What was once a sign of impending doom is now a reality. After scaring us with the company’s adoption of the contentious and generally despised by gamers blockchain technology, Square Enix has officially revealed its NFT (or non-fungible token) initiative.
Square Enix has joined with Enjin, an NFT business that will store Square Enix’s tokens on its Efinity blockchain, to help effectuate this incredible squandering of fans’ goodwill. Customers may now pre-order physical action figures that include codes that can be redeemed for digital NFTs. Later this year, real trading cards with a comparable digital NFT component will also be made available for pre-order.
The worst thing is that if you’re wondering which of Square Enix’s several series it is drawing these NFTs from. Square Enix is drawing inspiration for its NFTs from Final Fantasy VII, a relatively obscure indie game about a group of freedom fighters taking down a company that is destroying the planet. This is perhaps the most astonishing example of “Didn’t read the source material you created,” according to the phrase.
You did read that correctly. Square Enix decided to make its NFTs out of characters it created who were committed to stopping businesses from doing exactly what an NFT facilitates, leading to wildly increased emissions and accelerating already out-of-control climate change on a planet that is either on fire, drowning, or melting.
There are currently no pictures or price information available for the action figure or collector cards. It is also unknown if these FFVII NFTs will have any worth other than emotional in a climate where gaming-related NFTs are typically faced with rapid and violent criticism, on top of the steep decrease in price of all things digital.
Square has decided to highlight its usage of the Efinity Parachain, a layer 1 proof-of-stake system that bills itself as “eco-friendly” and is owned by a business committed to being carbon neutral by 2030, in the face of an anticipated reaction. It claims to be more energy-efficient than previous blockchain technologies like Bitcoin or Ethereum, and it has bridges that connect various blockchains without depending on them and how energy-intensive they are to run.