Posted in: Games, SEGA, Video Games | Tagged: nft, sega

SEGA Rolls Back NFT Plans After Negative Fan Reaction

Published Sun, 09 Jan 2022 20:43:08 -0600

It looks like SEGA has decided to hold back a bit on their plans for NFT content after fan outrage on social media criticized the move. Last week, SEGA announced (along with other companies like Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, and Square Enix) that they would be experimenting with NFTs and other up-and-coming emerging tech, possibly releasing several based on famous properties within their business. Some of which would be done through play-to-earn systems. As you would expect, the news did not sit well with fans of the company who blasted the decision (along with all the other major companies who announced their plans). Now it appears SEGA may be backing off from releasing those after a recent meeting was cited by several sources. Below are quotes from SEGA CEO Haruki Satomi during the meeting about their plans moving forward.

The SEGA Logo, which for all we know, will be made into an NFT.

"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. […] There have been many announcement about this already including at overseas but there are users who shows 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."

It's pretty clear that the overwhelming majority of gamers have no love for NFTs, blockchain systems, or even digital currency as a whole. Many have compared the plans some companies have to being worse than loot boxes because regardless of what you get from a box, it has some value to the game it's based in. There is no guarantee that anything NFT-related will hold its value in or out of the game years, months, weeks, or even days after you receive it. The entire system is viewed as untrustworthy by most who look into it. Yes, people have had some success bartering with them, but no company, not even SEGA, can promise success and profit from these. We'll see in the months ahead if they decide to follow through with their plans or scrap the idea entirely.

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