Square Enix has once again emphasized plans to invest in blockchain and NFTs
Square Enix has already shown a desire to invest heavily in blockchain and NFT technology for the gaming industry. Last year, Square Enix president Yosuke Matsuda supported the idea of incorporating blockchain into upcoming Square Enix projects, but the company faced criticism for this announcement.
Despite the criticism, the Square Enix president has once again stated that blockchain and NFT are a big focus for the gaming giant going forward.
The president claims that Square Enix will continue to invest in blockchain. In a New Year’s letter he said:
“The medium-term business strategy that we unveiled in May 2020 identified ai, the cloud and blockchain games as emerging domains.”
“We have subsequently been aggressive in our R&D efforts and investments in these areas”
Yosuke Matsuda has further elaborated blockchain integration in future game releases. This game genre would be built on one token economy, enabling concepts such as “play to earn”.
As mentioned earlier, Yosuke Matsuda’s previous letter received some criticism for similar points. Gaming fans and enthusiasts were not fond of Matsuda’s “play to earn” vision for future games, and they were quick to express this disappointment.
Many have already been frustrated by the growing trend of microtransactions and live service models with almost every new release. As such, it’s easy to see why blockchain gaming was a cause for concern.
However, the president attempted to address some of these concerns in the latest letter. Speaking about the hesitancy surrounding blockchain and NFTs, he stated:
“I realize that some people who ‘play for fun’ have expressed their reservations about these new trends, and understandably so.”
“But I think that there will be a certain number of players whose motivation is to ‘play to contribute’ to help make the game more exciting.”
He explains that token economies will encourage users to produce higher quality content which will be an extension of the games. In previous years, many users have created mods for games that range from bug fixes, new content, and major overhauls in certain cases.
Yosuke Matsuda’s vision takes aim self-sustaining game growth through this player contribution model driven by various incentives. He also claims that blockchain games are currently in the early stages with a lot of room for growth.
Square Enix isn’t the only gaming giant targeting blockchain and NFTs for future games. Last year, Ubisoft also tried its luck with these technologies, but they were met with poor reception, and Ubisoft employees pushed back against the idea.
However, Square Enix appears to be fully dedicated to the pursuit of a blockchain-focused future for the gaming industry, and shows no signs of backing down.
Read next: Atlus is reportedly working on a remake of Persona 3
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