Square Enix doubles down on NFT games

The publisher behind Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and more has released a New Year letter pledging the company’s support for NFT and blockchain games.

Square Enix, the publisher behind massive series like Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and Nier, has released a New Year letter reaffirming support for controversial NFT and blockchain games.

NFTs are digital tokens that are minted on a blockchain, which is a digital ledger that can’t be changed once written to. They’re largely considered controversial, because they’ve traditionally used a lot of energy to process and because they’re seen as solving very few problems with their implementation.

The letter, published on Square Enix’s website and written by Square Enix Holdings president Yosuke Matsuda, says that the company is “most focused on blockchain entertainment”, and that it’s devoted a lot of effort into the field. Matsuda said that blockchain “gained significant recognition” in 2022, which he says is evidence of a potential shift in the market.

Square Enix publishes PlatinumGames’ Nier series, including Nier: Automata and its mobile spin-off. Picture: Square Enix

“We are most focused on blockchain entertainment, to which we have devoted aggressive investment and business development efforts,” Matsuda said in the letter, “I think it is fair to say that blockchain gained significant recognition as a field in 2022, as evidenced by ‘Web 3.0’ becoming a firmly established buzzword among businesspeople.”

That said, Matsuda did acknowledge that not all of that “significant recognition” was good, after 2022 saw a massive collapse of NFT and blockchain markets due to a variety of factors. He says that this collapse, particularly in reference to the scandalous bankruptcy of FTX, should result in more regulation of blockchain technologies, which could result in a more stable path forward for the company.

As noted by TheGamer, the letter mentions the word “blockchain” 14 times in the letter, with another four mentions of “NFT” throughout. Matsuda previously penned a similar letter for New Years in 2022, where he similarly praised the technology.

Square Enix is both developer and publisher of the Final Fantasy series. Picture: Square Enix

Not all companies are on board, however. The Pokemon Company recently took an NFT game to court over its allegedly unauthorised use of Pokemon characters and its developers misrepresenting their relationship with the company.

Notably, a lawyer representing The Pokemon Company said that “The Pokemon Company and Nintendo had made a deliberate decision not to launch any Pokemon NFTs”, suggesting that neither company has any interest in pursuing the technology.

Nintendo has had to promise to fix its own Pokemon games though, after the latest games, Scarlet and Violet, released in a “buggy and broken” state.

Written by Oliver Brandt on behalf of GLHF.