Who could forget Square Enix’s cursed 2021 New Year’s letter with its “play to have fun” and “play to contribute” nonsense? As most developers went back to their already announced blockchain and NFT plans, CEO Yosuke Matsuda touted it as the future of Square Enix, and went on to double down on it in future statements. Well, a year has passed and nothing seems to have changed since almost half of Matsuda’s 2023 New Year’s letter was about blockchain.
New Year’s letters aren’t really meant to mean much – ideally they summarize major events, thank the relevant people and create vague excitement about the company’s plans for the year. Matsuda’s letter did all of these things, but seems to have got the proportions wrong, as it mentions the word “blockchain” 14 times – that’s 14 times more than anyone needs to say.
He started the letter by talking about inflation, Russia’s attack on Ukraine, rising prices, supply chain disruptions, mass layoffs and the Covid hangover. The letter claimed that with all this in mind, Square Enix has implemented structural reforms to secure its future. On the development side, that meant selling the three Western studios to the Embracer Group, to “concentrate our resources as the increasing sophistication and complexity of game development has made such endeavors more expensive to pursue.”
“In terms of new business domains, we have named three focus investment fields under our medium-term business plan,” Matsude said. “Among these, we are most focused on blockchain entertainment, to which we have devoted aggressive investment and business development. Looking externally, I think it is fair to say that blockchain gained significant recognition as a field in 2022, as evidenced by “Web 3.0″ becomes a well-established buzzword among business people.”
But he noted the controversies surrounding NFTs and the FTX debacle. However, he went on to mention that Japan has been working on mastering Web 3.0.
“Our group has several blockchain games based on original IPs in development, some of which we announced last year, and we are making preparations that will enable us to unveil even more titles this year,” he concluded. “We are also engaged in global sourcing from an investment perspective and will continue to take stakes in promising businesses whether we find them in Japan or abroad. Blockchain has been an object of excitement and a source of unease, but with that in the rearview mirror, we hope we that blockchain gaming will move into a new stage of growth in 2023.”
