At a behind-closed-doors preview of Ubisoft‘s Neo NPC generative AI project, CEO of Ubisoft Yves Guillemot – speaking to journalists – was asked by VG247 whether he was concerned that the company’s push will be recieved in the same negative light as the company’s prior dive into NFT and Web 3. In response, Guillemot stated that all new evolutions have to be “considered and tested”.
“I think what you have to consider is all the new evolutions have to be considered and tested,” he told me after the preview. “I think generative AI, really, has existed in our industry for a long time. Now we are taking another step, because there is lots of investment in that subject, and so video games are going to use it like other industries will do.”
Ubisoft’s controversial experiment with Quartz NFTs had direct tie-ins to Ghost Recon: Breakpoint, and were quietly wound-down following brief exposure to the public. Later in 2023 Ubisoft’s partnership with Web 3 platform Immutable would also be announced, a declaration of sorts that the industry giant was not shying away from messing around with controversial technologies (see also: Square Enix).