In a move that almost no one likes, Square Enix is partnering with NFT company Enjin to bundle digital NFT collectibles with physical action figures to “celebrate” the 25th.th anniversary of Final Fantasy VII. This continues the trend of gaming companies choosing the most inappropriate pairings for NFT products possible. For example, Sega has previously announced Sonic the Hedgehog-related NFTs, a franchise that has a strong environmental message as Sonic fought Dr. Robotnic to protect the flora and fauna from the mad scientist. The first conflict of Final Fantasy VII pitted the heroic resistance group Avalanche against the Shinra Corporation, a corporation that tapped the very lifeblood of the planet to power their Mako reactors. Seeing a game with such a message used alongside environmentally destructive NFT production sends a particularly bad message to fans about the developer.
It is well established that whether associated with digital art or video games, NFTs are bad for the environment, as the process of generating blockchain-based authentication for a file uses absurd amounts of electricity. Where Shinra at least damaged the planet to run a power grid for a city, Square Enix is now doing the same for the baffling profit of NFTs. This makes the modern Square Enix closer to Shinra than ever, and illustrates that the real message of Final Fantasy VII has nothing to do with environmental protection, and everything to do with establishing a popular IP and squeezing all possible profit from it, regardless of the cost to our real planet.
NFTs, or Non-Fungible Tokens, use the same blockchain technology utilized by cryptocurrencies to generate a complex digital “certificate” that artificially designates one particular file, otherwise functionally identical to every other copy, as somehow unique because it is “authenticated.” In an article from VentureBeatthe publication notes that Enjin, the NFT vendor Square Enix works with, is “committed to being carbon neutral by 2030,” which leaves another seven years of unnecessary pollution, when a simpler and more immediate solution is to stop making NFTs.
Final Fantasy 7’s Shinra damaged the environment for better reasons than NFTs
Unlike the quandaries of finding environmentally safe ways to power people’s homes or the vehicles they use, NFTs are completely unnecessary. They provide nothing useful to the consumer, as digital marketplaces have operated for years without resorting to blockchain-based tactics. When Square Enix sold Grave robber IP and most of its Western development studios to the Embracer Group, many fans were concerned about their announcement of plans to use the funds to invest in NFTs, and FF7 partnership with Enjin confirms these fears. Comparing typical NFT production power expenditures with data from the Energy Information Administration shows that these blockchain certificates generate approximately 120 pounds of CO2 for each completed NFT “authenticated.”
Enjin claims to be carbon negative now, but this is based on their purchase of carbon credits, not the NFT creation process, meaning the company is trying to compensate for environmental damage they could avoid entirely by simply not making NFTs. Square Enix’s NFT plans to make further money FF7 harm our planet, and show disregard for Final Fantasy VII fans who appreciated the message by acting against everything the game stood for – and all to produce pointless digital certifications that no one really needs.
Sources: VentureBeat, Enjin
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