EA Is Looking at NFTs and ‘Play-to-Earn’ Cryptocurrency Games

Some of us just want to buy and enjoy the games we play, while publishers are now looking at how to leverage NFTs and “play-to-earn” cryptocurrency games in the future.

As Eurogamer reports, EA CEO Andrew Wilson stated in an earnings call this week that both NFTs and play-to-earn games are an “important part about the future of our industry.” However, he also admitted they aren’t going to appear in any EA-published games anytime soon because “it’s still early to figure out how that’s going to work.”

The play-to-earn model rewards players with cryptocurrency and works with blockchain technology in some form. Non-fungible tokens (NFT) on the other hand, are digital certificates for intellectual property, which could be utilized for many aspects of a game. For example, creating content for a specific title could result in an NFT being created.

For now, EA is acknowledging this very new technology is going to be important, but nobody really knows how to utilize it effectively in games just yet. Deploying it in a new Battlefield, FIFA, or The Sims game isn’t likely to happen because it could easily backfire and hurt sales. There’s also the question of regulation, or the lack of it around cryptocurrencies at the moment, which could turn into a minefield for EA. A few days ago it was reported that Ubisoft is also looking at NFTs and blockchain, so this is certainly being taken seriously by the big games publishers.

EA also published its Q2 financial results yesterday, with Wilson stating, “This was the strongest second quarter in the history of Electronic Arts, with more players around the world joining and engaging in our leading franchises, new launches and live services.” He’s also expecting the company to enjoy strong sales over the holiday season, driven by Battlefield 2042, which launches on Nov. 19.