Square Enix Looks to the Metaverse and NFTs, Fans Express Dissent

Prominent game developer Square Enix kicked off the New Year with big plans after the company’s president, Yosuke Matsuda, announced that they plan on expanding into the world of NFTs, blockchain games, and the metaverse through a letter posted on their website. The metaverse became “a hot topic in 2021, inspiring a lively global conversation first about what the metaverse is and then about what sort of business opportunities it presents,” opened Matsuda.

He called 2021 the “Metaverse Year” taking special note of Facebook’s rebranding to Meta which was concrete “evidence that the concept is not a mere buzzword but here to stay. I attribute this in large part to advances in extended reality (XR) technology, the increasing prevalence of the cloud and 5G, more sophisticated blockchain technology, and other technological evolutions that have taken place in a variety of fields over the past several years.”

“The metaverse will likely see a meaningful transition to a business phase in 2022, with a wide range of services appearing on the scene,” he added. “As this abstract concept begins to take concrete shape in the form of product and service offerings, I am hoping that it will bring about changes that have a more substantial impact on our business as well.”

Moving over to NFTs, Matsuda also believes that 2021 “was a year in which NFTs were met with a great deal of enthusiasm by a rapidly expanding user base” and that he “expect[s] to see an eventual right-sizing in digital goods deals as they become more commonplace among the general public” in an effort to mitigate “overheated trading.”

Lastly, Matsuda touched on how blockchain games “have emerged from their infancy and are at this very moment entering a growth phase, are built upon the premise of a token economy and therefore hold the potential to enable self-sustaining game growth.” He ends his letter by saying “We are seeing the beginnings of further leaps forward for our business. We remain committed to creating, developing, and providing world-class content, and we will contribute to the happiness of society and its people by offering new forms of excitement.”

Following the release of this letter, Square Enix fans rushed to voice their concerns about the company’s plans of entering the scene of emerging technologies. Players of Final Fantasy 14, in particular, were worried about how this might affect the long-running game and its massive player base which have been sustained by constant updates to the title.

The reputation of NFTs and similar ventures within the gaming industry have largely been hit-or-miss, especially given the controversies surrounding these emerging technologies and talks of how unsustainable they are.  While Square Enix appears to remain keen on traveling down this road, fans are hopeful that the financial blunders of other companies who have gone before would make the company change its course in due time.

Sources: IGN SEA, Game Rant