Yosuke Matsuda, president of Square Enix, has affirmed his desire for the game publisher to develop ‘play to earn’ blockchain games.
According to an interview with Yahoo, he said that traditional games are “not enough” for Square Enix in the future. Instead, he plans to propose games with the primary focus on Play-to-Earn: a now-popular system commonly found in blockchain games.
“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 is known for his full support of creating NFT games despite the heavy negative backlash he received from his New Year 2022 open letter. In his message, the president stated that blockchain games “hold the potential to enable self-sustaining game growth”.
He insists that the P2E system will help shape the growth of games into their own self-sustaining economy that allows players to earn real money from playing. Based on his letter, he said that many players voiced their skepticism towards SE’s plans, although there will be some players who want to “play to contribute” and earn income from doing so.
Still Yet to Win the Crowd
The message from Yosuke Matsuda caused a huge uproar in the gaming community, stating that he did nothing more than just follow the trend. Furthermore, game designers and developers such as Brand Sheffield and Shahid Ahmad expressed their negative views towards blockchain gaming as nothing more than ruining the entire experience and the whole purpose of people playing video games.
Veteran voice actor Troy Baker – popular for his roles including Joel (The Last of Us) and Pagan Min (Far Cry 4) – announced in 2021 that he would sell his compilation of voiced dialogues as NFTs. Unfortunately, what was supposed to be an ideal product quickly became an upsetting sellout. Gamers on social media directly tagged Baker, showing disgust over his interest in blockchain technology. After receiving an influx of nasty messages, he immediately lifted the NFT collection and removed his announcement.
Will Other Gaming Companies Follow Square Enix?
Undoubtedly, Square Enix has made some questionable product releases, including The Avengers’ overall quality and the by-chapter launch of the Final Fantasy VII remake. At one time, they even sought to make battle royale games as well especially after the trend blew out of proportions back in 2017.
Other gaming companies like Microsoft and Ubisoft share their support for blockchain games in the future and want to become part of the metaverse. The only issue that keeps stopping them from continuing to push forward is their own consumers. Since blockchain technology is still new to the masses, people are heavily against the idea of change – especially a big one in the gaming genre.
Despite the 8% spike in Square Enix’s share price since Yosuke Harada’s statement, the gaming community is still transparent about their reason against blockchain technology replacing the tradition with a P2E system that rewards those that continue to play the games.
