Square Enix CEO Yosuke Matsuda Thinks Games Shouldn't Be Fun

Zarathustra[H]

Zarathustra[H]

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In a long new years letter touching upon disastrous concepts such as "play to contribute" NFT's, Metaverse and other nonsense, Matsuda belittles the concept of "Playing for fun".

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https://www.thegamer.com/square-enix-nft-metaverse-fun-blockchain/

If your entertainment product isn't for fun, then what is it for? Fun is literally the only reason to play a game. If you aren't having fun, you shouldn't be playing.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
In a long new years letter touching upon disastrous concepts such as "play to contribute" NFT's, Metaverse and other nonsense, Matsuda belittles the concept of "Playing for fun".

View attachment 428363

https://www.thegamer.com/square-enix-nft-metaverse-fun-blockchain/

If your entertainment product isn't for fun, then what is it for? Fun is literally the only reason to play a game. If you aren't having fun, you shouldn't be playing.
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From this quote here I both hate him with all my being but I can't fault him, which makes me hate him more because I personally know the kinds of people he is talking about.
“I realize that some people who “play to have fun” and who currently form the majority of players have voiced their reservations toward these new trends, and understandably so. However, I believe that there will be a certain number of people whose motivation is to “play to contribute,”
 
People like him are the reason SE has turned to garbage. It is all about the money. No wonder all the greats that made SE what I use to love about SE left. NFT is the next cash cow for these companies and people are going to eat it up. We should be privileged and honored to be bent over.
 
vegeta535 said:
People like him are the reason SE has turned to garbage. It is all about the money. No wonder all the greats that made SE what I use to love about SE left. NFT is the next cash cow for these companies and people are going to eat it up. We should be privileged and honored to be bent over.
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You know, I have to admit, I couldn't remember what titles Square Enix has made, so I went over to check out their list of titles on Wikipedia and I haven't played any of them!

It seems heavily weighted towards the Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy side of things, which I have never been interested in.

Still it is disappointing to see any major player in the industry take this stance.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
You know, I have to admit, I couldn't remember what titles Square Enix has made, so I went over to check out their list of titles on Wikipedia and I haven't played any of them!

It seems heavily weighted towards the Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy side of things, which I have never been interested in.

Still it is disappointing to see any major player in the industry take this stance.
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I somehow don't find that surprising coming from you.
 
Way to make yourself look absolutely horrible to your audience. It's like SE looked at the all the negative reactions every company has gotten about this and jumped off the same bridge anyway. Hope the blacklash gets back to them as well and they bail on this idea entirely. Stupid, really really stupid.
 
TrunksZero said:
Way to make yourself look absolutely horrible to your audience. It's like SE looked at the all the negative reactions every company has gotten about this and jumped off the same bridge anyway. Hope the blacklash gets back to them as well and they bail on this idea entirely. Stupid, really really stupid.
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All the weebos will still eat it all up.
 
This letter reads as a bunch of fluff meant to convince people that they will "earn" from their play and that is the missing key to driving more player interest.

Yikes.

realize that some people who “play to have fun” and who currently form the majority of players have voiced their reservations toward these new trends, and understandably so. However, I believe that there will be a certain number of people whose motivation is to “play to contribute,” by which I mean to help make the game more exciting. Traditional gaming has offered no explicit incentive to this latter group of people, who were motivated strictly by such inconsistent personal feelings as goodwill and volunteer spirit. This fact is not unrelated to the limitations of existing UGC (user-generated content). UGC has been brought into being solely because of individuals’ desire for self-expression and not because any explicit incentive existed to reward them for their creative efforts. I see this as one reason that there haven’t been as many major game-changing content that were user generated as one would expect.

Well.....ok. But the "reward" you have in mind isn't it. And the reality is, game companies have made concerted efforts to snuff user generated content and to also not provide any official ways to make it. I assume under the idea that their super great developers can develop those ideas themselves, under official pretense, and then charge for it. But its very rarely panned out like that. A. A static group of devs won't come up with every cool idea, let alone be green lit to develop it. B. Officially developed content which may otherwise have been user generated----may not drive multiple millions sales.

Providing an official pathway for UGC can also be tough, for a number of reasons. And the modern development cycle usually does not allow any room for something like that.

In the end, the IP/license holders keep their grip ever tight. And that's why user generated content has been pretty minimal, industry wide.

And need I remind you that....Squeenix has probably never released a game which has an official pathway for meaningful UGC.
 
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Aside from a few games...very few... can't even think of any off hand... there's not much that came out of SE that I've liked, probably none that I've loved. Squaresoft and their ilk are sorely missed.
 
I suggest people read the whole letter if they have the stomach for it. The whole thing reads like an ode to a scammers wet dream, my translation is that they see someone with a more lucrative scheme than what they're currently running and want in on it.

Why bother building a decent game when you can make an admittedly crappy one that hands out worthless digital trinkets/tokens instead.
Nobu said:
Aside from a few games...very few... can't even think of any off hand... there's not much that came out of SE that I've liked, probably none that I've loved. Squaresoft and their ilk are sorely missed.
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I thought that the last 1.5 Deus Ex games were pretty good and the recent Tomb Raider games that I've played were decent enough, I'm not sure how much direct control SE has over Eidos though. I definitely don't care for any of the recent stuff from their asian developers but I'm also not the target audience for any of it.
 
I've went through the entire letter and it is obvious the guy sees fun and gamers as obstacles to his money making machine. Their goal is not to entertain people, or be liked, just moar profits, regardless of public image, regardless of any consequence. So basically cryptominer mentality.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
In a long new years letter touching upon disastrous concepts such as "play to contribute" NFT's, Metaverse and other nonsense, Matsuda belittles the concept of "Playing for fun".

View attachment 428363

https://www.thegamer.com/square-enix-nft-metaverse-fun-blockchain/

If your entertainment product isn't for fun, then what is it for? Fun is literally the only reason to play a game. If you aren't having fun, you shouldn't be playing.
Click to expand...
"Play to contribute to our wallets" is more like it.
 
Armenius said:
"Play to contribute to our wallets" is more like it.
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Play to contribute is the most idiotic way to describe modding. And he completely misunderstands the modding scene. It is exactly what it is because it is pure, people create what they themselves would want to see in the game. As soon as there are 'incentives' in come the opportunists who do not understand games, just want to do what they think is popular. Basically his kind.
 
M76 said:
Play to contribute is the most idiotic way to describe modding. And he completely misunderstands the modding scene. It is exactly what it is because it is pure, people create what they themselves would want to see in the game. As soon as there are 'incentives' in come the opportunists who do not understand games, just want to do what they think is popular. Basically his kind.
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Basically what happened with Creation Club. I'm glad that changes at Nexus Mods has revealed what an asshole Arthmoor is, though (primary author behind the unofficial patches for TES, for anybody who doesn't know).
 
You don't make characters like Aerith and Tifa and not expect it to be "fun" :love:

Maybe he is thinking labor of love.....
 
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Zarathustra[H] said:
In a long new years letter touching upon disastrous concepts such as "play to contribute" NFT's, Metaverse and other nonsense, Matsuda belittles the concept of "Playing for fun".

View attachment 428363

https://www.thegamer.com/square-enix-nft-metaverse-fun-blockchain/

If your entertainment product isn't for fun, then what is it for? Fun is literally the only reason to play a game. If you aren't having fun, you shouldn't be playing.
Click to expand...
This explains a lot...
 
Maybe it's the suspense build up? There hasn't been one game I played since Ultima Online launched in 1997 that has been good as UO.
Except for maybe Dark Age of Camelot and Rift in 2011.

61-ze-WfixL._SX258_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
 
MavericK said:
Are you for real not familiar with FF at all? I've literally never played FF7 and yet I know the story and most of the characters, it's just one of those things you absorb from the gaming collective consciousness for such an iconic title.
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Nope. I have absolutely no familiarity with any Final Fantasy game at all. I don't even think I know anyone who does, It has never come up in conversation.

My circle of friends and acquaintances, while huge game fans, have pretty much no interest what so ever in any game series to come out of Japan. They never come up in conversation, and aren't even really considered relevant to gaming at all, and honestly kind of considered to be silly.

I hadn't even heard the name Kojima until about 6 months ago.

I guess the gaming preferences of myself and pretty much everyone I know are almost entirely western centered and PC centered. (I don't think I know anyone who owns a console)
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Nope. I have absolutely no familiarity with any Final Fantasy game at all. I don't even think I know anyone who does, It has never come up in conversation.

My circle of friends and acquaintances, while huge game fans, have pretty much no interest what so ever in any game series to come out of Japan. They never come up in conversation, and aren't even really considered relevant to gaming at all, and honestly kind of considered to be silly.

I hadn't even heard the name Kojima until about 6 months ago.

I guess the gaming preferences of myself and pretty much everyone I know are almost entirely western centered and PC centered. (I don't think I know anyone who owns a console)
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What is a "western centered" game?
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Games that are developed by and for people in Europe and/or North America?
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Examples? Ive never in my years on this earth heard of any game and/or series of games referred to as a "western centered" games. If you are referring to stuff that just "isnt japanese" then basically the entire world likes that stuff, not just "western" cultures.

I cant even begin to fathom how nobody you know has interest in anything:

Bandai Namco
Capcom
Konami
Nintendo
Sega
SNK
SquareEnix
Tecmo / Koei Tecmo
Atlus
Sony
 
Tengis said:
Examples? Ive never in my years on this earth heard of any game and/or series of games referred to as a "western centered" games. If you are referring to stuff that just "isnt japanese" then basically the entire world likes that stuff, not just "western" cultures.

I cant even begin to fathom how nobody you know has interest in anything:

Bandai Namco
Capcom
Konami
Nintendo
Sega
SNK
SquareEnix
Tecmo / Koei Tecmo
Atlus
Sony
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I had interest in Nintendo in the Super Mario Bros. era, but haven't really paid them any intention since the early 90's.tge rest of those? I don't think I can even name a single title. I'm simply not familiar.

Tengis said:
That fact that you asked if Aeris was Anna Kendrick is borderline mind blowing. I feel like Ashton is going to walk out any minute.
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I have no idea what/who Ashton is.
 
Tengis said:
Examples? Ive never in my years on this earth heard of any game and/or series of games referred to as a "western centered" games. If you are referring to stuff that just "isnt japanese" then basically the entire world likes that stuff, not just "western" cultures.
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You are given big this too much emphasis. I want using or trying to coin a new term. I was simply trying to explain that my circle of friends seems to have very little interest in anything out of Japan.
 
MavericK said:
Are you for real not familiar with FF at all? I've literally never played FF7 and yet I know the story and most of the characters, it's just one of those things you absorb from the gaming collective consciousness for such an iconic title.
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This time he is right. You act as if Final Fantasy lore should be common knowledge. I have no idea who that character is either. And as someone who has grown up not playing any FF game, the FF lore seems like a giant jumble of dozens of conflicting timelines and games I have no desire to untangle.
 
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Zarathustra[H] said:
I have to admit. I've never even heard the name "Aeris" before.
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FF7 in 1997 was an amazing game, had the best characters in a video game to that point, had the best cutscene cinematics, fantastic gameplay for an RPG, and was truly captivating for a generation.
FF7 in the 2020s is basically this:

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M76 said:
This time he is right. You act as if Final Fantasy lore should be common knowledge. I have no idea who that character is either. And as someone who has grown up not playing any FF game, the FF lore seems like a giant jumble of dozens of conflicting timelines and games I have no desire to untangle.
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You have no idea what you are missing. :D

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M76 said:
This time he is right. You act as if Final Fantasy lore should be common knowledge. I have no idea who that character is either. And as someone who has grown up not playing any FF game, the FF lore seems like a giant jumble of dozens of conflicting timelines and games I have no desire to untangle.
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At least among gamers it is very stunning and unbelievable to hear someone not recognising a character from one of the MOST talked about RPG game of the last two decades and a game that is also often found on the "Best games ever made" lists. Okay, they are not Mario level of famous characters but... god damn dude! :eek:

Anywho, there is no FF timeline. They are all their own games in their own worlds and at most share a few features like couple of mascot animals etc...
 
MaZa said:
At least among gamers it is very stunning and unbelievable to hear someone not recognising a character from one of the MOST talked about RPG game of the last two decades and a game that is also often found on the "Best games ever made" lists. Okay, they are not Mario level of famous characters but... god damn dude! :eek:

Anywho, there is no FF timeline. They are all their own games in their own worlds and at most share a few features like couple of mascot animals etc...
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It is kind of true, and FF7 has been around for nearly 25 years now - like, how has someone who plays video games of any genre never come across a top 10 video in the last 15 years that at least mentions the game or characters on some level.
That's quite the feat to have simply avoided it for that long.

For non-gamers, though, it isn't too surprising to have never heard of FF7, or at least semi-remember it from ads in the last 25 years for the games, movie, anime OVA, etc.
Also, considering the era we are living in, I do need to point out that FF7 is the only Final Fantasy game that is cyberpunk. :borg:⚔️
 
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