What was once a sign of impending doom is now a reality. After threatening us with the company’s adoption of the contentious and generally despised by gamers blockchain technology, Square Enix has finally revealed its NFT (or non-fungible token) project.
Square Enix has partnered with Enjin, an NFT company that will store Square Enix’s tokens on its Efinity blockchain, to help facilitate this extraordinary waste of fans’ goodwill. Customers can now pre-order physical action figures that include codes that can be redeemed for digital NFTs. Later this year, physical trading cards with a similar digital NFT component will also be made available for pre-order.
The worst part is that if you’re wondering which of Square Enix’s numerous franchises it is pulling 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.
The calculations are flawed
There are currently no pictures or price information available for the action figure or collectible cards. It is also unknown if these FFVII NFTs will have any value other than sentimental in a climate where gaming-related NFTs are frequently met with swift and furious backlash, on top of the precipitous fall in price of all things cryptocurrency.
Square has chosen to highlight its use of the Efinity Parachain, a layer 1 proof-of-stake solution that bills itself as “eco-friendly” and is run by a business committed to being carbon neutral by 2030, in the face of an inevitable backlash. It promises to be more energy-efficient than older 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 operate.
But Cloud, the planet is dying, and we don’t have that much time.
