And Apparently, He’d Rather Get Shot in the Knee Than Add NFTs to His Games
Josef Fares, movie director and developer of the Game of the Year, It Takes Two, is one of the more refreshingly blunt figures in the video game industry. He became infamous for his comment on the Oscars during the Game Awards in 2017, saying “F the Oscars”. But Fares seems to be the type to say what he wants to say, straight from the heart.
This is why it’s not surprising that he has an equally blunt statement when asked about putting NFTs in his games, like Ubisoft, and even Kickstarter has decided to do as of late.
Fares said in a Washington Post interview that he’d rather get “shot in the knee” than include NFTs in games. Fares elaborates on this, saying:
“Let me tell you this: Whatever decision you take in a game, where you have to adjust the design to make the player pay or do something that makes you want him to pay money, that is wrong, if you ask me. If you make a game [with the goal of telling] a story, I think it’s wrong,” Fares said. “Now, if you ask a big CEO that runs a company, he would say I’m stupid because companies are about making money. But I would still say no. For me, gaming is art.”
As Fares is behind such games as award-winning games such as It Takes Two and A Way Out from 2018, this is refreshing news to hear, especially as he is also the founder of Hazellight studios.
But whether we will be seeing a new game soon from Hazellight Studios, or Fares will make a movie in the meantime, that’s difficult to say. Fares admit that making a movie is different than creating a video game, as they are vastly different experiences, saying that video game creation is far more complex than making a movie.
“It’s interactive entertainment. You have your audience going loose, and you’re creating everything from the ground up,” Fares said. He continued, saying, “[With a movie], you have an actor, you have a human being, you have a voice, you have movement, you have environment, you have sound, you have over 100 years of how to plan a movie and do a script. … And it’s a much more controllable medium.”
While we don’t know what may come in 2022 or later from Fares…in the meantime, it’s just good to hear someone from the video game industry saying no to NFTs.