On Monday, May 9, 2022, Square Enix, the creators of popular RPGs such as Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Kingdom Hearts, and Nier, signed a deal with a fellow game company, Embracer Group, to sell four of their most iconic North American IPs and the studios that make them for $300 million. And their reason for such a deal? To invest in the blockchain!

Now before we go any further about the deal, we need to first understand what exactly is the blockchain, or as most of you may know them, NFTs. NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are a form of financial security of digital data which can be purchased using cryptocurrency, with some popular examples being Bored Ape Yacht Club, CryptoPunks, and Lazy Lions Club.

Now for me personally, I don’t really like NFTs. I think the technology behind it is pretty interesting, but the way people use it is honestly something I hate. And it takes a lot for me to hate something, but I can not understand investing the equivalent of thousands and sometimes millions of dollars on an ugly jpeg you can simply right click and save as.

Back on topic, Square Enix is not the first major game company to get involved in NFTs, as Ubisoft, creators of franchises such as Assassin’s Creed, Rayman, Far Cry, and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six, implemented NFT skins for player models and weapons for one of the more popular games, Rainbow Six Siege, which was met with massive backlash by the game’s community.

As for Square Enix, they sold two developers they owned, Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Interactive, for the tune of $300 million. This includes some iconic North American franchises created by them, those being Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Thief, and Legacy of Kain. Square Enix, however, will be holding on to other North American franchises IP rights, which include Just Cause, Life is Strange, and Outriders.

Now as for the new homes of these games and developers, Embracer Group, they are a Swedish-based, game company who currently own other popular developers such as THQNordic, Deep Silver, Gearbox Entertainment, and Saber Interactive. So with these companies under new ownership, perhaps we can finally see the return of these four games. Afterall, the last Tomb Raider was released in 2018, the last Deus Ex was in 2016, the last Thief was in 2014, and the last mainline Legacy of Kain was in 2003, so it would be nice to see these franchises make a return in some way, shape or form.

As for the future of Square Enix, I honestly don’t know. All I know is that they willingly gave up four of some of the most beloved game franchises there is to invest in crappy computer-generated jpegs. And if that’s what they want to do, that’s what they’re gonna do. All I ask of them is that they don’t force Nier to a block chain franchise.