Is something wrong with Square Enix? The video game industry abhors NFTs. Yet, as one of the more prominent video game companies (the Japanese publisher is worth roughly $5.9 billion), it insists on sinking money into it.
Case in point, just weeks after fans believed that Square Enix was reviving Parasite Eve, the company confirmed that Symbiogenesis is an NFT project.
Square Enix referred to Symbiogenesis as an “NFT Collectible Art Project” that will launch in Spring 2023, which Square Enix described in the official press release as:
SYMBIOGENESIS is brand-new entertainment content set in a self-contained world where a wide cast of characters symbiosis, all of which can be collected as digital art; an interactive story and a dedicated community. The art can be used for social media profile pictures (PFP) and as a character in a story that takes place in an alternate world where the player can ‘untangle’ a mystery by completing missions that revolve around questions of the monopolization and distribution of resources. With each strategic move players make, more of the story unfolds.
It’s unclear why Square Enix insists on pursuing NFTs when the rest of the gaming industry has made their thoughts about the subject known. Ubisoft is now “pretending” that it was never interested in NFTs in the first place, which is pretty much the only potential recourse. The ideal scenario is for Square Enix to sweep this under the rug and pretend that it never invested in NFTs in the first place. Instead, Square Enix is doubling down. This comes after the company faced backlash for its Final Fantasy VII NFTs, which gamers described as very opposite of the anti-corporation and eco-friendly theme of the game.
At the very least, Square Enix is still making games. After offloading its western subsidiaries earlier this year, Square Enix is all-in on the JRPG train. Fans are either looking forward to or already playing Harvestella, Tactics Ogre: Reborn, and Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion, among others.
Hopefully, the continued success of its JRPG ventures and the failure of its NFT endeavors will encourage Square Enix to give up the latter to focus even more on the former.
