Square-Enix’s president is still bullish on the prospect of NFTs and blockchain in gaming

April 19, 2022 9:30 AM

Have you forgotten about president Yosuke Matsuda’s buzzword-laden blockchain pitch from the start of the year? It’s entirely possible you have, since in the subsequent weeks and months there’s been no motion on Square-Enix’s part to actually sell this vision of an NFT-laden game-adjacent hellscape. But a recent Yahoo Japan interview with Yosuke Matsuda features his doubling down on his earlier claims. In the abbreviated piece, which features a question about buying Microsoft stock 20 years ago and a question about “autonomous game content,” Matsuda uses the platform to repeat the idea that blockchain gaming would enable continuous content generation and provide an incentive for players to make new content for games.

The fact that player-made content is actually quite popular already among players with no financial incentives to create it and has been for as long as gaming has existed goes unnoted, of course. Also not noted is the fact that thus far entries into blockchain gaming have not been terribly successful, with Ubisoft’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint NFTs failing to find any traction and leading to the game going into maintenance mode shortly thereafter. Let’s also not forget the major Axie Infinity hack alongside its existing problems. It’s a bad plan, in other words, but it appears that Matsuda is still quite committed to the idea.

Also worth noting is that Final Fantasy XIV producer and director Naoki Yoshida previously vowed that NFTs are not coming to the game; you can read more about the implications of the original letter in our column at the time.)