Sega first shared its interest in joining the NFT and blockchain throng last April, when it revealed it had partnered with Japanese company Double Jump Tokyo to begin selling the likes of visual art, in-game images, and background music based on its new and classic IPs in NFT form. It then repeated its enthusiastic stance as part of an investor briefing in November. The company appears to have adopted a less gung-ho approach to non-fungibles in the interim, however; earlier this week, Sega CEO Haruki Satomi explained that while the company was still eager to continue with its NFT experiments, it was aware of the negative reaction surrounding the technology and would be considering its future approach carefully. “We need to carefully assess many things such as how we can mitigate the negative elements, how much we can introduce this within the Japanese regulation, what will be accepted and what will not be by the users,” Satomi explained. “Then, we will consider this further if this leads to our mission ‘Constantly Creating, Forever Captivating’, but if it is perceived as simple money-making, I would like to make a decision not to proceed.” Despite Satomi’s professed caution around the controversial technology, Sega is still laying the relevant administrative groundwork in the event it opts to forge ahead with NFTs, as evidenced in a new trademark filing published today by the Japan Patent Office. The filing, submitted in December last year, covers two trademarks related to Sega’s potential NFT activities - one for a Sega Classics NFT Collection and another simply for Sega NFT. Both are accompanied by prospective logos should you be eager to further ponder how Sega might potentially brand its non-fungible exploits. Sega is, of course, far from the only video game developer to have become fiercely engorged by talk of the new technology. Ubisoft announced an entire NFT- and blockchain-focused gaming platform, known as Quartz, back in December, while Konami has revealed plans to flog NFT pixel art and music tracks to celebrate Castlevania’s 35th anniversary. Square Enix CEO Yosuke Matsuda has also been seduced by the NFT talk, recently publishing a letter expressing hope NFTs and blockchain technology will become a “major trend” in gaming. And then there was Troy.
