As the NFT boom slows down, major gaming companies slow down their cryptocurrencies – TechCrunch

Blockchain games and NFTs in video games were a hot topic towards the end of 2021, and they continue to be so, spurred on by the early success of Axie Infinity’s play-to-earn (P2E) model. After all, it’s hard to ignore a sector that plays with billions of dollars.

The potential of the Axies P2E model, which gives players ownership of in-game collectibles (tokens) that they can sell for real money, was immediately apparent. The success demonstrated the potential economic benefits of combining blockchain technology and games, and encouraged a number of smaller developers to launch similar offerings. More remarkably, it also led to established video game studios trying to elbow in.

And they tried really hard. Between November and February, the video game giants, from Ubisoft and Sega to Square Enix, signaled that they intended to monetize NFT mania.

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Their fans did not like it. But despite overwhelmingly negative feedback from players as well as the industry, companies said they would incorporate NFTs in future releases (or even shoe them into updates for existing titles). And the setback only seemed to get worse with each announcement of NFTs.

When there is money to be made, feedback can, and often does, go unheard. Nevertheless, a few large gaming companies went back on their plans. So what happened?

It seems that the poor performance of a few companies’ NFT game implementations may have led some to reconsider their crypto efforts. From Ubisoft’s embarrassing experiment with Ubisoft Quartz, to Axie Infinity falling off the edge of the world, it’s easy to assume that the game blockchain party ended before it actually began.

Well, it has not. Pandora’s Box is now open, and attempts to legitimize a potential predator model for revenue generation will not stop immediately.

But there is still some time left. For now, let’s put doom and gloom aside and take a look at some of the top players in video games:

Ubisoft

Ubisoft may not have put all its eggs in the NFT basket, but they are investing very hard in the crypto space.

It absolutely started down this course long before the rivals did. Ubisoft indicated its interest in the larger crypto space as one of the founders of the Blockchain Gaming Alliance way back in 2018. And despite the fact that the intended target group is fighting against the company’s crypto plans every step of the way, it has not slowed down.

The company launched a beta version of Ubisoft Quartz in December last year, in what they said was an attempt to demonstrate the value NFTs can add to video games. But it seems to have done the exact opposite.