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Ubisoft NFT bosses say players just "don't get it"

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman

Now, two of the faces behind Ubisoft's big NFT push have been interviewed by Australian financial site Finder, and said that fans just did not "get it".

Specifically, fans were said not to understand the upsides to reselling digital items - whereas Ubisoft was simply getting in early on a "paradigm shift in gaming".

Here's an extended quote in full:

"I think gamers don't get what a digital secondary market can bring to them," Nicolas Pouard, VP at Ubisoft's Strategic Innovations Lab said. "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.

"So, it's really, for them. It's really beneficial. But they don't get it for now.

"Also, this is part of a paradigm shift in gaming. Moving from one economic system to another is not easy to handle. There is a lot of habits you need to go against and a lot of your ingrained mindset you have to shift. It takes time. We know that."

Pouard said that the reaction to Quartz was something Ubisoft was "expecting" and it was "not an easy concept to grasp".

He also reiterated that Ubisoft would never "force" players to use Quartz and that its requirements - to own a copy of the game and to have played two hours of it - made the platform a harder target for speculators.

When Ubisoft released its first batch of Quartz items (known as Digits) for Ghost Recon: Breakpoint, "a very big majority of the 2500 tokens ordered" were from existing long-term players, Didier Genevois, Ubisoft's Blockchain Technical Director, added.

When asked whether the majority - or all - Ubisoft games might use Quartz in the future, Pouard said it was up to each project's team to decide.

""We so strongly believe that what we are doing [with Quartz and Digits] goes in the right direction," Pouard concluded. "So, we will keep integrating. Obviously listening to what our fans are telling us, and how they're telling us, as we go, so we can also adapt what we're doing and where we're going. So that's the next move. To make sure what we're doing will make even more sense to gamers."

Of course, the views of Pouard and Genevois are not those of everyone at Ubisoft.
 

ManaByte

Member
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Fuz

Banned
tw// swearing🤬, caps🧢🎩🎓
NFTphobia is one of the single biggest 😳problems 😱😱 on this website without a fucking doubt 😤💪The unchecked ❎amounts of hate😡, threats🔪, and harassment🤬 that we 🙌POC (People👯‍♀️Of Crypto🔐) have to face😭on an everyday💭basis is crushing😍. Join me😳in trying to #StopNFTphobia 🤢💀❎😱
 

chonga

Member
Which is the problem with NFTs. If people don't 'get it' they won't use it. And if they won't use it, it is pointless.

People like to counter with 'but people didn't know they needed an iPhone before it came to be' - yes but at least when it arrived they understood what it was and then wanted it.
 

IDKFA

I am Become Bilbo Baggins
"Also, this is part of a paradigm shift in gaming. Moving from one economic system to another is not easy to handle. There is a lot of habits you need to go against and a lot of your ingrained mindset you have to shift. It takes time. We know that."

Pouard said that the reaction to Quartz was something Ubisoft was "expecting" and it was "not an easy concept to grasp".


A little condescending, no? Pretty much saying that anybody who doesn't understand is as thick as a castle wall.

Fuck off, Ubisoft.
 
It's not that we don't understand the potential of a digital secondary market, it's that nobody fucking trusts you (or anybody else for that matter) to allow one.

If Microsoft wanted to allow people to sell their digital license for a purchased game at a user-determined price there's nothing stopping them from implementing that tomorrow. I have a digital copy of the new AAA game that I want to sell. I set that copy at a price pulled out of my ass, $54.99 for example. The buyer sees a list of 'used' licenses in order of lowest-to-highest, and buys accordingly with MS taking a cut, and the rest going into your account that can only be used on Xbox.

Now let's be fucking real, none of gaming's major players will ever do this willingly. Why allow that vs the current "fuck you, pay me, no refunds"?
 

ZehDon

Member
... so they're putting NFTs in their games for the players... who "just don't get it". So, why put them in, then?

Of course, these are the same player's who smelt the DLC bullshit from the get go and knew garbage like Horse Armour, and whatever we're calling the USD$250.00 weapon skins in Valorant, were coming the moment it was described. In a pinch, I'll trust the players - they seem to have a better track record.
 
Yeah, sorry your fuckin’ Ghost Recon tree planting initiative didn’t spark global appreciation of NFTs.

Ubisoft is and has dominated the dumbass enterprise since 2012.

Funky Barn reigns supreme.
 

DonF

Member
Yeah, players don't get hyper scape, players don't get ghost recon breakpoint, players don't get rainbow 6 extraction... Those damn players don't get anything!
 
"I think gamers don't get what a digital secondary market can bring to them," Nicolas Pouard, VP at Ubisoft's Strategic Innovations Lab said. "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.
You never needed NFTs to do this... I know people who made serious $$$ with WoW.
 
They've got The Division Heartland coming out soon which is a reskinned Divison 2 featuring a PVPVE mix abomination which players didn't ask for which means the game is surely going to bomb.

And I hope it bombs because fuck Ubisoft. Most out of touch, clueless publisher out there. More bombas for Ubisoft please. Fuck em
 

intbal

Member
Video games have existed and thrived for 50 years.
Please mister smart gaming executive, explain to me why video games are going to suddenly go extinct without your new digital money printing scheme.
 

TheInfamousKira

Reseterror Resettler
I love it when people at the tippy top of a company, whose last game was probably Dig Dug when it was brand new say things like "the people who obsessively devote all of their free time and spare money to a hobby have no idea what they're talking about within the context of that hobby!"

I mean, sure, I could see how NFTs could work on paper. Same with Communism and open marriages. Problem is, actually putting it into practice will just create scenarios where AssBuffet69 becomes an "influencer," because he got famous selling a set of custom made armor for a camel for $15,000 and then we'll have a new breed of absolute stupidity on our hands.

If you're seeing (however minor it is) resistance to people going all digital, how in the ever loving fuck do you expect to create a free market for things that don't even fucking tangibly exist and have people praise you like you're speaking God's will from atop the hill?

Fucking tell your literal continent's worth of employees to do something more productive and beneficial to the player base, like make Assassin's Creed fun again, or to stop non consensually groping their team of multicultured coworkers with various religious beliefs, orientations, identities, languages, hair colors and living room carpets.
 

Brigandier

Member
They've got The Division Heartland coming out soon which is a reskinned Divison 2 featuring a PVPVE mix abomination which players didn't ask for which means the game is surely going to bomb.

And I hope it bombs because fuck Ubisoft. Most out of touch, clueless publisher out there. More bombas for Ubisoft please. Fuck em

I just can't believe how many hits Ubi put out in the og xbox era, I spent 1000s of hours playing Ghost Recon and RS3 then splinter 1-3 which were phenomenal...

Yeah they fucking suck now, They are away with the fairies and so far out of touch I don't see them ever making a comeback.
 
these cocksuckers havent put out a good game in how long now and they have the balls to say shit like this? fuck ubisoft. they can join EA and Activision in the trashbin. why are these big western publishers so shit these days? just go back and compare to 2000-2010 period to how they are now. they seem to somehow keep getting worse too every single year that goes by.
 
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TheInfamousKira

Reseterror Resettler
these cocksuckers havent put out a good game in how long now and they have the balls to say shit like this? fuck ubisoft. they can join EA and Activision in the trashbin. why are these big western publishers so shit these days? just go back and compare to 2000-2010 period to how they are now. they seem to somehow keep getting worse too every single year that goes by.

I think a lot of it is because they value money over engaging gameplay, so they constantly try and innovate with the "next new thing," but the next new thing is always something that pads their bottom line. Microtransactions, loot boxes, NFTs.
 

nkarafo

Member
I really hate it when corporations try so hard to convince everything they do is for our own benefit.

There are very few absolutes in this universe. Death and the fact that corporations always do things for their own benefit.
 

Shifty1897

Member
Of course he's going to say that. Dude's whole job is riding on convincing people NFT's are not a scam and should be purchased from Ubisoft.
 
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Braag

Member
Awww Ubisoft is just trying to help the players make money, but they just don't get it :(
Good guy Ubisoft wont give up so easily though.
 
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