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 received criticism for this announcement.
Despite the criticism, the Square Enix President has once again stated that blockchain and NFTs are a huge focus for the gaming giant moving forward.
The President claims that Square Enix will continue to invest in blockchain. In a New Year’s letter, he stated:
“The Medium-termed business strategy that we unveiled in may, 2020 identified ai, the cloud and blockchain games as new domains.”
“We have subsequently been agressive in our r&D efforts and investments in those areas”
Yosuke Matsuda has further elaborated on blockchain integration in future game releases. This genre of gaming would be built on a token economy, enabling concepts like ‘play to earn’.
As stated earlier, Yosuke Matsuda’s previous letter received a fair amount of 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 with the increasing trend of micro-transactions and live-service models with nearly every new release. As such, it is easy to see why blockchain games were a cause for concern.
However, the President attempted to address some of these concerns in the latest letter. Talking about the hesitation around blockchain and NFTs, he stated:
“I realize that some people who ‘play to have fun’ have voiced their reservations toward these new trends, and understandably so.”
“However, I believe 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 incentivize users to produce higher-quality content that will become an extension of the games. In previous years, many users have created mods for games that range from bug fixes, new content and huge overhauls in certain cases.
Yosuke Matsuda’s vision aims for self-sustaining game growth through this model of player contribution driven by various incentives. He also claims that blockchain games are currently in the early stages with lots of room for growth.
Square Enix is not the only gaming giant to target 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 its pursuit of a blockchain-focused future for the gaming industry, showing no signs of backing off.
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