If you’ve got been following Ubisoft’s relationship with the NFT house within the final 12 months, you most likely do not forget that its nonsensical launch of Quartz NFTs in Ghost Recon Breakpoint was halted in April after just some months. At the time, although, Ubisoft mentioned that gamers ought to “keep tuned for extra updates with options to the platform and future drops coming with different video games!”

In the months since, although, Ubisoft appears to have grow to be much less obsessed with its future NFT plans. In a current group Q&A following a press occasion at Ubisoft’s Paris HQ (transcribed by SportIndustry.biz), CEO Yves Guillemot tried to make clear that the corporate is “nonetheless in analysis mode, I’d say, on the subject of NFTs.”

“We actually have a look at all the brand new applied sciences. We are very a lot on cloud, on the brand new technology of voxels, and we’re all of the Web3 capabilities. We examined a number of issues lately which can be giving us extra data on how it may be used and what we must always do within the universe of video video games. So we’re testing floor with some video games, and we’ll see in the event that they actually reply the gamers’ wants.

The bit about “answering the gamers’ wants” is particularly fascinating within the wake of Ubisoft’s use of NFTs in Breakpoint. In the months after Ubisoft gave away 1000’s of game-usable NFTs, an Ars evaluation discovered solely 96 profitable secondhand gross sales for these in-game objects on Objkt and Rarible (the one two marketplaces the place such gross sales are allowed), with costs usually measured within the equal of tens of {dollars}. These third-party transfers have been offered as one of many major use instances for NFTs within the first place, so the shortage of gross sales reveals simply how little participant curiosity there was in Breakpoint‘s NFT implementation.

Looking again, Guillemot mentioned that “we most likely weren’t good at saying we’re researching,” suggesting that this was at all times supposed extra of a toe-dipping experiment slightly than a serious funding in an thrilling new technological playfield. That restraint wasn’t communicated when Ubisoft launched its Quartz NFTs final December, although.

Back then, the corporate described the hassle in a press launch as “the primary constructing block in our formidable imaginative and prescient for growing a real metaverse.” At the time, Ubisoft additionally mentioned long-term plans for the blockchain to “genuinely make gamers stakeholders of our video games… inserting again into their fingers the worth they generate by way of the time they spend, the objects they purchase or the content material they create on-line.”

Now, although, Guillemot talks about NFTs as simply one other within the lengthy line of wacky tech fads that Ubisoft likes to mess around with after they’re new:

“As an organization, we went into VR early, into the Wii early—we at all times strive new issues,” he mentioned. “Sometimes it really works, generally it does not work, but it surely’s at all times to ensure we are able to deliver a brand new expertise to gamers that shall be modern and fascinating. The purpose of the corporate is at all times to create one of the best expertise, and new applied sciences are at all times good for that as a result of there’s much less competitors and individuals are extra to strive new issues on new expertise.”

The weirdest a part of Guillemot’s NFT remarks got here when he spoke as if Ubisoft hadn’t launched its first NFT experiment but. “We ought to have mentioned we have been engaged on it, and when we have now one thing that provides you an actual profit, we’ll deliver it to you,” he mentioned. “Exploring doesn’t suggest launching.”

While we agree that exploring doesn’t suggest launching, we would argue that Ubisoft really launched NFTs in Breakpoint final December. The indisputable fact that Guillemot now says Ubisoft is ready till it has “one thing that provides you an actual profit” earlier than any additional “launching” tells you the whole lot that you must find out about simply how rapidly the corporate’s emotions on NFTs have modified.