As NFTs have become a white-hot market, gaming giants Electronic Arts and Take-2 have weighed in.
During a marketing call with senior staff, Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson referred to NFTs and play-to-earn as “the future of our industry”. While this, on its own, sounds like a ringing endorsement, it was tempered with Wilson’s follow-up that it was still in its early stages.
“[I]t’s still early to tell, but I think we’re in a really good position, and we should expect us to kind of think more innovatively and creatively about that on a go-forward basis.”
Even at this early stage of development, this hasn’t stopped the gaming giant from staffing a number of positions that include ‘blockchain’ and ‘NFTs’ in their bios/descriptions.
Take-2’s CEO Strauss Zelnick added his own views. During an interview with GamesIndustry, Zelnick claimed that he was a big believer in NFTs, but argued that they don’t simply bear innate value.
“But what I don’t believe is that just because something is digital or an NFT that it suddenly has value and/or has value that will be increased in the future. And I think that’s the problem.”
As of yet, neither company had taken major steps towards developments with or on blockchain. But, taken on their own, they go a long way to showing how both have begun taking NFTs seriously as a disruptive force in gaming.
Meanwhile, one of Take-2 and EA’s contemporaries, Ubisoft, has taken a more bullish view of blockchain and NFTs.
Even as far back as 2018, the game developer launched its own foray into blockchain; creating its own Strategic Innovation Lab to explore its potential.
Much like EA and Take-2, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot, during an earnings call, referred to blockchain as “one of those revolutions” in the gaming industry, and further.
More recently, the company unveiled its own plans to develop blockchain games and NFTs of its own. A move that is unsurprising, given its already ongoing collaboration will smaller-scale blockchain developers.
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