Ubisoft's new NFT project video gets a 96% disapproval rate

French gaming giant Ubisoft Entertainment SA’s new non-fungible token (NFT) project, Quartz, is facing a backlash from the gaming community.

On December 8, Ubisoft announced the launch of the Quartz beta by posting a short video on YouTube, which has had 214,721 views as of this writing. The project aims to integrate NFT and blockchain technology with existing AAA games, and announced that Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint is its first game to officially integrate NFT.

The video introduces Quartz as a platform that enables players to "collect the first playable and energy-efficient Ubisoft NFTs," which are called "Digits."

YouTube recently changed its policy to hide the number of dislikes a video has received, but the number is still available through a Google Chrome extension. It can be seen through Google Chrome that the video has currently received 1,400 likes and 37,000 dislikes, which is equivalent to a dislike ratio of about 96%.

One of the top comments by user "OperatorDrewski" currently has 2,600 likes and 0 dislikes, and blasts Ubisoft's NFT project as a quick cash grab rather than improving the overall gaming experience:

"To me, it's a clear sign that you guys are just milking every penny out of the Ghost Recon series with very little effort put into the actual game itself. If there's this level of depravity in the team, it's Won't be playing GR games again."

That sentiment seems to be shared by a sizable portion of the community, with users on Twitter also taking a swipe at the company's latest announcement, threatening to uninstall the company's games and boycott Ubisoft entirely.

Due to my personal opinion on NFTs and not entirely because of circumstances, I will now uninstall all content related to you guys and stop buying your games.

that's all. For those who don't like the current Ubisoft marketing, stop buying it.

— Skyeeeely - Lazy VStreamer Cat (@Sukaaaily) December 7, 2021

On December 8, a post on the r/gaming page on Reddit revealed a unanimous boycott of Ubisoft’s new NFT project. The post from "u/WolverineKuzuri93" titled "Ubisoft's new NFT marketplace 'Quartz' is not supported," has so far garnered 2,500 comments and over 13,400 likes, for a 93% like rate.

The Reddit user highlighted issues similar to those of the top commenter on the YouTube video, noting:

"We have to stand against this. ... It's just another way of deceiving players with superficiality, rather than focusing on making a quality product with depth. We have to let companies know this is anti-consumer behavior."

They added: "I'm not entirely opposed to the concept of using NFT systems in digital games. For example, actually owning your digital copy, not just a license, so you can sell it to another user account. This is actually the future of digital gaming. What I object to is what Ubisoft is doing with in-game items.”

Gamer resistance to NFTs

This is not the first time a major company has been criticized for focusing on or dabbling in the NFT space. Cointelegraph reported last month that community messaging app Discord was forced to cancel plans for an Ethereum-based NFT integration after the player community lashed out at CEO Jason Citron.

Citron initially teased his company’s plans with a beta screenshot showing support for Ethereum NFT wallets, but he was quickly surrounded by thousands of comments asking him to abandon his plans and users threatening to cancel their paid Nitro subscription.

Unlike Ubisoft’s case, cryptocurrency skeptics on Discord believe that NFTs are Ponzi schemes and damage the environment due to the energy required to mine cryptocurrencies.

Cointelegraph has reached out to Ubisoft representatives for comment and will update the story should they respond.

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