Square Enix’s president doubles down on blockchain and gaming for 2023

Japanese game developer Square Enix will not give up on its blockchain game initiatives, company president Yosuke Matsuda wrote in a letter. Matsuda’s comments come in response to criticism from Square Enix’s fan base over the company’s newfound interest in blockchain games.

Square Enix Currently Developing “More Blockchain Games”

Square Enix reaffirmed its focus on blockchain games despite strong backlash from its fan base, company president Yosuke Matsuda said in a New Year’s letter. Square Enix is ​​best known for its popular game franchises such as Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest.

According to Matsuda’s letter, the Japanese company is working on several new blockchain games and plans to announce more titles later this year. Square Enix is ​​also open to making blockchain-oriented investments and will “continue to take stakes in promising businesses whether we find them in Japan or abroad,” Matsuda added.

“In terms of new business domains, we have named three focus investment fields under our medium-term business plan. Among these, we are most focused on blockchain entertainment, to which we have devoted aggressive investment and business development.”

A New Year’s letter from the President

In the letter, Matsuda emphasized the growing use of the term Web3, which has now become an “established buzzword among business people”. On the flip side, Matsuda also pointed out significant headwinds the blockchain space faced in 2022, such as the FTX collapse and the broader market downturn, but he hopes blockchain games will enter a new stage of growth this year.

That said, Square Enix is ​​looking to double down on blockchain gaming. Matsuda said blockchain technology allows video games to establish their own token economy and reach self-sustaining growth.

“As I said in last year’s New Year letter, if we consider traditional gaming to have become centralized, then blockchain gaming must operate based on a self-sustaining decentralized model. It’s that concept, that philosophy that I see is the key.”

– Matsuda added in the letter.

Square Enix Fanbase Concerned About Poor Quality Of Blockchain Games

Matsuda’s letter comes just a few months after Square Enix unveiled Symbiogenesis – the first original game using Ethereum non-fungible tokens (NFT). Expected to launch this spring, Square Enix describes the game as a “digital collectible art experience” that features storytelling elements.

But the company’s blockchain gaming efforts have not been welcomed by the fanbase, which feels dubious about digital assets and possible environmental damage caused by blockchain technology, as well as the poor quality of blockchain-based games.

Nevertheless, blockchain games have grown in popularity in recent years. A recent report from Delphi Digital showed that investor interest in crypto games has remained robust despite the sector’s overall decline in value. In October 2022, Square Enix’s rival GREE teamed up with Avalanche blockchain developer to create Web3 games.

Do you think blockchain gaming could become one of the mainstream crypto sub-sectors in the next few years? Let us know in the comments below.

About the author

Tim Fries is the co-founder of The Tokenist. He has a B. Sc. in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan, and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Tim served as a Senior Associate in the investment team at RW Baird’s US Private Equity division and is also a co-founder of Protective Technologies Capital, an investment firm specializing in sensing, protection and control solutions.