Former Square Enix exec says the developer "has spent two decades slowly moving away from being a content business" after accidentally predicting the rise of AI: "But the sun set on their opportunity to transition"

Screenshot from Final Fantasy 14's new graphics update, showing a character in an action pose. .

Genvid CEO Jacob Navok used to be a business director at Square Enix, and he feels like, since 20 years ago, the company has known something like generative AI would swallow the entire gaming industry – but it's still too late for the Final Fantasy developer to adapt.

In a long Twitter thread, Navok explains how former Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada imagined that video games would phase out of being pure "content" so that they could spill out into something he called the "Network." But, while Navok feels Square Enix has tried as diligently as a chick breaking out of its egg to join the so-called Network, he also thinks its recent releases indicate that it's failed.