We talked about Ubisoft launching its own NTF platform, Quartz, not too long ago. The announcement made by the French company was received with a lot of critics, mainly by players who play games just for fun. Most players don't like the impact that such a change could have in gaming if it extends to major AAA franchises, but Ubisoft is not the only developer thinking about going that route. Square Enix president Yosuke Matsuda discusses the future of the company in a recent letter, and he reveals that it may follow the current trend about NFTs and metaverse.
First, he comments on the importance of the metaverse and its opportunities. Then he talks about the relevance of the "play to earn" concept and the growth of blockchain games. A majority of players acknowledge these facts, and it's quite clear that the new technologies are here to stay whether the players see them as a positive thing or not. In any case, Matsuda's words hint at Square Enix exploring their possibilities in the future:
"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. 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. This fact is not unrelated to the limitations of existing UGC (user-generated content). UGC has been brought into being solely because of individuals' desire for self-expression and not because any explicit incentive existed to reward them for their creative efforts. I see this as one reason that there haven't been as many major game-changing content that were user generated as one would expect."
The path of Square Enix seems to be going the NFT/metaverse route in the future, but the company has not announced any NFT platform, currency, or possible games where it may apply as Ubisoft did with Quartz and Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint. Valve has already declared its opposition to adding NFT games to Steam, so it will be interesting to see the effect the new technologies will have on Square Enix's franchises. Will the millions of players enjoying Final Fantasy XIV MMORPG adventures or the fans of Dragon Quest XI like the idea of NFT cosmetics?
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