Sega Registers a Trademark for the Term “Sega NFT”, Despite Potential Backlash

Japanese multinational video game and entertainment company, Sega has registered a trademark for the term “Sega NFT”. Reportedly, last month, Sega filed two trademarks with the Japanese Patent Office. While the first trademark is for “Sega NFT”, the second is for “Sega Classics NFT Collection”. 

Sega NFT: What we know so far

The revelations come amidst Sega CEO Haruki Satomi’s recent announcement to put Sega NFT plans on hold. The Japanese firm had initially planned to launch NFTs through play-to-earn games last summer. However, following negative reactions from Sega fans, it had put play-to-earn games on hold.

“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 said. “There have been many announcements about this already including at overseas but there are users who show negative reactions at this point.”

According to VGC, the Japan Patent Office published the new trademark filing on January 14. The Sega NFT trademark filing is likely to garner further backlash from Sega fans.

As the NFT wave sweeps the gaming industry, several gaming giants have joined the craze. This includes firms such as Ubisoft and Konami, both of which also faced backlash from the gaming community. For example, Japanese video game company, Konami launched NFTs of its Castlevania series early this month. The announcement did not go down well with the company’s fans who were quite furious. Besides, Ubisoft had to take down the trailer of its new NFT platform following negative fan reactions. 

While gaming is one of the prominent use cases for NFTs, gaming industry giants will have to tread carefully before foraying into the NFT space.