Square Enix President still believes in NFTs and blockchain as the future of gaming

Square Enix president Yosuke Matsuda still believes blockchain is the future. Matsuda, in an interview with Yahoo Japan (translated by VGC), once again emphasized blockchain technology and the use of NFTs in future games. 

Matsuda said, “Until now, in most games, we provided the content as a finished product, and the players played that content. However, there are a certain number of players in the world who want to contribute to making games more interesting, by creating new settings and ways of playing.”

Matsuda wants to encourage the players who wish to contribute by providing “incentives to those who contribute to development by utilizing technologies such as blockchain, there is a possibility that innovative and interesting content can be created from the ideas of users.” The top executive at Square Enix also believes traditional games would be “not enough” for the company in the future and that “in the future, we would like to try our hand at providing ‘autonomous game content’.”

“In the future, we want to utilize the power of these people to create games that will continue to evolve. If instead of relying on goodwill, we can also provide incentives to those who contribute to development by utilizing technologies such as blockchain, there is a possibility that innovative and interesting content can be created from the ideas of users.”, he added in his statements during the interview.

Yosuke Matsuda did not elaborate on how Square Enix would look to implement blockchain-powered games and NFTs in future games by the company.

Yosuke Matsuda's controversial New Year letter and Ubisoft's failed NFTs launch

The President of Square Enix was heavily criticized in January for his New Year open letter to share his excitement and vision for gaming that is focused on blockchain and NFTs. The gaming industry collectively dismissed his concepts which included incentivizing players who create additional content for games through blockchain. He encouraged the “play to earn” concept, claimed user-generated content was limited due to lack of incentives, and that introducing digital incentives can encourage “play to contribute” users to generate more content. 

Much like Square Enix, Ubisoft faced enormous backlash from its fans when they announced the introduction of NFTs in Ghost Recon Breakpoint in 2021. The company introduced Quartz, a platform for players to buy and sell ‘Digits’, the NFTs offered for the game. The idea failed miserably for the studio and Ubisoft went on to even state that their fans “just don’t get” the concept of NFTs. Ghost Recon Breakpoint has stopped receiving newer content recently but despite the NFTs backlash, Ubisoft seems to continue with the idea.