Utilising the Tezos blockchain, Ubisoft will be dropping NFTs to PC players, starting with Ghost Recon: Breakpoint on Thursday, 09 December. The new platform, Ubisoft Quartz, will be released in a Beta stage, and will reward users with three free cosmetic drops. Ubisoft boasts that it’s ‘bringing the first energy efficient NFTs playable in a AAA game’ and is setting a strong precedent for the future of blockchain technology and NFTs within the gaming industry.
Players will be able to get collectibles called ‘Digits’. These Digits will basically be in-game items such as weapons or vehicles and will be released in a limited quantity or edition. Some of these Digits will be rewarded for free to early adopters of the Ubisoft Quartz system on December 9th, 12th, and 15th within the US & Canada. Ubisoft Quartz will also be released in Australia, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Belgium, and Brazil.
Ubisoft is committed to ensuring its global footprint is as small as possible, with Didier Genevois, Ubisoft’s blockchain technical director, stating this in an interview that was later published on the Ubisoft corporate website:
This type of blockchain achieves the same results while using significantly less energy than proof-of-work protocols. To give you an idea, a transaction on Tezos is equivalent to 30 seconds of video streaming, while on Bitcoin, it is equivalent to watching one year straight of video streaming!
Moving back to the future of NFTs and gaming, within that same interview, Baptiste Chardon, Ubisoft’s Blockchain Product Director added:
This new approach can even, on a longer term, open up new opportunities such as interoperability between games. […] We see blockchain as a means of placing back into the hands of players and creators the value they generate through their engagement with their games.
With Valve recently purging blockchain games from their marketplaces, it’s great to see other gaming companies like Ubisoft charging forwards. I just hope EA doesn’t catch wind, otherwise we could see half of future games only purchasable as ever-inflating NFTs…
Joking aside, it’s a great step forwards, and I look forward to seeing which gaming company will be the next to utilise blockchain tech in its developments!
