Sega stalls NFT plans following "negative reactions" from players
"If it is perceived as simple money-making, I would like to make a decision not to proceed."
Sega has abandoned plans to embrace NFTs following "negative reactions" from gamers.
In an interview with Tweak Town, Sega CEO Haruki Satomi acknowledged the publisher would like to "try out various [NFT] experiments", but was quick to say "nothing is decided at this point" and the company would have to "carefully assess" "what will be accepted and what will not be by the users".
"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," Satomi said (thanks, VGC).
"There have been many announcements about this already including at overseas but there are users who show 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."
Satomi's comments come less than a year after Sega indicated in April 2021 that it would "start selling NFT digital contents that utilise blockchain technology" last year. They follow a raft of NFT announcements from other publishers, including Ubisoft - which seemingly sold 15 NFTs in the first month they launched - and Konami, which confirmed Castlevania artwork, video clips and music tracks will be hawked as NFTs on the OpenSea auction site next week using the controversial Ethereum currency.
Square Enix president Yosuke Matsuda also recently published a letter in which he expresses hope that NFTs and blockchain technology will become a "major trend" in gaming.
In a New Year's letter, Matsuda expressed what he believes will be major areas of growth for the industry in 2022, including cloud gaming, AI, and blockchain games. The latter "are built upon the premise of a token economy and therefore hold the potential to enable self-sustaining game growth," said Matsuda.