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Ubisoft’s NFT plan was criticized by French unions as “useless, costly, and ecologically frustrating”
Ubisoft’s deep dive into the cold, muddy waters of the NFT was not welcomed by fans, and they quickly expressed their overwhelming disgust with the idea. They are not the only ones: Solidaires Informatique, a French union representing some Ubisoft Paris workers, criticized the decision in a statement, calling blockchain technology “a useless, expensive, and ecologically frustrating technology.”
“Ubisoft recently entered the blockchain and non-fungible token (NFT) market. This decision has been widely criticized by our players and has not brought any improvements or benefits to our games,” the union said in a statement . “Many people in our company feel the same way. They say that blockchain is harmful, worthless, and has no future.”
The problem with Solidaires Informatique is not just about the technical aspects of NFT: Sketchy NFT creators and games, full of scams and plagiarism, are also under fire. “Do you like dividends, subprime mortgages, financial derivatives, crises, speculation, fast transactions, money laundering, etc.?” said the union. “This is a guaranteed and self-evident promise from NFT. We are far from enjoying video games.”
As if this is not enough, Solidaires Informatique also pointed out that the implementation of NFT as a collectible in Ubisoft games is really nothing new: a major innovation in the blockchain, the union said, “It is doing the same thing, but it is inefficient.”
📢 UBISOFT and NFTBlockchain are useless, expensive, and ecologically destructive technologies. They will not bring anything to video games. pic.twitter.com/H3LPS94Q5yDecember 14, 2021
This is acrimonious, but not entirely unreasonable, at least based on the NFT procedures that Ubisoft has revealed so far. As Rich pointed out in the announcement, the hats you can wear in Assassin’s Creed, Ghost Recon: Breakpoint, Cavaliers Republic, and Glory can at least be seen as exploiting the potential of NFT technology. But we didn’t get it: the decorations we got can only be used in one game, which is actually something the game studio has been providing for years.
The union stated that the NFT strategy has also been “internally questioned and condemned” in Ubisoft Paris. The management is obviously still trying to sell the plan, but the union completely rejected the entire premise, saying that its members understand the technology and do not need to explain because they oppose it in principle.
“We don’t have specific statistics, but on Ubisoft’s internal forums, NFT’s announcement was widely commented, with about 5% of positive comments. The rest are negative,” said Marc Rutschlé, representative of the Soliaires Informatique chapter, and he was also The senior designer of Ghost Recon Breakpoint told PC Gamer in an email today.
“[Ubisoft CEO] Yves Guillemot held a video conference this morning to support the NFT project. I don’t know how many people attended the meeting ([Ubisoft Paris is] About 700 people). A friend checked it and found that four of them were very happy. The rest are negative comments/questions. The developers are not happy. “
Despite the strong position of the union, we may see more of these things in the future, not less. Ubisoft was the first major publisher to incorporate NFT into the game, but Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson recently described it as “the future of our industry”, while Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick stated that he is NFT’s ” Faithful believers”, although not necessarily as they currently exist. Peter Molyneux, Dead By Daylight and Funko Pops also accepted NFT.
Game players still don’t seem to want to follow in their footsteps. The strong opposition to Ubisoft’s NFT plan matches the response to GSC Game World’s announcement earlier today that Stalker 2 will also include NFTs. And this is not just the dissatisfaction of the employees, it may be the reason that finally convinced the game company to change direction. After all, unhappiness is one thing for people who make games, but if this unhappiness spreads to people who buy games, it’s another thing entirely.
Ironically, Nicolas Pouard, Vice President of Ubisoft’s Strategic Innovation Lab, recently said something very similar: VCs Regarding the importance of player support, he wrote, “Blockchain is a game changer, but only when used in the right way and with players at the core, can we collectively utilize the true potential of this innovation.”
However, this will eventually change, and it now appears that Ubisoft is fully committed to its NFT program.
“This morning, Guillemot reiterated that Ubisoft will still develop blockchain/NFT,” Rutschlé said. “There is more to do. He mentioned his continued will and enthusiasm for Web.3, Metaverse and the self-regulated virtual world. Just to compare, he did not make such a move during the entire sexual harassment scandal. . This is crazy.”
Solidaires Informatique filed a lawsuit against the company in July on “institutional harassment” allegations.