Sega says it will ditch NFTs if it’s perceived as a ‘simple money-making’ scheme

“We need to carefully assess many things such as how we can mitigate the negative elements”

Sega has indicated it will abandon its plans to explore NFT content if it’s perceived as a “simple money-making” scheme, rather than something that can captivate users.

Many game companies have already started selling digital items as NFTs, such as Ubisoft, while others including Konami and Square Enix has expressed enthusiasm for the tech trend.

However, the companies have attracted criticism due to the NFT format’s high carbon footprint and what many perceive to be cynical implementation.

Last year, Sega indicated that it also intended to begin selling NFTs via a Japanese social media post.

However, in its latest management meeting, reported by Tweak Town, Sega CEO Haruki Satomi acknowledged the current negativity around the NFT landscape and indicated he would be willing to walk back on plans to create Sega’s own NFTs.

“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,” he said.

“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.”

On Thursday, Konami announced that it would be auctioning off a “Konami Memorial NFT collection”, featuring 14 unique artworks from the Castlevania series, celebrating its 35^th anniversary.

Previously, in a New Year letter published during the holiday break, Square Enix president Yosuke Matsuda committed to making blockchain and NFT games a part of its games portfolio.

Matsuda’s comments were criticised by some corners of the games industry. However, they appear to have gone down well with the market.