Ubisoft has announced the first step in bringing NFT and blockchain technology to its games with the beta release of the Ubisoft Quartz platform. Starting December 9, 12 and 15, Ghost Recon Break Point for PC will receive the first round of Digits, Ubisoft’s name for the NFTs in the game, playable.
Quartz is a mobile application that will facilitate the connection of goods in your digital wallet and Ubisoft games will use NFT cosmetics called Digits. It’s supposed to be an experiment of technology right now, but ultimately Ubisoft’s goal is to make these Digits move from game to game, allowing players to use and show off the device. their uniqueness outside of Breakpoint.
Digits are purely cosmetic items, released by Ubisoft for free in limited quantities. Currently, the only game that supports Digits will be Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint on PC. The Digits released this week are the only skins to use on your character with the serial numbers visible in the textures on the item. There are not any boosts or upgrades offered to characters equipped with Digit skins. However, Ubisoft wants to one day embed individual achievements and in-game stats into the interface so that the actions of players who have used them will be carried over to the next owners of the Digits.
Because the items are limited, Ubisoft has put in place some restrictions on the validation of these items. Basically, players can only get the Digits if they are 18 or older and have reached XP level 5 in Breakpoint, ensuring it’s not just anyone who can get them when they’re released. Digits are also limited to a maximum of one per player, per instance (unique item). Some Digit drops, including two of the original three, will have other game-time requirements for items. The first items given away by Ubisoft for free include skins for guns, pants and helmets.
NFTs, cryptocurrencies, and blockchain technology are certainly controversial topics at the moment, especially considering the abundant energy consumption and potential negative environmental impact on the large scale they have. can create. In our presentation to members of the Strategic Innovation Lab at Ubisoft, we clarified the company’s current stance on using technology to be energy efficient and eco-friendly. school. As a result, Quartz and Digits are using the Tezos blockchain for these digital items, which are using the Proof of Stake method to verify transactions and record them in the blockchain ledger. According to Ubisoft, Quartz transactions “consume 1 million times less than Bitcoin transactions,” a significant difference from other crypto-tied goods.
Ubisoft is calling for Digit to first drop an experiment, but the company has been working towards this point for almost four years. During that time, Ubisoft’s Strategic Innovation Lab team worked with many blockchain-related companies such as NFT game developers Axie Infinity to find the most suitable way to implement NFT into games. play by Ubisoft. During this time, the Innovation Lab worked on concepts such as NFT interoperability between games by building the One Shot League game, using digital items originally created for another game called Sorare, among other tests.
The company wants Quartz to be a welcoming new consumer experience for crypto-pegged digital goods, where anyone can create their first wallet and collect digits, NFTs, or tokens. other cryptocurrencies. The app will even set up consumers a wallet to hold the first Digits they can claim – if they’re quick enough to get their hands on one, that is. It’s also important to note that if you don’t feel comfortable using or supporting blockchain technology, nobody has to get involved in using Quartz or Digits to play Ghost Recon Breakpoint, as both are completely optional.
While I am highly skeptical of the overall nature of crypto, NFT, etc., what Ubisoft presented to Quartz and Digits is at least thinking about the big issues related to technology. Making sure the platform’s transactions don’t harm the environment is an important first step for me to take this technology more seriously. The other is the sometimes deceptive, sometimes deceptive nature of the culture of creating and selling NFTs, an aspect that doesn’t really matter here since the items are essentially free from Ubisoft outside of usage time. in the game. All told, on the face of it Quartz is more accountable to the NFT than I would expect from an AAA game developer/publisher. It will be interesting to see how all of this is received by the Breakpoint player base and how or where Ubisoft decides to expand Digits next.
