Following this new technology support letter from the president of Square Enix, Final Fantasy 14 fans urged the company to reconsider supporting NFT.
Final Fantasy 14 is available now on PC, PS4 and PS5.
As the new year rolls around, fans of Final Fantasy 14 are worried about the future of the game, as Square Enix recently revealed worrisome plans for the future of their properties. Even before any official announcements are made, fans are still trying to reverse the possible impact that a recent statement by the president of Square Enix could have on Final Fantasy 14. the game has been around for many years up to this point and has recently seen tremendous growth with the Endwalker expansion. Therefore, a game with a large number of players must have a responsibility to listen to the fans, to avoid losing this valuable customer base.
On New Year’s Day 2022, a letter from Square Enix president Yosuke Matsuda was published on the official Square Enix website. In the letter, Matsuda spoke in favor of cryptocurrency, NFT, and a movement from games designed for gamers to “play for fun” to “play for fun,” as he put it. Naturally, such claims are drawing backlash from players, lack of advice, and are often financially unsustainable that NFTs and cryptocurrencies currently have in the game. Especially in a game that relies on content updates like Final Fantasy 14, the possibility of such things being implemented in future expansions is a real cause for concern.
The majority of recent relevant posts on the Final Fantasy 14 subreddit are calling for Square Enix to reconsider its NFT projects, with Matsuda’s letter drawing widespread attention to the matter. Hopefully with the financial failure of other companies’ NFT ventures, Square Enix will avoid the trouble of getting involved in this controversial technology again, but only time will tell.
The desire that NFT will not appear in FF14 comes from gamers.
The context of the letter is consistent with the current context; The Final Fantasy series, especially Final Fantasy 7 and its recent remake, carry a pro-environment message. Implementing technologies widely known for their highly negative environmental impact into the same series as Final Fantasy 7 would betray the core values held up by much of the series. Even Final Fantasy 7 itself isn’t immune to corporate cashgrabs, as evidence suggests the FF7 Remake’s PC update is rushed and incomplete.
Square Enix isn’t the only major company entering the blockchain space, and it’s not even the only one to do so that goes against the core ideals of the brand; Japan’s SEGA announced last year that the company would be testing NFTs, but the backlash seems to have been effective against the move to change, with Sonic the Hedgehog’s environmentalist message often seen as being as opposed to NFT. For now, it remains to be seen how Square Enix will approach the NFT and how the Final Fantasy 14 community will react to them.
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