In recent times, an interview between Square Enix president and CEO Yosuke Matsuda and another publication site revealed Matsuda’s thoughts on single-player games and games as a service.

The publication site in question that sparked the interview featuring Square Enix president and CEO, Matsuda, happens to be by Metro. The site asked CEO Matsuda a plethora of questions about the company, games as a service and more.

Two questions that stand out happens to be that of single-player games and games as a service, which in some cases seems to be a concerning topic. Looking over to the question dealing with some publishers and developers thinking that single-players games aren’t as potent as they once were, CEO Matsuda answered the question by saying:

“We will definitely be making more single-player games, definitely. I think the environment now, that we have, there’s even more platforms, there’s even more opportunities to get single-player games out to people. So, for example, mobile phone games, we’re not just making free-to-play games for that, we’re making proper single-player games, re-releases of old titles, new titles as well. So mobile phones don’t just have to be about that kind of thing. The Switch is another great platform to come out for single-player games, so we’ve got a lot of opportunities and we really do want to continue making single-player games”.

Later during the interview, CEO Matsuda was asked about loot-boxes and games as a service. If you don’t know, EA and DICE put the icing on the cake with their title Star Wars Battlefront 2 when it came to service type features. EA and DICE model of “games as a service” managed to catch the eyes of the government and is currently under investigation if all loot-boxes are a form of gambling or not.

The response of Matsuda about loot-boxes lies below.

“It is obviously very bad to have loot boxes that get in the way of the player experience, or detract from it in some way. That’s clearly not a good thing. You have to really think about what they do to add to the overall gameplay experience, and how they fit in with that and the overall design of the game. I think that’s the way we should look at these things.”

In addition to that question, Matsuda was asked about games as a service and what is Square Enix approach to it. Matsuda stated:

“Games as a service has a very wide meaning, it can mean a lot of things! [laughs] Recently people have been discussing loot boxes and people not using that properly, I think that’s all linked to this bad perception people have to the words ‘games as a service’. But really, the way we’re looking at it, what it boils down to is… that idea of keeping people engaged with our games and enjoying them for longer periods of time. That’s the way we really look at the problem. The way we use that expression, really… the whole idea, for a single-player game particularly, is the idea that you have the game released and you keep adding more content to keep the players engaged and enjoying the game. And that helps to make it more of a full experience, and that brings in more players to the original game. That’s the rough approach we take to the idea, and that’s why we described games as a service in that sense.”

The full interview featuring Square Enix president and CEO Yosuke Matsuda can be read entirely by heading on over to the listed publication site through the given link.

With that said, what’s your thoughts on Square Enix approach to single-player games, loot-boxes and games as a service?