Square Enix, a Japanese game company, continues to pursue its vision of integrating blockchain elements into its games. In a recent interview, company president Yosuke Matsuda talked about the importance of user-generated content and the benefits that allowing this kind of development and the introduction of a self-sustaining blockchain-based economy could bring to the future of the gaming industry.
Square Enix will double down on blockchain and offline content
Square Enix is doubling down on its business plan to incorporate blockchain elements into its games in the not-too-distant future. The company, which was already planning an active entry into the game world of blockchain, now seems interested in using these tools to create a self-sustaining economy in game worlds.
Yosuke Matsuda, president of Square Enix, in a recent interviewgiven to Yahoo News, confirmed the compromise he and the company intend to make in the future. For Matsuda, user-generated content is very important, and he insists on rewarding creators of such content directly with some in-game currency. He said:
If you use technology like blockchain rather than relying on good intentions, if you incentivize those who have contributed to development, there is a chance that content with innovative fun will be born out of user ideas.
This inclusion of user-generated content will also supposedly help create games that can thrive out of the hands of the original developers even after support from the original developers has ceased, if there is sufficient interest from third-party creators.
This isn’t the first time Matsuda has expressed his views on the future of games and cryptocurrency elements. In a New Year’s letter in January, Matsuda talked about how he thinks blockchain could change the way players and builders can become part of a more immersive gaming experience.
On how to achieve such immersion, Matsuda said the following:
Blockchain-based tokens are what will make it possible. By creating a viable token economy in our games, we will ensure the self-sustaining growth of games.”
However, Square Enix has been pretty conservative when it comes to developing games for franchises like Final Fantasy or Kingdom Hearts based on blockchain and token mechanics. In fact, Naoki Yoshida, director and producer of Final Fantasy XIV, denied any possibility of including NFT in the game in February.
Other Japanese companies, such as Sega, are also ambivalent about NFT. Although the company announced in January that it might give up experimenting with NFTs if players deemed them a “money grab,” it has also hinted at their possible inclusion in the Super Game.
Image credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons