Square Enix president hopes NFTs become a major part of video games
Yosuke Matsuda, president of Square Enix, hopes blockchain technology and NFTs become a significant trend in video games.
In a New Year letter published on Square Enix’s website, Matsuda outlines several emerging technology trends, such as cloud computing, the metaverse, and cryptocurrency — with blockchain and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) being a significant talking point.
“The advent of NFTs using blockchain technology significantly increased the liquidity of digital goods, enabling the trading of a variety of such goods at high prices and sparking conversations the world over,” Matsuda said. “I see 2021 not only as ‘Metaverse: Year One,’ but also as ‘NFTs: Year One’ given that it was a year in which NFTs were met with a great deal of enthusiasm by a rapidly expanding user base.”
NFTs are a hot-button topic within the video games industry as of late. Dead By Daylight studio Behaviour Interactive faced significant blowback from fans over an NFT collaboration, while Ubisoft fans reacted similarly over the company’s new blockchain technology. However, the worst backlash of all was over S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl’s NFT integration. Things got so ugly that its developer GSC Game World outright removed NFTs from the game.
Matsuda knows most people that play video games regularly aren’t responding well to NFTs but believes that the controversial technology might lure in a new audience.
“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,” Matsuda explains. “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.”
Many fans and industry figures are already unhappy about the Square Enix president’s words.
“Traditional gaming has offered no explicit incentive to this latter group of people, who were motivated strictly by such inconsistent personal feelings as goodwill and volunteer spirit,” Matsuda says. “It is blockchain-based tokens that will enable this. By designing viable token economies into our games, we will enable self-sustaining game growth.”
Matsuda continues: “It is precisely this sort of ecosystem that lies at the heart of what I refer to as ‘decentralized gaming,’ and I hope that this becomes a major trend in gaming going forward. If we refer to the one-way relationship where game players and game providers are linked by games that are finished products as ‘centralized gaming’ to contrast it with decentralized gaming, then incorporating decentralized games into our portfolio in addition to centralized games will be a major strategic theme for us starting in 2022.”
It seems Square Enix will be in the NFT business soon enough.
Written by Kyle Campbell on behalf of GLHF.