Ubisoft's in-game NFTs bring interoperable virtual goods closer to reality

The French video game publisher Ubisoft that makes Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry has moved beyond exploratory investments into crypto startups by allowing PC players of Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint to buy in-game non-fungible tokens (NFTs), providing a mainstream use case for the technology.

Users will be able to buy in-game items on Ubisoft Quartz, the buying platform, through which they can have their proof of ownership ‘tokenized’ on the Tezos blockchain.

Why it matters

Outside of crypto’s esoteric hype circles, the use cases for NFTs are simply not very compelling for most people. Their inclusion in mainstream video games will bring them to many more people. It is also a development in which a token might actually be useful, given an in-game item is impossible to copy and paste in the way image files are.

What to know

• An NFT, or non-fungible token, is a way of proving ownership of a demonstrably scarce digital, or even physical, asset on a distributed ledger known as a blockchain. Here’s an explainer, if needed.
• Players of Ubisoft’s game will be able to buy new clothes or weapons for their characters and be able to show they own them. While this is something of a gimmick as those items remain useful only in one game, it points to a future where items like clothing will be transferable across different apps on the metaverse – an internet-like network of virtual worlds.
• The Tezos blockchain on which these in-game NFTs will be minted is also worth thinking about. The best-known blockchains like Ethereum 1.0 and Bitcoin are an older generation that operate on an ecologically unfriendly, power-intensive proof of work basis. A computer has to do a lot of work, or lots of complex calculations in order to add to the network.
• Proof of stake blockchains, like Tezos, are a newer generation that realised that their predecessors had a limit on their scalability, and instead use a network of ‘validators’ – senior users for want of a better term – who will stake their own cryptocurrency in exchange for the ability to validate a transaction and receive a reward should they win. 
• This is far less power-intensive, and brands considering entering the space must consider this aspect.

Quote

“Energy-efficiency is a key requirement to propel blockchain technology into a future where it can be widely used by millions of players,” notes Nicolas Pouard, VP strategic innovation lab, Ubisoft, in a statement.

Sourced from Decrypt, Coinbase, WARC