Ubisoft CEO: NFT Gaming Project Quartz Was Merely in Research Mode Concerning Web3 Tech Integrations

Yves Guillemot, the CEO of French gaming giant Ubisoft appears to have cooled the rhetoric behind the company’s NFT gaming project Quartz, noting in a recent interview that it was merely in "research mode" concerning Web3 tech integrations. It’s a relatively different take from other Ubisoft execs in the past, including chief financial officer Frédérick Duguet who in October last year stated that blockchain integrations will enable users to own and earn content and the firm wants to "be one of the key players here." During a Sept. 10 interview with gamesindustry.biz, Guillemot appears to be walking some of those comments back, emphasizing that at this stage, Ubisoft is primarily looking to discover how NFTs can be applied to games and whether they will benefit gamers or not. "We are very much on cloud, on the new generation of voxels, and we're looking at all the Web3 capabilities. We tested a few things recently that are giving us more information on how it can be used and what we should do in the universe of video games. So we are testing ground with some games, and we'll see if they really answer the players' needs. But we are still in research mode, I would say." Ubisoft announced its first foray into NFTs in December last year, after launching a beta version of Ubisoft Quartz, aimed at offering gamers playable NFTs that could be utilized in games such as Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint.