French gaming company Ubisoft has launched a blockchain collectibles game called Rabbids Tokens to raise money for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), a Venture Beat report said.
Raving Rabbids, or Lapins crétins, is a video game series from Ubisoft. The series is quite popular and has been featured in other Ubisoft games, and also as a TV show and a feature film. Ubisoft is launching Rabbids collectibles as tokens, each with unique properties, design, and value.
These Rabbids tokens can be traded like cards, but the caveat here is you cannot own them permanently. Based on the Ethereum blockchain, Rabbids can be stored in the user’s blockchain wallet temporarily. Another user who wants to buy the token needs to ‘grab’ it from the current owner by paying in Ethers.
Each time the collectible token passes onto a new owner, it will take a new visual form. The proceeds raised from these token transactions will be directed to the UNICEF cryptocurrency fund. Although the user doesn’t get to own the token permanently, they are given a Proof of Plausible Ownership (POPO), which can be stored in the blockchain wallet.
Ubisoft seems to be drawing parallels for the collectibles from the nature of the Rabbids in the game, i.e., wild and mischievous. When the Rabbids are in the wallet, the users can pamper them, a similar concept to Cryptokitties.
While the POPO is proof that a user briefly owned the token, it also serves as a proof of donation to the UNICEF. The POPO cannot be traded or exchanged.
Ubisoft’s Strategic Innovation Lab created the Rabbid tokens. The company said this exploratory project could help Ubisoft gauge the potential of blockchain and token economy before incorporating them into the core business.
UNICEF France and the Ubisoft previously collaborated on a children’s rights initiative. And Ubisoft has partnered with numerous blockchain gaming startups in its Ubisoft Entrepreneurs Lab, including sports collectibles firm Sorare.
Meanwhile, Ubisoft, ConsenSys, Enjin, AMD, and a few others have formed the Blockchain Game Alliance (BGA) to explore the use of blockchain in gaming platforms.
Last year, Ubisoft joined ULTRA’s blockchain networks as a game transaction validator.
