Use of NFTs in video games divides the industry

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One of the buzzwords in the tech world, the acronym NFT (non-fungible tokens, which act as a kind of certificate of ownership linked to a digital product) has increasingly appeared in statements by executives in the video game industry.

Some companies see this technology inextricably linked to the future of virtual gaming. This is the case, for example, of Ubisoft (creator of franchises such as “Assassin’s Creed” and “Far Cry”), which at the end of last year launched its own platform for selling NFTs, Quartz.

Still in beta, the platform currently only offers NFTs of cosmetic items for the game “Ghost Recon Breakpoint”. Still, the announcement was criticized by gamers and, according to the website Kotaku, even by employees of the French company.

Vice President of the Strategic Innovations Lab at Ubisoft, Nicolas Pouard, said the rejection of the ad was due to the ignorance of people “who didn’t understand what a digital secondary market can do for them”.

“Because of the context and the current situation, gamers believe that NFTs are destroying the planet and are just a tool for speculation. But we [da Ubisoft] we are looking at the long term. And the long term is about giving players the opportunity to resell their items when they don’t want them anymore.”

Executives from other major video game companies, such as Square Enix (from “Final Fantasy”) and Electronic Arts (from “The Sims” and “Fifa” series), also made statements defending the use of technology in games.

EA, however, took a step back later, saying it was not “intensely pursuing” projects in this direction and indicating that receptivity to NFTs is neither consolidated nor unanimous in the industry.

Phil Spencer, head of the Xbox division at Microsoft, for example, showed in an interview with Axios that he has serious restrictions on the way NFTs are being adopted in games, despite not completely ruling out the technology.

“I think there’s a lot of speculation and experimentation going on, and that some of the creativity I see today seems more exploration than entertainment,” he said.

Skepticism is understandable. Many of the games released to date based on NFTs resemble pyramid schemes or are considered “play-to-earn” (where the player is encouraged to play more and more in exchange for money).

This, however, does not seem to be the path that most large companies that bet on technology think to take.

• Ubisoft noted that NFT items available in their games will “always be cosmetic and have no impact on gameplay”;
• Valve has instituted a ban on Steam, its platform for selling computer games, on titles “that allow the exchange of cryptocurrencies or NFTs” – although its competitor, the Epic Store, has remained open to hosting these games.

Even with a number of restrictions, it seems likely that over the next few years more and more games will be released with some sort of association with NFTs. Whether this will take place on the side, as is usually the case today in titles with microtransactions, or whether NFTs will come to play a central role in games will largely depend on the ways the industry finds to exploit this technology and consumer acceptance of them.

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Elden Ring
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You’ve probably heard of it (didn’t you read the latest issue of Combo?), but after spending the Carnival break playing “Elden Ring”, there’s nothing else I could recommend. FromSoftware’s new title is, as promised, an open world “Dark Souls”. The game is excellent and can please even those who are not fans of the developer’s games.

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• Mykhailo Fedorov, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, published a letter on twitter calling on virtual game developers and esports platforms to block users and teams from Russia and Belarus as a way of putting pressure on those countries to end the war against Ukraine. He also asked that big game companies like Riot, Electronic Arts and Ubisoft close their offices in Russia.
• Electronic Arts announced in a statement on social media which is removing Russia’s teams and national teams from the “Fifa 22”, “Fifa Mobile” and “Fifa Online” games. According to the company, the measures were taken “in line with our partners in FIFA and UEFA”. In the same document, the company offers its solidarity to the Ukrainian people and calls for an end to the invasion of Ukraine.
• After The Pokémon Company announced in a video the release of “Pókemon Scarlet & Violet” for Switch, Brazilian fans started a campaign on social networks for the game to be localized to Brazilian Portuguese with the hashtag #ScarletVioletPTBR, with the support of influencers how cassimir and Juliette. For now, versions in Japanese, English, Spanish, German, Italian, French, Korean and Chinese are confirmed.
• In yet another market move towards the world of games, Netflix announced the purchase of the Finnish mobile game studio Next Games for 65 million euros (R$ 370 million). The company has already worked on games based on Netflix’s “Stranger Things” and “The Walking Dead” series.

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