Ubisoft launches "Assassin's Creed" NFT series, hitting a "serious punch"

The NFT series will be open for minting on May 16th.

Written by: Nian Yin Si Tang

Ubisoft is the most active large game company in the Web3 field. Just recently, the gaming giant has made new moves.

Ubisoft is a video game developer and publisher based in Rennes, France, founded in 1986. Ubisoft has 23 game development studios around the world, and was the third largest independent game developer in Europe and the fourth largest independent game publisher in North America in 2008.

Borrow the big fire IP to enlarge the trick

Recently, Ubisoft officially announced that it has cooperated with Integral Reality Labs to launch the "Assassin's Creed" NFT series "Assassin's Creed Smart Collectibles" on Polygon, which will officially open for casting on May 16. Each minted "Digital Soul" NFT can be used to customize and redeem 3D printed physical collectibles. It's a protagonist of the game series suspended in a transparent cube, allowing owners to choose from a variety of outfits, weapons, and poses before the physical collectible is printed and shipped. Each NFT has a different rarity level, with higher level NFTs unlocking more customization elements.

These collectibles have an embedded Near Field Communication (NFC) chip. When tapped with a smartphone, users can view a digital version of the character in a companion app, as well as access other functions related to the project.

Integral Reality Labs will also release 1,500 "Piece of Eden" passes, providing holders with benefits such as airdrops to exclusive collectibles and priority access to 3D printing.

Ubisoft launched the "Assassin's Creed" NFT series and hit a "serious punch". Previously, Integral Reality Labs had cooperated with Ubisoft to release can Custom 3D printed collectibles, but not digitally bound. According to Ubisoft, the Assassin's Creed franchise has sold more than 200 million copies since its release in 2007.

It is understood that Ubisoft's well-known works include "Rayman", "Assassin's Creed" series (Assassin's Creed), "Far Cry" series (Far Cry), "Prince of Persia", "Split Cell" "(Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell), "Rainbow Six" series (Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six), "Watch Dogs" series (Watch_Dogs), "The Division" series, (Tom Clancy's The Divisioner) "Ghost Recon" series (Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon), "Anno" series (Anno), etc.

If the response of the "Assassin's Creed" NFT series is good this time, Ubisoft, which has many big IPs, may see the opportunity and launch other NFT series one after another.

Unfinished business

In fact, this is the Nth time that Ubisoft has explored the NFT field, and the company's interest in NFT began a few years ago. In March 2021, Ubisoft partnered with Sorare, a digital football NFT collection platform, to develop a fantasy football game called One Shot League, which was created based on Ethereum and provided players with NFT collection cards.

In December 2021, Ubisoft even launched a test version of its NFT-enabled native platform Ubisoft Quartz, which allows users to obtain NFTs of items that can be used in the game, such as weapons, clothing or vehicles. Ubisoft Quartz calls these NFTs "Digits" and chooses the Tezos chain as the underlying layer. The first batch of Digits appeared in the PC version of Ubisoft Connect's "Ghost Recon: Breakpoint", which is open to receive in limited quantities through Beta testing. Each Digit only contains a limited number of decorative items.

Supporting support is also following up. For example, Aleph.im announced that it will provide Ubisoft Quartz with a decentralized storage solution to further incorporate NFT into Ubisoft's 3A games.

Unfortunately, although Ubisoft is full of confidence in this, it was poured cold water as soon as it came up.

The trailer, which was originally on Ubisoft's Quartz platform, was taken down after receiving a lot of negative interaction from viewers.

Additionally, within 10 days of the platform's launch, the NFT resale market volume for Ghost Recon Breakpoint appears to have been only $400, with only 15 NFTs sold. This situation is undoubtedly very frustrating-because it shows that not only ordinary gamers are not interested in this, but NFT collectors are also.

Shortly thereafter, Nicolas Pouard, vice president of Ubisoft's Strategic Innovation Lab, expressed his views on the negative player feedback Ubisoft received after launching NFT platforms Quartz and Digits in an interview with Finder. Gamers may not fully understand the benefits of NFTs, Pouard said. Quartz and Digits are a "matter of personal choice" for players, and players are not forced to use them "at any time". It is not difficult to see that in the eyes of this Ubisoft executive, NFT has the meaning of "unrecognized talents, treasures and dust" in the field of games.

Not only is it facing external resistance, but even Ubisoft's internal employees have not been impressed by the charm of NFT. The month Quartz launched, the company held a staff meeting to defend the plan, and there was an internal uproar. However, the company continues to push forward with this plan. In February of the following year, Ubisoft outlined its thoughts on using blockchain technology in an email to employees. The announcement, posted on the company's internal message boards, sparked hundreds of negative comments from employees. Someone joked that it was a "very embarrassing day" for Ubisoft employees.

The more frustrated, the more courageous?

However, all kinds of doubts and obstacles from inside and outside did not make Ubisoft stop after a setback and stop there. Instead, it has the momentum of "getting more and more frustrated".

In February 2022, Ubisoft announced a partnership with the well-known Metaverse project The Sandbox, which will bring its game IP into the Ethereum-based Metaverse game world. It is understood that Ubisoft will have its own LAND within The Sandbox's shared online world, which can be customized and monetized as needed. Additionally, Ubisoft will launch an interactive space for its Rabbids franchise in The Sandbox, available within the game's VoxEdit and Game Maker tools. Ubisoft also plans to bring IP from other popular game franchises to The Sandbox.

However, bad news also came unexpectedly. It may be due to various considerations such as cost, public opinion, and player feedback. Ubisoft stated in April that it has completely ended the development of the "Ghost Recon: Breakpoint" game, and will no longer provide content updates, NFT or other content. Perhaps with a lesson learned from the past, Ubisoft issued a statement after noticing the concerns of some players that it currently has no plans to add NFT to the new game code-named “Project Q”.

But it must be affirmed that in Quartz’s NFT experiment, Ubisoft is brave, but we can also see its inability to compete with the general environment. As the first mainstream game manufacturer to make such a pioneering effort in the Web3 field, we have seen the difficulty of the road to innovation, but also felt the possibility of the future of NFT.

All roads lead to Web3

Despite repeated setbacks in the NFT business, Ubisoft's enthusiasm for Web3 has not faded. For a long time, the gaming giant has been investing in various game-related companies in the Web3 field, including participating in Animoca Brands’ $60 million financing in 2021, and investing about $60 million in the White Star Capital encryption fund focusing on DeFi and games in 2022 , In 2022, Cometh, the leading investment chain game studio, completed a $10 million seed round of financing and so on.

Of course, Ubisoft has not given up on Quartz, which has always placed high hopes. In September, Ubisoft co-founder and CEO Yves Guillemot said in an interview that Quartz is in "research mode" for the integration of Web3-related technologies, "We are working on all Web3 features. Provides more information on how to use Web3 and what kind of game world we should build", and said that Ubisoft at this stage mainly hopes to understand "how NFTs are applied to games and whether they will benefit gamers".

In addition, the cooperation with The Sandbox is also progressing steadily. This year, The Sandbox announced on Twitter that the Ubisoft Rabbids (Crazy Rabbit) NFT public casting is now officially launched. The Rabbids NFT was released by Ubisoft on the Polygon chain, with a total of 2066 pieces and a price of 100 SAND. The Sandbox also plans to launch a supporting Metaverse game at the end of February.

Ubisoft's vision for Web3 games

So in Ubisoft's heart, what should the future game world look like? Guillemot talked about Ubisoft's long-term goals in the field of Web3 games in an interview. He said that Ubisoft in 2030 hopes that everyone can access games as easily as listening to music and watching videos on YouTube or TV, and is building Web3 tools to accelerate this trend. In the future, Ubisoft will allow players to appear in multiple metaverse virtual worlds, freely interact, create, own and transfer game assets between different games, and even move between different platforms and virtual worlds.

From Guillemot's description, we can also get a glimpse of Ubisoft's Web3 game vision. Admittedly, this road is destined to be full of thorns and bumps, but the Web3 world ushered in after overcoming the thorns and thorns will not disappoint players.