Assassin’s Creed? Ghost Recon? No game announcement yet!
French game company Ubisoft has announced its plans to become a key player in the blockchain gaming industry. CEO Yves Guillemot said during an earnings call that Ubisoft considers play-to-earn and blockchain technology revolutionary. “We think it’s going to grow the industry a lot”, Guillemot said.
Ubisoft looks at the play-to-earn business model as a way for players to actually earn and own content. Through their Entrepreneur’s Lab they’ve been working with a variety of blockchain gaming companies, including Axie Infinity, Splinterlands, Xaya and Guild of Guardians. The French gaming company started investigating AI, crypto and blockchain in 2018.
They will not only create their own play-to-earn games, but will also invest in other companies and studios. Last month Ubisoft already invested in Animoca Brands, the leading blockchain game company with a $2.2 billion valuation.
One of the public outcries Ubisoft will have to deal with, is the idea that all NFTs are bad for the environment. Consumers will need to be educated about the energy-efficiency of blockchains like Wax, Polygon and Solana. Furthermore, Ethereum will switch to its 2.0 version next year as well, reducing their carbon footprint by 95%.
However, Ubisoft isn’t that far yet. They refer to their development progress as ‘early stages’.
Blockchain gaming grew 49% in Q3 2021
The third quarter of 2021 proved that blockchain games, boosted by the play-to-earn (P2E) movement are here to stay. In Q3 2021, the Unique Active Wallets (UAW) connected to game dapps reached 754,000. This is roughly half of the industry’s activity. The footprint of games within the NFT space became more visible. Because in-game NFTs accounted for more than 20% of the record Q3 NFT trading volume.
The blockchain industry registered 1.54 million UAW during Q3, growing 25% quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) and 509% year-over-year (YoY). One of the main drivers behind the surge of this metric is blockchain-based games. Propelled by the P2E narrative, the number of unique active wallets connected to blockchain games reached 754,000 in Q3. This amount represents 49% of the whole industry’s usage.
