money (unlike loot boxes), but there's still the implications of taxable earnings.
Like (good) magic, this pops up on Twitter: https://twitter.com/maxnichols/status/1454898935428837378?s=20
@TryToBeHopeful
Great to see a guy at Bungie just NOT kidding around!
That's it for me, I won't be buying any more of their games or supporting this nonsense from anyone. The day Nintendo gets into this, is the day I become a retro only gamer.
@DeusX that’s quite an assumption. Given that it requires a blockchain- a string of computers constantly performing ever increasing maths -I really don’t think it does.
It’s a new tech and a buzzword and another potential revenue stream is all. The Twitter link from a games developer that TryToBeHopeful posted explains it quite well. How NFT/blockchains are not it in anyway adding anything new or creating anything that cannot already be done. They are simply tech buzzwords companies are latching on to with dollar bills in their eyes with no though for the consumer experience or the planet itself.
I need someone to dumb this down as if I were a 5 year old. None of it makes any sense.
@ecco6t9 it’s a tech buzzword.
It’s a unique link to some data that is guaranteed to be unique because there are hundreds of computer banks working hard doing sums to make it unique.
Those computers require power to run, power still largely comes from fossil fuels and is detrimental to the environment.
NFT and blockchain tech does not allow new and exciting development in games that cannot already be done. It just opens a new and unregulated revenue stream that companies want to tap into.
Ubisoft can get in the sea. I wasn't going to buy anything of theirs anyway, and this strengthens my resolve.
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