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CEO Yves Guillemot compared the backlash to microtransactions and loot boxes
Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot held a video Q&A this week to try and reassure developers about the company’s controversial new push behind NFTs, according to multiple sources who were in attendance. But they said his answers were vague and leaned on buzzwords like “metaverse” and “web 3.0,” leaving some as disheartened by the company’s latest PR disaster as before.
The meeting, which sources said wasn’t yet scheduled when the week started, came after the official reveal of Ubisoft’s new blockchain-based technology called Quartz was widely mocked online, with a video showcasing it receiving over 40,000 downvotes on YouTube. Kotaku previously reported that developers at the company were critical of the rollout as well, with an internal announcement exploding in hundreds of comments that ranged from skeptical to dismissive.
The initiative kicked off with three cosmetic NFTs in Ghost Recon Breakpoint, including one that required players to have logged over 600 hours in-game to redeem. Axios reported earlier this week that players have already started at least trying to resell the tokens on third-party platforms, for amounts that wishfully range from hundreds of dollars to the hundreds of thousands.
Inside the Ubisoft Paris studio, which makes Breakpoint, some developers are worried about a game they spent years rehabilitating after a disastrous 2019 launch having its reputation dragged back through the mud just so the company can stake its claim on the latest speculative tech fad. Indeed, according to a recent Ubisoft community report reviewed by Kotaku, the announcement of Quartz led to an unprecedented negative swing in player sentiment about the live-service open-world shooter.
Read the full article on Kotaku
