Square Enix said in its Q1 results report that as part of its medium-term business strategy in 2022, it would include nonfungible tokens (NFT) into additional gaming goods.
According to its most recent financial report, Square Enix (SE) is a Japanese game developer with $3 billion in assets under control. The company controls the Final Fantasy series and just sold the Tomb Raider franchise for $300 million.
According to the article, the company began testing NFTs on the Shi-San-Sei Million Arthur game in February of this year. The success of the pilot program will lead to the second season of the game’s NFTs, and the company will eventually expand its NFT and blockchain operations.
Square Enix dives into web3
Square Enix wants to provide legal clarity and norms for blockchain gaming, address scalability in NFT economies, and consider forming a corporate capital venture unit as the top priority of its blockchain domain projects.
The company also announced that it intends to create an offshore organization that would be responsible for “issue, maintaining, and investing our own tokens,” implying that the company will begin to build a large gaming token economy.
SE has been exploring its prospects in the blockchain gaming market alongside Web3 gaming and Metaverse venture capital firm Animoca Brands. As SE digs deeper into the ecosystem, the two companies’ collaboration is anticipated to deepen.
The report’s third goal in its medium-term business plan is to invest in and monetize blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), and cloud computing. This aligns with CEO Yosuke Matsuda’s stated desire in January to expand his company’s involvement in those technologies.
Despite a broad crypto market dip in 2022, the appeal of Web3 and NFT gaming has remained strong. On May 14, according to market tracker DappRader, there were 1 million daily active gamers, roughly the same as on January 1.
Gamers, on the other hand, aren’t spending as much as they used to, as total NFT gaming item sales have decreased 88 percent from $70 on January 1 to $8.7 million on May 14.