After two failed attempts at NFT, traditional gaming giant Ubisoft enters the blockchain gaming market.
Original author: Zen, PANews
In the "Oasys Special Event" held by the game public chain Oasys at last week's Japan Blockchain Week, it was one of the most anticipated side events in the game industry. The companies and projects attending the event did not disappoint. In addition to South Korean game giant Com2uS announcing the launch of their AAA blockchain game Summoners War: Chronicles on Oasys, blockchain game company double jump.tokyo obtained a license from SEGA and released a blockchain game based on the IP "Three Kingdoms War". Japan's largest social networking site MIXI also partnered with Oasys for content development. Moreover, game giant Ubisoft made a big move by announcing the release of their first official blockchain game "Champions Tactics: Grimoria Chronicles".
Ubisoft, a game giant from France, was founded in 1986 and has since released numerous popular games including the "Assassin's Creed" series, "Far Cry" series, "Rayman", "Rainbow Six Siege", "Brawlhalla", and "For Honor". Ubisoft has nearly 20,000 employees worldwide and has over 20 game development studios responsible for development, publishing, and operations. Their technical research and development team, La Forge, covers various fields such as rendering, animation, artificial intelligence, and audio.
Collaboration with Oasys to Release "Champions Tactics: Grimoria Chronicles"
The recently announced "Champions Tactics: Grimoria Chronicles" is a tactical RPG game co-developed with Oasys and based on their blockchain technology. It is targeted towards PC gamers. Ubisoft describes "Champions Tactics" as a player-vs-player tactical game, where players can battle each other using mythological champions. Currently, there is only a teaser trailer on the game's official website, which does not showcase gameplay footage, game mechanics, gameplay details, or testing and launch dates. However, based on its art style, it reminds people of games like "Apex Legends" and "League of Legends".
Game public chain Oasys jointly launched by Japanese traditional game giant Bandai Namco and SEGA, the games on this public chain mainly run on its Layer 2 network, which has faster transaction speed and allows players to pay no Gas fees. Oasys launched its mainnet in October last year and entrusted 21 institutional nodes to maintain the network operation. Ubisoft is one of the main nodes, and other participating well-known game companies and Web3 companies include Bandai Namco Research, SEGA, gaming union YGG (Yield Guild Games), and crypto investment institution Jump Crypto.
Ubisoft's two unsuccessful attempts with NFTs
In fact, before developing the blockchain game "Champions Tactics: Grimoria Chronicles", Ubisoft had twice launched "experiments" on NFT applications, but both ended in failure.
Unlike the current "lose on all fronts", at that time, the rapid rise of the NFT market ignited the enthusiasm of the traditional industry for the application of new technologies. From automobiles, luxury goods, sports brands to food and beverage, they all followed suit, hoping to use new technological means to promote their brands. Some, like Nike, simply opened up a new development direction. The success of NFT games such as "Axie Infinity" also set an example for the game industry. Ubisoft, which is usually more progressive in the technology field, may also be based on these considerations. After launching the metaverse platform Ubisoft Quartz in December 2021, its Strategic Innovation Lab designed three NFTs based on the Tezos blockchain and introduced the third-person shooter game "Ghost Recon: Breakpoint". The three NFTs can be used for game outfits, namely rifles, helmets, and pants, and the latter two require players to play for 600 and 100 hours to claim.
In Ubisoft's view, players can not only improve their gaming levels and skills through extensive game participation but also win "digital scarcity" items that only a few people possess. These NFTs can be sold on the Ubisoft Quartz platform for cryptocurrency or cash. However, it seems that game enthusiasts are not buying into the "Play to Earn" rules tailored for crypto enthusiasts: Ubisoft received a lot of opposition after announcing the related news of the NFT, and the market performance of the NFT was also very disappointing, with a trading volume of less than $400 in the first week on the Quartz market.
Ubisoft's first NFT experiment eventually announced its termination in April 2022. Its failure is partly due to "hype marketing" and extreme requirements for "grinding" (referring to players needing a lot of time to play), which severely dampened players' enthusiasm. On the other hand, the game itself does not belong to the batch of Ubisoft's most impressive games. In the same month, Ubisoft announced for the first time that it would launch the battle royale game "Project Q," and fans speculated that this game would be an NFT game based on the wording of its announcement. In January of this year, for some unknown reason, Ubisoft suddenly announced the cancellation of the closed beta testing that was about to take place for Project Q and stated that the project would no longer be continued.
Perhaps under pressure from the failures of the previous two attempts, Ubisoft has once again entered the blockchain gaming field. However, this time, they did not announce it loudly on official Twitter like before. "Champions Tactics: Grimoria Chronicles" is obviously still in the early stages of development, and it remains uncertain whether it will end up like "Project Q" and how it will evolve in the future. PANews will continue to follow the progress of the project.
