To ring in 2024, Takashi Kiryu, the President and Representative Director of Square Enix, has promised that the company will heavily pursue the implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) in future projects.
Writing in an open letter, Kiryu noted that the prominent rise of the generative AI engine ChatGPT has prompted Square Enix to consider its use of similar technologies. “We also intend to be aggressive in applying AI and other cutting-edge technologies to both our content development and our publishing functions,” the president wrote. “In the short term, our goal will be to enhance our development productivity and achieve greater sophistication in our marketing efforts. In the longer term, we hope to leverage those technologies to create new forms of content for consumers, as we believe that technological innovation represents business opportunities.”
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How these efforts will play out remains to be seen, but this isn’t the first time Square Enix has attempted to capitalize on a controversial fledgling technology. In early 2022, then-President and Representative Director Yosuke Matsuda wrote that the company would be placing more effort into breaking into “blockchain games,” specifically noting that he viewed non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as being a potentially major part of Square Enix’s financial future. Of course, anyone who’s paid attention to the crypto world will know the NFT train derailed quite quickly. Regardless, Square Enix is still developing Symbiogenesis, a game that incorporates plenty of blockchain-based content that, indeed, looks quite bad.
The rise of generative AI, while impressive from a technology perspective, has left many concerned about the future of the industry. Many developers have cited worries that AI could be used to replace employees as a source of cheaper labor and have called on publishers to regulate the implementation of the technology. Whether Square Enix heeds these demands remains to be seen.
