Square Enix President Doubles Down on NFT and ‘Pay to Earn’ Games

Square Enix President Yosuke Matsuda once again states that he believes that the company should make ‘pay to earn’ NFT and blockchain games.

In a recent interview with Yahoo Japan, Matsuda said he does not believe that focusing on traditional video games alone will be enough for the company going forward. He believes that Square Enix should create games that allow users to create their own content and be rewarded for their work.

“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.

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.”

The Square Enix President is doubling down on the statements he made in his company’s New Year Letter at the beginning of the year where he expressed Square Enix’s enthusiasm for creating NFT and blockchain games and that there is a potential market in ‘play-to-earn’ games.

“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.”

The letter has been heavily criticized by fans, with many not liking the implication that people playing video games just to have fun are no longer good enough for a large gaming company like Square Enix.

As of this article Square Enix is yet to actually announce an NFT game so we have yet to see how that turns out however considering how badly Ubisoft’s NFT ventures have been, they should probably proceed with caution.

It should be noted that the use of NFTs that Matsuda desires, allowing users to create their own content, has been done without NFTs for years, and from what we’ve seen, the determents of NFTs far outweigh any potential advantages if may have (if there are any).