Ultima Online Creator to Develop New Blockchain Game With NFTs

The developer of the MMORPG Ultima Online, Richard Garriott, is pursuing a blockchain- and NFT-based multiplayer game project. PCGamer reports.

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His partner is Todd Porter, a longtime collaborator.

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“In my view, there aren’t any truly good NFT games at the moment. I haven’t seen anything where I felt the gameplay was really engaging,” Porter said.

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Garriott agreed with him, but noted that too little time has passed since digital collectible items became the main ‘hook’ of blockchain-based developments.

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The partners are at an early stage of the project’s development. The future RPG game currently has no title. It is expected to be a modern realization of the Ultima fantasy universe.

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Porter noted that they have financed development from traditional sources. The partners also plan to obtain additional funds from selling virtual plots as NFTs.

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Token holders will be able to derive income by creating objects such as shops or hotels, and enabling others to use them.

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Garriott noted that selling in-game items is not a new concept in gaming. In the world of Ultima Online in 1997, a vibrant secondary market for such assets existed.

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However, developers believe that blockchain allows organizing sales with clear proof of ownership and uniting various monetization avenues.

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Porter and Garriott said they understand the current skepticism with which players view many crypto-based games. Their future MMORPG is not intended to entangle people in a crypto ecosystem.

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In Garriott’s view, the process of interacting with digital assets remains too complicated, deterring users. They plan to shield players from these problems as much as possible.

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“Blockchain faces the same issue with transaction fees as the real world: they are getting more expensive. So it would be impractical for us to design a game where every object exists in the distributed ledger. That would be prohibitively expensive,” Porter added.

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In January, the French gaming giant Ubisoft faced a negative reaction from users to the attempt to launch the Quartz NFT platform.

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The heads of Japanese studio PlatinumGames also did not see any benefit for players and developers in entering the blockchain-based digital collectibles industry.