Square Enix Sold Tomb Raider to Chase Blockchain. Was It Worth It?

On 1 January 2022, while most of the games industry was still nursing its New Year hangover, Square Enix's president Yosuke Matsuda published an open letter. It touched on the metaverse, the cloud and AI, but most of it was about one thing: blockchain. He wrote that he hoped tokens could help "decentralize" games, and that Square Enix would "ramp up our efforts" in the field.

The reaction online was brutal. The reaction from investors was not: Square Enix's share price rose. That split, fans furious and markets pleased, would define the next three years of the company that makes Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. This is the story of Japan's most committed blockchain believer among the big publishers, and what it has to show for it as of November 2026.

The letter that started it

Matsuda's letter was unusually candid about the audience problem. He acknowledged that people who "play to have fun", who he admitted were the majority, had reservations about NFTs and token-based games. He then described a future of "token economies" that would reward players who "play to contribute", and "self-sustaining game growth". He even mentioned the "overheated trading" in NFTs, a polite way of describing a market many saw as a bubble.

Critics noted that the letter gave no concrete example of how any of this would work in an actual Square Enix game. Players responded with environmental worries and fears that their favourite series would be turned into grind-to-earn machines.

Why a publisher would want this

It is worth understanding the pitch from the boardroom side, because it was not crazy on its face. Square Enix owns some of the most valuable characters in games, and fans already pay for figures, art books and soundtrack boxes. NFTs promised a way to sell digital collectibles that could be resold, with the publisher taking a cut of every resale, something a physical figure on eBay never offers.

Token economies also promised something games companies love: players who stay because they feel they own a piece of the world. On a slide in a strategy meeting, that sounds like higher engagement and new revenue at the same time. The problem, as Matsuda's own letter admitted, was that the people who would have to live inside these economies mostly did not want them.

Selling Lara Croft to fund the future

Four months later, the letter turned into a balance-sheet decision. On 2 May 2022, Square Enix announced it was selling Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montréal and Square Enix Montréal, along with franchises including Tomb Raider, Deus Ex and Thief, to Sweden's Embracer Group for $300 million. The three studios employed more than 900 developers.

In its announcement, Square Enix said the deal would let it launch new businesses by investing in fields "including blockchain, AI and the cloud". The financial logic was not hard to see: the studios brought in nearly $200 million of revenue in 2021 but less than $8 million in combined operating income, and Square Enix said Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy had "undershot" its expectations. Embracer's chief executive Lars Wingefors later suggested that in different circumstances the price "could have been a different number".

By the numbers

• 1 January 2022: Matsuda's New Year's letter on blockchain and NFTs.
• $300 million: price Embracer paid for three studios and their franchises (announced 2 May 2022).
• 900+: developers at the studios sold.
• 207: cards in the Final Fantasy VII trading card set with NFT exchange cards, sold for ¥440 a pack.
• December 2023: launch of the NFT project Symbiogenesis.
• 31 July 2025: Symbiogenesis servers shut down.

Cloud Strife, now on the blockchain

The first products came from the company's most famous series. In July 2022, Square Enix and the NFT company Enjin announced a collection for the **25th anniversary of Final Fantasy VII**. Physical figures, starting with Cloud Strife, would come with a code to claim a digital version of the figure, on Enjin's Efinity network built on Polkadot. Preorders opened that July for a 2023 release, and digital card collections were to follow.

The criticism wrote itself. Final Fantasy VII is a game about a corporation, Shinra, draining the planet's life energy for profit, and the hero is a mercenary who joins eco-activists to stop it. Critics pointed out the irony, and also a more practical problem: the product page warned buyers that they could lose access to their digital figure if Enjin's service shut down.

In March 2023, Square Enix followed with a Final Fantasy VII trading card set: 207 cards, sold at ¥440 a pack, each pack containing six physical cards and one "digital exchange card" that could be redeemed for an NFT version of the artwork.

Doubling down while others pulled back

By late 2022, many publishers had quietly cooled on NFTs after the crypto crash. Square Enix did the opposite. Its November 2022 results presentation described blockchain as part of its growth strategy, and in April 2023 the company reaffirmed its commitment even as others stepped back.

The flagship was Symbiogenesis, an NFT-based art and story project that launched in December 2023. Players bought character NFTs and worked through a story-driven puzzle world. It never became a mainstream hit. In February 2025, Square Enix announced it would end the project and published a final roadmap, and the servers shut down on 31 July 2025.

WGC's take

Square Enix deserves some credit for being honest. Matsuda told fans in plain words that he knew they would not like this, and the company backed its belief with real money and real products. It did not quietly hide NFTs inside a big game; it built separate projects people could choose to ignore.

But judged by results, the bet is hard to defend. The studios and franchises sold in 2022 included some of the most recognisable names in Western gaming. The blockchain products that followed were collectibles and a niche art project that closed within two years. Whatever Square Enix gains from blockchain in the future, it will have to be measured against Lara Croft. The company's blockchain years may end up remembered less for what they built than for what they sold to pay for it, and for a letter that told fans, honestly, that this was not really for them.

What to watch

• Whether Square Enix announces any new blockchain projects after Symbiogenesis, or folds the idea into its wider restructuring.
• What happens to the digital Final Fantasy VII collectibles if the services behind them change.
• Whether other Japanese publishers, many of which watched Square Enix closely in 2022, decide the experiment proved anything at all.

Nothing in this article is investment advice.