The CEO of Square Enix announced in a letter that the company will place a major focus on NFTs in 2022. The news was not well received in large parts of the gaming community. Even fans of Final Fantasy XIV expressed concerns about NFTs in their MMORPG.
This is what Square Enix announced: The CEO of the Japanese RPG studio, Yosuke Matsuda, addressed investors and fans of the company in a New Year letter. In it, he roughly outlined the new priorities Square Enix would focus on in 2022.
Matsuda primarily talked about the metaverse, NFTs, and blockchain games in the letter. The CEO sees potential in the technologies and features to become the future of gaming, enabling developers to create new “self-sustaining games.”
Based on the attention that blockchain and NFTs received in 2021, Matsuda anticipates a shift within the gaming industry. Accordingly, Square Enix plans to participate in this change:
I understand that some players, who “play for fun” and currently make up the majority, have expressed skepticism towards these new trends, and that is understandable. However, I believe that there will be a certain number of people whose motivation is “play to contribute.” By that, I mean they want to make the games more exciting. Traditional gaming has not given this group of players an explicit incentive to do so. […]
CEO of Square Enix, Yosuke Matsuda
According to Matsuda, NFTs should also demand “User Generated Content”, meaning content created by the players themselves to express their creativity. This type of content can now be rewarded and encouraged through NFTs, according to the CEO.
He also refers to the “Play to Earn” concept, which, for example, underlies MMORPGs like MIR4. In it, players can earn real money through grinding.
You can read here what NFTs in gaming are:
The FFXIV community is concerned about their MMORPG
This is what FFXIV players are saying: The news from Matsuda has made waves in the FFXIV community. Players on reddit and in the official forums have expressed concerns that NFTs could also make their way into their MMORPG.
In a large thread with over 3,700 upvotes, players expressed disappointment and spoke out firmly against it. Some expressed hopes that the director of FFXIV, Naoki Yoshida, could prevent NFTs from being implemented in FFXIV. Others warned that Yoshida might not have much say in such a decision.
Some players even announced that they would cancel their subscriptions if NFTs were indeed to come to FFXIV.
If they put the NFT stuff in a main FF game, then I’m out. […] If the NFTs are banished to the mobile side of Square Enix that is not made by Division 3 [developers of FFXIV], then I will ignore them. As soon as it spreads to things that I could play or buy, I’m out.
RekaAiA on reddit (571 Upvotes)
In another thread, a player half-jokingly threatened to pull NFT owners in MMORPG into deadly area attacks. The thread received over 6,600 upvotes and much support.
Some players also indirectly blamed NFTs for the server issues of FFXIV, which have been persistent for months and have led to extremely long queue times when logging in. In a letter to the players, director Yoshida explained that the problems were due to the global shortage of semiconductors for the required hardware.
And while he did not mention NFTs, some players perceive them as partly responsible for the semiconductor shortage. The GPUs and CPUs needed for mining are being bought up in large quantities by miners and also require the scarce semiconductors.
In the official forums, it was also noted that NFTs in FFXIV would be another form of monetization in the already paid MMORPG:
- The base game and the addons of FFXIV must be purchased
- There is a monthly subscription
- There is an optional cash shop with cosmetic items, level boosts, and story skips
- Various services such as changing character appearance or server transfer are chargeable
Another segment of players discussed the unlikelihood of NFTs coming to FFXIV. They believe the necessary infrastructure is lacking and that it would cause problems with Steam. The MMORPG is available there, but Valve has banned blockchain games on its platform.
These are the reactions: Even outside the FFXIV bubble, there were many users on social media like Twitter, in official forums, and on reddit who reacted negatively to the news about NFTs. The most criticized was the CEO’s statement that SE is aware that a large part of the player base is against NFT trends, yet the company still wants to push in this direction.
In the comments, these users discussed that Square Enix wanted to turn their games into jobs where players are supposed to earn money:
- “Why have fun when you can make money?”
- “You can really feel the contempt in the quotation marks around ‘playing for fun.'” – ZoBo
- “Play to contribute sounds like a slogan from a dystopian movie.” – Pip Squeak
It was also criticized that the letter from CEO Matsuda contained only “signal words for investors” and did not list any concrete application possibilities for NFTs in Square Enix games that would make them more fun, innovative, and interesting.
The reactions are not surprising. The publisher Ubisoft had to hide their video about NFTs on YouTube because it received over 22,000 dislikes and just over 1,000 likes.
What is your opinion on NFTs? Would you support them if they were to be implemented in FFXIV, or would you prefer to stay away from them? Let us know in the comments.
