French game-maker ignores outrage

A conflict between Ubisoft Entertainment SA and many of its employees over a plan to adopt crypto technologies in the company’s video games intensified this week.

The French publisher, which makes popular titles including “Assassin’s Creed,” outlined its thinking on the use of blockchain technology in a message to staff on Thursday. The announcement on an internal message board prompted hundreds of negative comments from employees posted for all of their colleagues to read.

One person said it was a “deeply embarrassing day” to be an Ubisoft employee.

Ubisoft has faced criticism from fans and employees since announcing Ubisoft Quartz, a platform that allowed players of the shooter “Ghost Recon” to buy and sell certain equipment as NFTs. The company held a staff meeting in December to defend the plan and has since continued to move ahead despite internal uproar.

NFTs, or nonfungible tokens, are controversial in the video game industry. Some game companies like Ubisoft, seeing a potential for big profits, have experimented heavily with blockchain in their titles.

But many fans and game developers are opposed because of the environmental cost of mining cryptocurrencies and the sense that NFTs are full of scams and make games feel less fun and more like jobs. Several game companies have announced plans to invest in NFTs and then swiftly backtracked following harsh responses.