One of the world’s largest gaming companies has just entered the non-fungible token (NFT) space in a big way with the announcement of Ubisoft Quartz. The experiment will issue in-game items for one of Ubisoft's triple-A titels in the form of NFTs on the Tezos blockchain.
Gaming giant Ubisoft announced a new platform to bring non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to its in-game items. Starting this week, Ubisoft Quartz will enable players to acquire so-called "Digits". These are the first NFTs to be made available in a triple-A game.
First gaming giant to adopt NFTs
An AAA game is one classified by the video game industry as one produced and distributed by a major publisher and they don’t get much bigger than Ubisoft. The company generated 1.6 Billion Euro in revenue last year and has published top game franchises such as Assassin's Creed, Far Cry and more.
"Ubisoft Quartz is the first building block in our ambitious vision for developing a true metaverse. And it can’t come to life without overcoming blockchain’s early-form limitations for gaming, including scalability and energy consumption." - Nicolas Pouard, Vice President of Ubisoft’s Strategic Innovation Lab
The beta will launch with Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint on Ubisoft Connect for Windows PC. The Digits will be collectible in-game vehicles, weapons, and pieces of equipment. The Ubisoft NFT experiment will offer three drops of free Digits in the coming weeks to reward the early adopters.
Issuance on the Tezos blockchain
Digits will run on energy-efficient technology, according to the announcement. Ubisoft has selected the Tezos network for the properties of its proof-of-stake consensus which is more energy-efficient than mining.
"Energy efficiency is a key requirement to propel blockchain technology into a future where it can be widely used by millions of players. Tezos is an industry leader in clean NFTs with a low carbon footprint." - Didier Genevois, Blockchain Technical Director at Ubisoft
The first batch of Digits will launch with limited editions with a fixed number of unique in-game items. They can be purchased with cryptocurrency, but are only available in selected countries. Steam, one of Ubisoft's competitors and the world’s largest PC gaming marketplace, seems to be of a different opinion and recently banned NFT and blockchain games from its store.
