Yet another major publisher is jumping on the NFT bandwagon. Despite reception to blockchain features in games being anything but positive so far, the president of Square Enix seems to think that the future is non-fungible.
In a New Year’s letter, Yosuke Matsuda has indicated that decentralized games using blockchain will be a “major strategic theme” for the company starting in 2022. While the president didn’t name any specific titles introducing the technology, fans of the Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts series are already posting their concerns on social media, as both franchises are celebrating major anniversaries this year. Other buzzwords present throughout the lengthy letter include metaverse, cloud tech, and cryptocurrency.
While Matsuda acknowledges that the technology is disliked by many, he seems to believe that it can also be a catalyst to bring in new audiences.
“I realize that some people who ‘play to have fun’ and who currently form the majority of players have voiced their reservations toward these new trends, and understandably so. However, I believe that there will be a certain number of people whose motivation is to ‘play to contribute,’ by which I mean to help make the game more exciting,” Matsuda explained. He then explained that players having the ability to earn from their digital in-game creations could revitalize user-generated content.
“With advances in token economies, users will be provided with explicit incentives, thereby resulting not only in greater consistency in their motivation, but also creating a tangible upside to their creative efforts. I believe that this will lead to more people devoting themselves to such efforts and to greater possibilities of games growing in exciting ways. From having fun to earning to contributing, a wide variety of motivations will inspire people to engage with games and connect with one another.”
The community of Final Fantasy XIV is already pushing back against these plans, with one Reddit user stating “on the upside, if they add NFT’s to XIV I’ll suddenly have a ton of extra time.” Given how hugely successful the MMO has been for Square Enix, perhaps Square executives will listen to the outcry of this passionate playerbase.