SoftwareAISquare Enix’s new years resolution is to become ‘aggressive in applying AI’, and I’m very tiredWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
SoftwareAISquare Enix’s new years resolution is to become ‘aggressive in applying AI’, and I’m very tiredWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Square Enix)

The example I always like to use comes from 2018’s Into the Spiderverse—a movie with strong artistic merit that’s ushered in a whole new style of 3D animation. It used adeep learning programto help it with the busywork of drawing comic-style lines, saving thousands of hours of work.
The only problem is, these are all uses for the tech that come from the people making the sausage, rather than the owners of the factory. They’re not some big, revolutionary silver bullet that’ll let companies make heaps of content for free. Kiryu continues:
“We also intend to be aggressive in applying AI and other cutting-edge technologies to both our content development and our publishing functions. 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.”
That’s the kind of framing that fills me with exhaustion. There’s a repeated pattern I’ve seen among AI’s biggest advocates—they’ll get very excited about the new technology, make something that’s over-reliant on it, and then be very confused when no-one’s amazed. Square Enix did this with NFTs—the company’s arguablystilldoing it.
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(Image credit: Square Enix)

Symbiogenesis is Square Enix’s big NFT project, a game designed to leverage tech that’s otherwise beenbullied out of gaming, and it’snot exactly doing great. I don’t want to cast assumptions over a company’s leadership: but if I had a nickel every time Square Enix became infatuated with some new technology and wasted a bunch of money, I could soon be the proud owner of two nickels.
Kiryu maintains that web3 tech is still an area of focus. “In terms of new business domains, we previously identified three focus investment fields, namely blockchain entertainment/Web 3.0, AI, and the cloud.” He goes on to say that Square Enix will “modify our organisational structure and optimise our resource allocations to support these efforts.”
The Square Enix game I actually care about right now—Final Fantasy 14—has mercifully kept these love affairs at an arm’s length, its game director Naoki “Yoshi P” Yoshidaoutright statingthat there are no plans to plonk a bunch of freshly-minted Thancreds into his life’s work. Whether the studio is similarly weary of AI technology remains to be seen, however.
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