Square Enix Exploring NFTs in 2022
Square Enix was created on April 1st, 2003, by the merger of two game developers, Square and Enix. It is best known for its role-playing game franchises, which include Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. The company has more than 1,500 employees, with headquarters in Tokyo.
Square Enix started out as a computer game developer in the 1980s with their first ever release of ‘The Death Trap’ (1980) for the Apple II home computer. They also released ‘Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord’ (1981) for the PC-8801 home computer; this was their first major success. They continued to grow and produce many new games including ‘Chrono Trigger’ (1995) and ‘Kingdom Hearts
Final Fantasy is a video game series that is considered to be one of the most popular and influential role-playing game franchises in history.
The Final Fantasy series has sold over 130 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling video game franchises in history. The series has been critically acclaimed for its innovation and groundbreaking visuals, music, and narratives. The franchise includes 15 games released across thirteen platforms with multiple spin-off titles. The word “Final” does not in any way refer to the ending of the series; rather it refers to the challenging difficulty that endears the games to their fans.
In President of Square Enix New Years Letter, Yosuke Matsuda the leader of one of the worlds top gaming companies discussed at length how NFTs and COVID will change the future of gaming forever.
The advent of NFTs using blockchain technology significantly increased the liquidity of digital goods, enabling the trading of a variety of such goods at high prices and sparking conversations the world over. I see 2021 not only as “Metaverse: Year One,” but also as “NFTs: Year One” given that it was a year in which NFTs were met with a great deal of enthusiasm by a rapidly expanding user base. However, we do observe examples here and there of overheated trading in NFT-based digital goods with somewhat speculative overtones, regardless of the observed value of the content provided This, obviously, is not an ideal situation, but I expect to see an eventual right-sizing in digital goods deals as they become more commonplace among the general public, with the value of each available content corrected to their true estimated worth, and I look for them to become as familiar as dealings in physical goods.
He went on to discuss the blockchain at large
Lastly is blockchain games. Be they single-player or online games, games have traditionally involved a unidirectional flow whereby creators such as ourselves provide a game to the consumers that play them. By contrast, blockchain games, which have emerged from their infancy and are at this very moment entering a growth phase, are built upon the premise of a token economy and therefore hold the potential to enable self-sustaining game growth. The driver that most enables such self-sustaining game growth is diversity, both in how people engage with interactive content like games, and in their motivations for doing so. Advances in token economies will likely add further momentum to this trend of diversification. I see the “play to earn” concept that has people so excited as a prime example of this.
