Well, I guess they called it too soon. Wait, was that NFT thing they did so bad, it made Square Enix board reconsider things? Well, pretty much because they're changing their stance on the cryptocurrency and NFT investments. A bit of damage control before it becomes too late for them to fix it. Well, good for them, they gave their Eidos Montreal and other western subsidiaries to a good buyer (Embracer Group), and now they want us to know they're putting their money in the right place.
In a recent press briefing, Square Enix revealed that the very reason why they sold Eidos and others were because they wanted to solidify their existing IPs by investing in sequels, remakes, remasters, spin-offs, and other transmedia projects ongoing (and some online gaming projects too). Meaning it's all about the video games, and that they've corrected their itinerary to soften the blow from cryptocurrency backlash.
There are a few areas to look into, and I guess discuss as to why they changed their minds about this as soon as they did.
More NFTs? More Like No NFTs
The NFT market after a year of pumping on largely speculative values, finally crashed within the end of 2021. Since then, they have not recovered yet and the cryptocurrency market also took a big slump till now. Around the start of the year, is where Square Enix announced they're investing into cryptocurrency and NFTs, majorly.
Yes, it seems to be recovering now, but the market is in a large state of uncertainty and since Square Enix can see that their games are doing so well now, with upcoming releases this year like Forspoken, yet to be slated games like the new Star Ocean game and Valkyrie sequel from Tri-Ace, Diofield Chronicle with Monark developer, and Final Fantasy 16 which Yoshi-P states that is in final stage and will be done next year.
So yes, a lot of games. On top of that, the cherry which the briefing reveals is also a new Just Cause game that is in production. Not much has been confirmed about whom the developer is, as we've known it's always been Avalanche Studios. The 5th game, by chance could be a mobile game. I kind of doubt that, but anything is possible.
To quote Matsuda from this briefing "The transaction's primary purpose was a reorientation of our portfolio, we especially revisited our studio and title portfolios from the perspective of stepping up our offering of online titles that we develop for the North American and the European market. We want to focus on creating new titles that align with our strategy, including ones that leverage new IP. The JUST CAUSE franchise will remain our IP, and we are at work developing a new title in the franchise."
Future Is A Double Edged Sword
It seems, in another way, Square Enix is fully focusing on investment towards studios they have worked with or help find other new studios based in Japan. This is a good initiative, after Sony's liquidizing of Japan Studio, people have started to think that the gaming industry in Japan was a sinking ship, yet again.
No, it was just Sony selling themselves out to the west, just like what Capcom did. I hope that bites them back in the near future. But the biggest studio they're trying to invest in, is Tri-Ace, whose last game I played, Resonance of Fate, was a pretty interesting game released 12 years ago. They are still working as a publisher for Western games, for the likes of Life is Strange, Outriders, and so on.
Putting aside the success of Final Fantasy 14, which Yoshi-P is to take credit for, Square Enix has major plans for online games as well. They are as important to them now as single-player games at the moment. They have major plans, based on this other quote by Matsuda: "We will not necessarily be focusing exclusively on online titles, but they do represent a key area of interest for us going forward, and we intend to develop titles that offer greater scalability and flexibility."
The double-edged part comes when games like Babylon's Fall are still getting support, Square Enix did not even state that they are going to stay away from NFTs in general. They just stated where most of their money is now going through. The best place they're going to test their "crypto and NFT" ambitions are in the online gaming space.
I am glad that they've realized that games are where the money is at, and that we will get more good stuff in the future. I just wish that was the actual case. Furthermore, I guess they saw their Western studios not making enough money, so they gave it away to Embracer. They've expected them to make 2-3 games a year, even though having control over what projects they would work on didn't help.
https://twitter.com/auuo/status/1530984614956634113?s=20&t=fESSwi0yKKWxr5KfGJliHQ
- auuo
Sakaguchi made a tweet, which was a joke against Square. He's been trying to steam roll them for a while now, especially after what happened back in 2001. Man respects Yoshi, so he plays his games really right.
I hope Yosuke Matsuda screws up really bad in the future, and gets kicked out that time. I am not taking everything that guy says with any value, I just know he did this to save his skin.