Square Enix Sells Major IPs 'Tomb Raider' And 'Deus Ex' Just In Time For NFT Market To Crash

May 5th, 2022 - 12:40 PM EDT by Adam Downer

5 comments | Contact Newsroom

Deus ex nft Square Enix.

On January 1st, Square Enix President Yosuke Matsuda posted an excited (and confusing) letter announcing his vision to bring NFTs into Square Enix games. On Monday, it appears the company took the first major step in that plan, selling classic IPs Deux Ex, Tomb Raider and Thief to The Embracer Group in order to "move forward with investments in fields including blockchain, AI, and the cloud." On Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that NFT sales are down 92 percent from their peak in September.

Ah, well. Nevertheless …


There have been signs the NFT market has been in decline for months. In March, Forbes reported that interest in NFTs was notably waning, and in April, an NFT of Jack Dorsey's first tweet received a high bid of just $14,000 after the seller expected bids of $50 million.

Despite these warnings, Square Enix is evidently going full steam ahead with NFTs, blockchains and other Web3 buzzwords, despite them not working out for many game publishers so far. They're now out Crystal Dynamics, Eidos Montreal Square Enix Montreal, Deus Ex, Tomb Raider, Thief and Legacy of Kain — and will presumably use the capital to attempt to get Web3 gaming to work.

Square's big bet on NFTs right as they're in freefall led to schadenfreude from gamers, who have repeatedly and vocally resisted the integration of NFTs into games, as many feel they are merely a means for publishers to squeeze more money out of gamers on top of other negatives.


We'll have to wait and see if Square's big bet on the blockchain works out, but for now, it's not looking good.


Top Comments

:̶.̶|̶:̶;̶
Delete
Sensitive
:̶.̶|̶:̶;̶

Let's be honest, Square has basically been letting it's Western studios rot anyways, so it's probably for the best.

That said, if FF14 goes sideways they're fucked. How in the everloving fuck they're managing to actually do right by that game while being a joke outside of it, idk. They do have heavy investment in mobile but that's a suuuper competitive market and they're top heavy. They wouldn't be able to compete with the Chinese if they were forced to go all in on it.

+12
Reply
seacliff
Delete
Sensitive
seacliff

in reply to :̶.̶|̶:̶;̶

FF14 has basically carried the company financially throughout the last decade with a few moderate critical successes like Bravely and Octopath keeping their entire reputation from going to shit.

That said, if the Embracer Group does literally anything decent with each of these franchises, then it's a net win for everyone else.

+6
Reply

+ Add a Comment

Comments (5)


Display Comments

Add a Comment


Sup! You must login or signup first!