Quartz, the new non-fungible token (NFT) project from French gaming giant Ubisoft Entertainment SA, is facing strong pushback from the gaming community.
Ubisoft unveiled the Quartz Beta release via a short YouTube video on December 8 that has 214,721 views as of this writing. The project objectives to combine NFT and blockchain technology with existing Triple-A game titles, and announced Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint as its first game to officially integrate NFT.
The video introduces Quartz as a platform that allows players to "collect the first playable and energy-efficient Ubisoft NFTs" which are dubbed "Digits."
YouTube recently change Its policy to hide the amount of "Dislikes" a video receives on the platform, however Google Chrome extensions can still access the number. When using an extension, the video currently shows 1,400 likes and 37,000 dislikes, which equates to a dislike ratio of approximately 96%.
One of the top comments in the video from user "OperatorDrewski" currently has 2,600 likes with zero dislikes, and criticizes Ubisoft's NFT project as a quick cash grab rather than improving the overall gaming experience:
โTo me, this is an obvious sign that you are exploiting the Ghost Recon franchise for literally every penny while putting minimal effort into the game itself. Not playing a GR game in the future if there is this level of degeneracy on the team. "
"He took a solid franchise and made it an absolute laughingstock," they added.
This view appears to be shared by a significant number in the community, with Twitter users also criticizing the company in response to its latest announcement, as they threatened to uninstall the company's games and boycott Ubisoft altogether.
Due to my personal view of NFTs and not because of the environment completely, I will now proceed to uninstall everything related to you and stop buying your games.
That's it. For people who don't like Current Ubi marketing, just stop shopping.
- Skyeeeely - Lazy Cat by VStreamer (@Sukaaaily) December 7, 2021
A December 8 post on the r / gaming page on Reddit shows a concerted effort to boycott the new NFT project. The post titled "not compatible with" Quartz ", the new NFT Ubisoft marketplace" of "u / WolverineKuzuri93" currently has 2,500 comments and a 93% upvote ratio with over 13,400 upvotes.
The Redditor highlights similar issues to the lead commenter on YouTube, noting that:
โWe have to oppose this practice. [...] This is just another way to play with cosmetics instead of focusing on making quality products in depth. We have to let companies know that this is anti-consumer. "
โI am not entirely against the concept of using an NFT-style system for digital games. For example, actually owning your digital copy instead of just a license so that you can sell it to another user's account. That is actually the future of digital games. What I am against is how Ubisoft is doing it with the elements of the game, "they added.
Player reaction to NFTs
This is not the first time that a major company has been criticized for looking at or jumping into the world of NFTs. Cointelegraph reported last month that community messaging app Discord was forced to back down on its Ethereum-based system. NFT integration plans, after the gaming community bombed CEO Jason Citron.
Citron initially teased his company's plans via a screenshot of a beta feature showing Ethereum NFT wallet supportHowever, he was immediately harassed with thousands of comments asking him to drop the plans along with users threatening to cancel their paid Nitro subscriptions.
Reddit: OpenSea Backtracks on IPO Plan Following Community Reaction
Unlike the Ubisoft case, where the community appears to be upset by what they claim is cash theft, crypto skeptics at Discord believe that NFTs are a Ponzi scheme and harm the environment due to the energy required to mine cryptocurrencies.
Cointelegraph has reached out to Ubisoft representatives for comment and will update the story if they respond.
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