SE admits FFXIV complete screwup

[Mhurron]

Gamasutra - News - Square Enix: Final Fantasy XIV 'Greatly Damaged' Entire Brand

They're trying to make the game that should have been released.

[Etra]

Re: SE admits FFXIV complete screwup

Then they shouldn't be releasing a game with absolutely no content. <_< I honestly don't know what they thought was going to happen, because it wasn't MMO excellence.

[Taskmage]

Re: SE admits FFXIV complete screwup

This is news?

[Mhurron]

Re: SE admits FFXIV complete screwup

Well this isn't just a "man FFXIV " is bad, but more "holy shit it was so bad people are questioning buying any of our games."

I know that after 12 and 14 I'll be waiting to get future SE games either from the bargan bin or used.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: SE admits FFXIV complete screwup

Uh, as cute as it is to hop on the FFXIV hate train, FFXIV is NOT what has damaged the brand. Its just a piece of the pie.

I would say these are the things that have damaged the brand:

- Oversaturation of spin-offs
- The completely unnecessary Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
- Oversaturation of one remake (Final Fantasy IV Advance, FFIV DS, FFIV The After, FFIV Complete PSP)
- Announcing Final Fantasy Versus XIII six years before it actually went into development.
- Rushing FFXIV to market
- Ignoring fan pleas for years to remake FFVI and FFVII.
- Abandoning other IPs to keep churning out Final Fantasy games.

Note I'm not including FFXIII or any other FF that's popular to hate here. That's because FFXIII, while not perfect, is not indicative of SE's problems as a whole. It speaks about the consequences of moving one game to another platform mid-stride and that's about it. Well, that and it shows Kitase is past his prime.

Final Fantasy, remakes aside, needs to go on hiatus. After XIII and Versus III are done, I don't want to see hide nor hair of a Final Fantasy XV for at least years.

The fact that Eidos Montreal - owned by SE - was able to sneak in a jab at Final Fantasy's excess is pretty telling. Well, that or it just kind of fits int he world theme of Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I think the poster was Final Fantasy XXVII, you can find it in the area just after Adam Jensen wakes up from his three day nap.

I'm not so worried about Dragon Quest X because Yuji Hori isn't out there trying to make five games at the same time like Kitase and Nomura do. I'm not even worried about Nomura so much because he's younger and can apparently handle the load well.

And I don't think all the spin-offs are bad, just that there are some that aren't important. Theatrhythm and Dissidia are a good, fun time and a great way to celebrate the series in unique ways but the Chocobo games are manure and Crystal Chronicles is now just the pittance SE gives Nintendo on the console side of things.

Finally, there's this issue:

SE does a fantastic job of giving the handheld market variety, but they don't do this on the console side. The console side is just Final Fantasy. No new IPs and the Mana series is now just a joke, never really recapturing the glory of its SNES days.

Lord of the Apocalypse, Army Corps of Hell and Bravely Default kind of prove this point. These are all new IPs (well, Lords is actually a single player spin-off of Lord of Arcana, but its still relatively new as an IP) and all focused on the handheld market. Naturally that works fine for Japan, but the effort on consoles isn't enough to keep western markets sated.

SE needs to remedy that. Their investment in Eidos can only do so much in that regard. I'm happy for Deus Ex and they've managed to do the impossible for me in another regard - make me interested in a new Tomb Raider game. If they can do the same for Hitman Absolution that will be amazing.

But SE is just absent as a developer on PS3 and 360, Final Fantasy aside.

They need to step up on the console game and maybe step things up as a publisher as well and start getting some smaller time developers exposure under their brand.

But Final Fantasy needs to be sent on vacation. FFXIV is something they're going to have to keep working on, but we don't need more FF for a while.

[Raydeus]

Re: SE admits FFXIV complete screwup

What the game was supposed to be was an HD update for XI, but that ship's long gone.

The question is, one year later. What could they possibly do to fix the game in a meaningful way?

They obviously spent their entire budget before release and are probably milking XI for money to continue "development". Then there's the issue of them not wanting to restart the game out of fear their installed base will rage quit since they've already invested more time than they should've been allowed to in their paid beta characters.

So I'm curious about what the Titanic's crew can accomplish now that they've hit the iceberg and the captain refuses to abort the current trip and go to the nearest port for repairs. So the crew is trying to fix things, without money, while the ship is taking water and the passengers (who should've been evacuated a long time ago) are complaining about not yet being able to arrive to their destination.



PS > And yeah, I think XIII did more damage than XIV, really. If anything XIV damaged XI in many, many ways.

[Firewind]

Re: SE admits FFXIV complete screwup

I played FFXIV since Alpha and while it was fun, the problem was is that the released version was completely identical to the beta version. People didn't mind the beta version having no real content because, well it's a beta version and the majority of the testers assumed that they were withholding the meat of the game for retail.

Then came the news that the retail version would be out just six week after the beta closed, and the pleas of the playerbase NOT to release the game in it's current state. The majority of the testers wanted Squeenix to spend at least another year, maybe two developing the game.

The problem with FFXIV is that Squeenix wanted it out before Cataclysm. And well Cataclysm would be classed as a spectacular failure as well if it wasn't for that fact that Blizzard can afford to lose a shitload of subscribers and still keep turning profits.

And it's less the Final Fantasy brand being harmed and more Square-Enix as a brand being harmed. One notable thing about the European market is that gamers here are absolutely fucking sick of getting games months later than everyone else, only to find out that Japan and the US are suddenly getting updated re-releases of the game they just got, and if that game ever comes out over here, it's usually too late for people to get excited about.

Kingdom Hearts is a great example. It went from popular to "Blargh another re-release?, oh and Japan and America are getting a better version in 3 month's time? Fuck it."

FFXII is another good one. Took us months after US release to finally get the game and when it happened, oh look Japan just got an Updated version with job classes.

Shit, it happened with FFVII. After nearly 18 months it came out in Europe and Japan suddenly got an updated version almost immediately after.

Japanese games developers in general seem to have a contempt of Europe that is shocking. Tales of Vesperia and Persona 3 are great examples since Namco and Atlus seem to fucking hate anyone not born in Japan or the US. ToV came out after nearly a year of waiting then oh look Japan just got the PS3 version. Persona 3 took nearly a full year after US release and of look, FES just got announced for the US with no plans for Europe (we finally got it, when Persona 4 had finally come out in the US...).

What makes it even more depressing is that Japanese games, particularly JRPGs are extremely popular in Europe and even niche ones sell as well as Western RPGs. RPGs in general are popular in Europe (well, not including the stuff that is guaranteed to sell obviously). When we finally got Persona 4 and Disgaea 3, they had to press more batches of the games, they sold out so quickly.


There are other reasons why people are losing confidence in Square Enix but complete and utter disregard for entire markets is definitely one important factor. The European Market is easily as large as the US market, [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_continents_by_population#Area_and_population]likely bigger given that the population of Europe is 200m larger than North America[url] and the fact that gaming is considered more mainstream and socially acceptable here than in the US. North American developers (particularly Blizzard, Bioware, Bethesda and Ubi-Soft) realising this have become much more popular in recent years over here precisely because they're realised just how many gamers there are in Europe.

Also Europe has a mobile gaming market larger than Japan's, and possibly Japan and North America combined. Seriously, it's fucking huge. Square Enix FINALLY realising this fact has redeemed their reputation slightly in Europe since they did bring out a lot of fun non-FF mobile only RPGs here for iOS and Android, most notably Chaos Rings and Chaos Rings Omega. Yay for Squeenix finally getting something right for once.

[Armando]

Re: SE admits FFXIV complete screwup

For the sake of my own education: what are the hurdles a European gamer has to go through to import an American game console and the US versions of games? I.e. What's stopping people from eBaying US games?

[DakAttack]

Re: SE admits FFXIV complete screwup

What the game was supposed to be was an HD update for XI, but that ship's long gone.

Uh, no? Final Fantasy XIV brings a lot to the table that XI simply couldn't. We don't even know was the original concept truly was, because it was rushed, released before it was completely realized, then cut short and altered. They had a complete engine and half a game's worth of content. Of course it tanked.

I don't see any problems with the newer FFVII games, they were all worth playing and delved a lot deeper into the story than we would have gotten with FFVII alone. Dirge of Cerberus included.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: SE admits FFXIV complete screwup

I don't see any problems with the newer FFVII games, they were all worth playing and delved a lot deeper into the story than we would have gotten with FFVII alone. Dirge of Cerberus included.

Don't get me wrong here, Crisis Core was a fine game and Dirge of Cerberus highlighted characters that didn't really get a big chance to shine in the original game, particularly in the case of Reeve and Vincent (no one wanted more Yuffie). They were fine games.

Its just when taken as a whole, it all feels unnecessary because its still incomplete as a story. Had they just left it as Final Fantasy VII, you wouldn't have that issue.

Genesis is still out there, we don't know if that Shalua is dead or not and there's still a ton of shit the main cast doesn't know. Maybe Cloud doesn't need to know about Angeal, but its a bit weird that he has this connection to the guy and doesn't know about him or Genesis.

Let me put it this way. FFVII is like Shenmue now. Unfinished, just lingering out there to be completed one day, but one day people are going to give up and stop caring.

I've given up on a Shenmue III. Unless Sega makes good with HD updates to Shenmue and Shenmue II at some point so interest can be generated in a third installment, I can't be bothered to care and the truth is those games are just to dated now to make the cut on any gamer's to-do list. What was innovative about those games is old hat now.

They'd need to revision to a Yakuza or Deus Ex HR kind of extent to even hope to rekindle interest.

FFVII is just another series left unfinished now.

[Murphie]

Re: SE admits FFXIV complete screwup

I suspect that your average gamer only cares how fun a game is, and not whether or not it manages to tie up all of the loose ends in various ongoing plots. Sure, there are going to be people that do care, but they are not the average gamer.

At the end of the day, FFXIV wasn't fun for people, and people don't like to play games that they don't find to be fun. So I think it's appropriate to say that FFXIV damaged their brand.

You know, especially since they are the ones saying it, and have an actual clue as to how their business is going.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: SE admits FFXIV complete screwup

At the end of the day, FFXIV wasn't fun for people, and people don't like to play games that they don't find to be fun. So I think it's appropriate to say that FFXIV damaged their brand.

You know, especially since they are the ones saying it, and have an actual clue as to how their business is going.

No, in this case, its heaping the blame in one place when the problem comes from many directions and Wada is a leading factor in many of them.

You don't see Iwata over at Nintendo blaming one game as the source of all their problems or the 3DS as the source. He fucking took some responsibility.

He learned his lesson about listening to the fickle demands of his shareholders and now chooses to listen to his customers instead. Not to mention he gave 3DS owners some games in exchange for that much-needed price drop on 3DS.

He took a 50% paycut. Wada did this too, but he's still blaming all these other things. He's also responisble for the crazy restructuring on FFXIV. As Dak said, whatever FFXIV was originally supposed to be we'll never know because they changed teams and directions, probably too quickly. It was a knee-jerk reaction to the initial failure of the game.

Rather than keep the good ideas and fix the bad parts they threw it all out and started over. I don't see how you can come back from the initial issues when that's your answer. They didn't do that with FFXI and it seemed to move along fine.

[Murphie]

Re: SE admits FFXIV complete screwup

To be honest, I care about things as a consumer, not as someone who follows the gaming industry. But I'll take your word for it.

[ShepardG]

Re: SE admits FFXIV complete screwup

yeah, FFXIV damaged the FF name, but not so much in that people aren't going to give FF a change in the future, they're probably just not going to blindly buy the damn game without doing some personal research/word of mouth to a greater extent.

No what hurt the FF name the most was that development of new FF games will be viewed as a risky bussiness venture from the SE perspective, instead of a sure thing.

This could be a good thing:
When it was originally introduced, the concept of these RPGs was so "out there" that it was lucky that it ever got picked up to be published, and it turned out that open world, non-linear RPGS sold like wild fire, because it was one of the easiest ways to tell a great story.
To get back to these roots would allow the company to follow the same paths that brought the FF name into such a revered status among gamers.

This could be a bad thing:
Why risk your company on something that you percieve the general public will probably not buy. They didn't buy 14 they probably won't buy 15.

No what I think SE needs to do, or honestly just any company would be something like this:

Build a website where people can view/read, submit and vote for, new Ideas in the form of a contest.

You could hire a board of 10-20 members to be the judges, and you could have an open submital for 3-5 page "stories". hell, these stories might be like the first pages of old school video game manuals, that actually gave you some details into the game world you were about to set foot in.
So You have a window of 30 days where works can be submitted, you take 6 months and have the board narrow the field down to however many you want say top 10, then you go back to that same website, and you post those 10 stories. and you take another month to vote and see what the mass of video gamers want to learn the outcome of the most.
The author of the story that wins, gets to write the story for next Final Fantasy game, and or series. you could have some rules that state that the story must involve Chocobo's, a guy named Cid and have branching side stories that can be taken in seperatly.

Bam, company just found out what it's customers want. You could do this, use the crystal engine to design the graphics, come up with an interface that people liked and you've got the the 3 keys (imho) that make a good game, great. graphics, story, gameplay.

You hire that author to work with the design team for the next however long, and lay out the means to make an epic game.

[Malacite]

Re: SE admits FFXIV complete screwup

14 did a bit of damage that's for sure, but I'm also positive that they can turn that around completely if the PS3 add campaign goes well.

Patch 1.19 is already looking fantastic and bringing about a lot of content and features we've been waiting for, like Ifirt, Jobs, Chocobos etc.

I really can not understand for the life of me just what the hell they're waiting for with the FF7 PS3 remake. You want to talk about sitting on a proverbial gold mine... but no, let's making FF13-2 instead, because everyone absolutely LOVED 13, and the last direct sequel you made totally wasn't a spectacular failure or anything. Oh wait...