Well, too soon thankfully. Many thought about it symbiogenesis hides the return of the classic Parasite Eve. But no, behind the mysterious title is actually an NFT product. Really, Square Enix?
It wasn’t much of a surprise, after all, the gaming company announced its NFT plan some time ago. Still, everyone – myself included – had hopes that Square Enix would realize early on how stupid the idea is. No!
It started with a declaration of love
Friedrich Nietzsche once said: “Only at the end of a year do you know what it was like at the beginning.” In the case of Square Enix, on the other hand, I’d say it was pretty obvious from the start.
In the New Year’s letter from Yosuke Matsuda, president of Square Enix, he praised blockchain technology and NFTs – the latter in particular quickly became the dirty word of 2022. Until now, however, the company had not taken the offensive; that is slowly changing.
Square Enix continues to deviate from its usual power of single-player JRPGs with compelling storytelling. Someone in the company has Yosuke Matsuda commencement– implanted the wrong idea that Square Enix should try something new.
Even the live service offensive was a hit. With NFTs, however, Square Enix is now setting the whole shed on fire.
Square Enix makes it real: an NFT game
Square Enix describes his monstrosity as his “first digital art collection project built from the ground up for Web3 fans.” Web3 is actually a collective name for the vision of a new internet era, decentralized and based on blockchain technology. Square Enix doesn’t really make a game for gamers, more of a product for people who want to collect and sell NFTs – and it’s Square Enix itself that certainly benefits in the end.
Still, they promise symbiogenesis an “interactive story” and “a wide variety of characters” that can of course be “collected as digital art”. It sounds like an eighth of what games like Pokémon could do without blockchain technology.
In particular, Square Enix emphasizes that these “digital arts” can be used as social media profile pictures. How cool is that? And I always just took screenshots of my games, cropped them and then uploaded them, crazy. Fortunately, Square Enix has found the right way, because you can’t just right-click and use NFT profile pictures for your own purposes… hold on. Of course it is possible!
It’s disappointing enough already symbiogenesis is not a game in the Parasite Eve universe. but it’s not even a “game”. It is just a disguised attempt to package NFTs into an interactive medium to fill the wallet with artificial scarcity and inflated crypto prices.
Symbiogenesis: An NFT Game No One Wants
symbiogenesis failed to elicit much sympathy in the community so far. The announcement has garnered little reaction on Twitter, and what has been there has been pretty negative and derisive as well. Here’s a hand-picked selection that will make you smile:
Square Enix could have seen this coming. After all, another gaming company has already taken this step and made a decent emergency landing…
NFT-Fail: Ubisoft led the way
With its NFT service Quartz, Ubisoft initially wanted to respond to the trend Ghost Recon breakpoint left, but the plan didn’t work. It hasn’t been able to build a paying community or explain how NFTs benefit players and the gaming experience – something no game publisher can continue to explain.
Meanwhile, Ubisoft has downplayed its once-aggressive crypto entry, saying that Quartz is in the research phase; you just experimented a bit. Will Square Enix eventually claim that?
Square Enix on the other hand?
Square Enix’s NFT offensive hasn’t received much approval so far. Like Ubisoft, the Japanese company will also fall flat on its face. On the other hand, Square Enix has become famous for making bad decisions. Just look at Square Enix’s abysmal live service attempts; was a nice try, we all had a lot of laughs, but it’s time to make way again for good single player games – no rip-off ulterior motives, no NFTs.
Because his true talent lies in story-oriented role-playing games. And I can’t completely give up on Square Enix either, after all, there are still many (hopefully) strong games coming out: Final Fantasy 16, Forspoken, Kingdom Hearts 4 – the first two appear in 2023, the last with a bit of luck in this century. That’s exactly what I want from the gaming company.
Square Enix, on the other hand, is sticking to its NFT wish. Even game series like last fantasy or Dragon quest are not safe from this plan, Square Enix threatened. Or that is also a lot of negative feedback symbiogenesis enough to bring the company to its senses anyway, we probably won’t find out until the next New Year’s letter.