‘It Takes Two’ Director, Josef Fares commented on the recent NFT trend, saying that he would rather be shot than use them in his games.
Josef Fares has been making waves in the gaming industry for years, including when he famously said “F*** the Oscars” at The Game Awards, and more recently, when he won Game of the Year. The award-winning game director is known for speaking his mind, and he recently addressed the issue of NFTs, saying that he would rather be shot than include them in his games.
Fares recently spoke with The Washington Post, in which he defended video games as an art form and chastised companies for tinkering with game mechanics in order to entice players to spend real money. Despite how much money live service games can make, he said that his company, Hazelight Studios, would not make one and that he would rather be “shot in the knee” than include NFTs in future games.
NFTs are becoming more and more popular in the digital world, with some people spending tens of thousands of dollars on them. Amouranth’s NFT bidding based on the likeness of her being one of the famous Twitch streamers, surpassed $125,000. NFTs are surely profitable, but many shouldn’t expect them to appear in any future games developed by Fares and his Hazelight Studios team.
Other video game companies have already begun experimenting with NFTs, largely to the community’s dismay. Ubisoft’s NFT plans, for example, have been widely panned and appear to have failed, but the company remains committed to incorporating NFTs into future projects. Ubisoft appears to believe that as time passes, gamers will accept NFTs more readily, but this remains to be seen.
Meanwhile, NFTs were supposed to be included in STALKER 2: Heart of Chernobyl, but those plans were scrapped. After a lot of backlash from fans, STALKER 2 removed NFTs, so it seems like a pretty risky move to make a game with NFTs in mind right now.
What Hazelight Studios is working on next is a mystery at this time. Fares has a track record of producing high-quality games, with titles such as Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, A Way Out, and It Takes Two all receiving positive feedback. It Takes Two recently got the best reviews, so it’ll be interesting to see what Fares and his talented team come up with next.
