22/07/2022 Square Enix make Final Fantasy 7 NFTs a real thing

Jessie smiles as she points her finger in Final Fantasy VII Remake
These don’t seem like something Avalanche would approve of

Square Enix are threatening to overshadow the 25th anniversary ofFinal Fantasy 7by partnering with Enjin, a cryptocurrency platform, to launch non-fungible tokens (NFTs) based on the long-running JRPG series. To coincide with the anniversary, Squeenix will be releasing a digital collection of cards on Enjin’s Efinity network for owners of physical cards that are expected to go on sale in 2023. There's an NFT linked to a Cloud Strife action figure too. Feel free to watch the trailer forFinal Fantasy 7 Rebirthbelow to take your mind off this woeful event.

When Square said there was going to be a Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, I didn't think NFTs were what they meant.

If you were so inclined, you could plonk down $160 (ÂŁ134) for theCloud Strife action figure, which comes with an NFT to gawp at on your smartphone or computer. That's the 'Digital Plus Edition' of the statue, but it's $30 (ÂŁ25) cheaper if you just buy the standard figure with no NFT attached. Not a good look, Square Enix.

It gets worse, as Square Enix have even drawn attention to the possibility of not being able to use the NFTs if Enjin's service was to ever end. Under a section titled 'Caution before Purchasing' on the listing for the Cloud statue, Squeenix say "Warning: In case the Enjin services becomes unavailable in the future, you may lose access to the NFT digital certificate of authenticity and digital version of the figure".

"This partnership marks a coming-of-age phase for digital assets and entertainment; Square Enix, an esteemed developer with iconic intellectual property, is paving the way for the industry," Enjin executive Witek Radomski said. Enjin say they offer “environmentally-friendly solutions for building decentralised gaming products", and have committed themselves to making their NFTscarbon-neutralby 2030. Maybe just don’t use the technology in the first place?

One tweet summed the whole NFTs situation up quite nicely:

Squeenix’s presidentgreetedthe start of the year by setting a course towards a future of blockchain for the company. Yosuke Matsuda didn’t seem to know how that would work at the time, however, saying the company would “keep a close eye on societal shifts in this space while listening to the many groups of users that populate it, and ramp up our efforts to develop a business accordingly, with an eye to potentially issuing our own tokens in the future".

It’s not just Squeenix jumping on the blockchain bandwagon in shambolic fashion though.Konami,EAandTake Twohave all expressed their interest at entering crypto. Companies usually cite it as the future of gaming, in some appropriately intangible way.

Square Enix and others may have committed to NFTs and the blockchain, but some games companies are more wary of the controversial technologies. Only yesterday, Minecraft devs Mojang Studiosissued a statementsaying they wouldn’t allow either NFTs or blockchain to “create models of scarcity and exclusion that conflict with our Guidelines and the spirit of Minecraft”. Mojang did clarify that they’d keep an eye on how blockchain evolves to see if it could offer security or practical ways to improve the game in the future, though.

The next instalment of the Final Fantasy 7 Remake saga,Rebirth, was announced on a 25th anniversary stream last month. It’s due to release in winter 2023 on PlayStation, but could be some way off on PC given thefirst parttook a year and a half to arrive.

Arts

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/square-enix-make-final-fantasy-7-nfts-a-real-thing

Interesting NFTs
Hairy
hairy by Steve Aoki x Antoni Tudisco. Comes with Infinite Objects screen!
#54746
By OthersideDeployer
Reflection
#XCOPY #GIF #screen #time #mirror
POPZ PUNKS #52
POPZ PUNKS 52/110
Beautiful Worlds
Welcome to the ‘Beautiful worlds’ where nature and technology have merged into a single entity. These are Ai generated and hand finished visions of solarpunk future in which I would really like our future generations to live and prosper: the future we might have if we took the very “alternative route” which now lies before us: replacing states and corporations which free federations of communities and cooperatives, using decentralist and ecological technologies to create a world beyond economic scarcity and social hierarchy, defined by autonomy, mutual aid, diversity, and inclusiveness. The long-term goals of solarpunk are freedom and well-being for all by adopting and developing such ecological technologies as: solar, wind, wave and geothermal energy rather than oil or gas to generate electricity; a world of decentralized eco-cities, permaculture and vertical farming, free and open-source software, open-source hardware, small-scale fabrication laboratories, micro-manufacturing, 3D-printing, and countless examples of commons-based peer-production online: meeting the maximum amount of needs, in the shortest time, using the minimum possible amount of energy. It’s a world of decentralized and confederated eco-communities, using technology for human-centric and eco-centric ends rather than for accumulating power and profit – mending the metabolic rift between first nature (the natural world) and second nature (human culture) – and where social hierarchies of race, gender, sexuality, and disability are considered horror stories from the past “oil age”. Solarpunk desires societies of polycultural ethnic diversity and gender liberation, where each person is able to actualize themselves in societal environment of free experimentation and communal caring; This philosophy proposes that in order for the social and natural worlds to reconcile, humans must first transform their relations to each other – recreating society along egalitarian, cooperative, and democratic lines – and then transform their relations towards nature – adopting an attitude to cooperation, rather than domination, towards the planet and its nonhuman forms of life. Text by Connor Owens. This artwork took me a year to create and for you it will take a year to discover. Master autonomously updates once a day at 12am with one of 366 original artworks. Enjoy!