SEGA Largely Pulls Away from Blockchain and Play to Earn Gaming Pursuit

Roughly a year and a half ago, SEGA executives seemed reluctant to join in on the NFT and blockchain bandwagon, saying that they’d rather not proceed if it would be perceived as ‘simple money-making’. Here’s the quote from an early 2022 Q&A with investors:

In terms of NFT, we would like to try out various experiments and we have already started many different studies and considerations but nothing is decided at this point regarding P2E. There have been many announcement about this already including at overseas but there are users who shows negative reactions at this point. We need to carefully assess many things such as how we can mitigate the negative elements, how much we can introduce this within the Japanese regulation, what will be accepted and what will not be by the users. Then, we will consider this further if this leads to our mission “Constantly Creating, Forever Captivating”, but if it is perceived as simple money-making, I would like to make a decision not to proceed.

Just three months later, though, SEGA appeared to be way more positive about the potential of blockchain and NFTs in gaming. They registered a trademark/logo for NFTs in Japan and producer Masayoshi Kikuchi (Yakuza, Binary Domain) said in an interview:

Gaming has a history of expansion through the connection of various cultures and technologies. For example, social networking and game video viewing are recent examples.

It is a natural extension for the future of gaming that it will expand to involve new areas such as cloud gaming and NFTs. We are also developing SuperGame from the perspective of how far different games can be connected to each other.

In yet another turn of events, SEGA appears to have largely backtracked from the endeavor. Speaking to Bloomberg, co-Chief Operating Officer Shuji Utsumi has now revealed that the biggest franchises and projects won’t feature any NFTs or P2E. Utsumi-san said:

The action in play-to-earn games is boring. What’s the point if games are no fun? We’re looking into whether this technology is really going to take off in this industry after all.

Indeed, gamers continue to be vehemently against any blockchain elements brought to core gaming experiences. The wider crypto industry has contracted, too. That said, SEGA will still invest in NFT/P2E projects based on some of its lesser franchises. Shuji Utsumi also didn’t entirely discount the possibility that blockchain will eventually mature.

For the majority of people in the video game industry, what blockchain advocates say may sound a bit extreme, but that’s how the first penguin has always been. We should never underestimate them.

What’s your stance on blockchain applications for videogames? Let us know in the comments.