Square-Enix Confirms Layoffs, Denies Impact on MMOs

[Raistlin]

38478

Amid rumors that layoffs had occurred at Square-Enix’s Los Angeles office and how they might impact current MMO games, SE’s Senior Director of Public Relations, Riley Brennan, confirmed yesterday that layoffs did occur, but that customers will not see any negative impact. Brennan emphasized that the decision to lay off some unknown number of employees “will not have any impact on the operations of MMO titles,” and that the upcoming launch of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn will not be affected. It’s currently unknown what specific departments lost employees, but Brennan’s assurances seemed to apply only to the MMO departments.

The layoffs seem to corroborate last week’s report (http://home.eyesonff.com/content/2161-final-fantasy-xiv-s-original-launch-still-crippling-square-enix.html) about the disastrous original launch of Final Fantasy XIV and its continued financial impact on Square-Enix. Hopefully the upcoming relaunch of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn will allow the company to bounce back so that this trend does not continue.

Source: Massively (http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/12/16/square-enix-confirms-layoff-rumors-denies-any-impact-on-mmo-ope/).

[Del Murder]

Why is the concern mostly for the MMOs? What about their other non-MMO projects?

[Futan]

Service vs product I guess?

[Raistlin]

Why is the concern mostly for the MMOs? What about their other non-MMO projects?

It looks like the original rumors suggested that the layoffs could impact MMO titles such as Wakfu and FFXIV. I don't know if SE was simply responding to those rumors, or if the layoffs really did occur in an MMO department (or both).

[Red Mage Coffman]

Well, MMO's make a crap ton of money if they are successful. So...

Successful MMO = A crap ton of money

Plus they'd be able to reap the profits of playing online every month. Not to mention expansions and such. If I'm not mistaken, FFXI is the most profitable game in the series so far due to, ya know, being an MMO. Plus they did let down a lot of people with the launch of this game, I imagine making up for it is important for their image.

[Dr. rydrum2112]

its to bad they wont affect the MMOs... then maybe they would go back to making good games.

[Jinx]

its to bad they wont affect the MMOs... then maybe they would go back to making good games.

If it affects FFXIV, no, they won't. The company has already stated that if FFXIV: ARR flops, the company will most likely go under. Thus, jobs for no one, and no games for the fans.

[Depression Moon]

I have a feeling it will. Like people say first impressions are the most important. People will still remember the launch and by the time it comes out people who might be optimistic about it will probably be too busy playing something else at the moment.

[Jinx]

I have a feeling it will. Like people say first impressions are the most important. People will still remember the launch and by the time it comes out people who might be optimistic about it will probably be too busy playing something else at the moment.

You have a feeling ARR will flop?

[Del Murder]

I don't think ARR will reach the top of the charts in terms of other popular MMOs like WoW or GW2, but I think it will end up turning a profit for SE and will redeem the original FFXIV for most.

[Loony BoB]

If they were from the MMO department and they were related to the LA office, I can only guess that it would have been community support and/or the localisation team. Perhaps given that the number of people playing the MMO has decreased, the requirement for the former has lessened? Not sure really, but every company in the world is laying off staff it seems, so it's not really something that strikes me as unusual given the current climate.

[Yar]

If SE goes under, what would we really be missing in the end?

[Loony BoB]

You're really asking that question at a Final Fantasy forum? Now, now, Neo. No trolling. >=P

[NeoCracker]

You're really asking that question at a Final Fantasy forum? Now, now, Neo. No trolling. >=P

The hell? Arn't I the only one people here called Neo? XD

And mostly we'd be missing any of the bitchin' Non-FF games they now release. :p

[Freya]

If they ever release it for PS3 it'll turn a profit I'm sure. PS3 owners will be all over an MMO.

[Ouch!]

I don't know about Wakfu, but development of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, even localization, is all done in their Tokyo offices. I don't know what anyone at the L.A. satellite office would be doing working on ARR, so I don't know how layoffs there would affect that project expect perhaps by reallocation of resources (which does not seem to be the case).

What did Square Enix's L.A. offices even do? Were they anything other than a State-side localization (and maybe marketing) team?

[Loony BoB]

Marketing, PR, probably service support (ie, GMs etc), stuff like that. Not sure about the finer details - Murd or Shlup have been there so they can possibly give you a better idea of the size of their office.



You're really asking that question at a Final Fantasy forum? Now, now, Neo. No trolling. >=P

The hell? Arn't I the only one people here called Neo? XD

And mostly we'd be missing any of the bitchin' Non-FF games they now release. :p
Urgh. This is why I hate name changes. Two people change names and I can never remember which has changed to which. You should both get reverted. >=[

[Bolivar]

I'm surprised this thing still hasn't come out yet. I'm guessing they're just waiting for the pandaria/guild wars 2 hype to die down? I played the original at pax prime 2010. They could've released final fantasy XV online instead.

What's up with square redemption titles?

[Goldenboko]

I'm surprised this thing still hasn't come out yet. I'm guessing they're just waiting for the pandaria/guild wars 2 hype to die down? I played the original at pax prime 2010. They could've released final fantasy XV online instead.

What's up with square redemption titles?

FFXIV: ARR isn't a redemption title. It's a this MMO, NEEDS to be successful campaign. xD

[escobert]

its to bad they wont affect the MMOs... then maybe they would go back to making good games.

If it affects FFXIV, no, they won't. The company has already stated that if FFXIV: ARR flops, the company will most likely go under. Thus, jobs for no one, and no games for the fans.

Well maybe they should stop making MMO FFs with numbers in the name instead of just a friggen FF MMO and let the numbered games be the actual series.


And there's other MMO's out there that offer the same stuff but don't cost monthly fees and have a larger userbase :p

[Loony BoB]

Well maybe they should stop making MMO FFs with numbers in the name instead of just a friggen FF MMO and let the numbered games be the actual series.

And there's other MMO's out there that offer the same stuff but don't cost monthly fees and have a larger userbase :p
You have it the wrong way around, Bert - They NEED to have them be numbered FF titles because it boosts interest, and they NEED the interest because they NEED the money. I'm sure if they could get just as many subs using an alternative title, they'd not have them numbered. But they know where the money is, and that's the numbered titles / MMO's, so mixing the two is a cash cow that can put them back in the black.

Pretty sure there are no other MMO's out there that offer the same stuff as FFXIV for free. You'd have to name the games, dude.

[escobert]

Guild Wars 2 :p
and I understand that the numbered names draw some fans but also, turned off many others.

[Loony BoB]

Guild Wars 2 is pretty different to FFXIV in some fundamental ways - or at least, this is the impression I'm getting from those that have played both games along with the information I can find on GW2.

[escobert]

Yes GW2 strays from the DPS/Tank/Healer build of other MMO's but, it's a MMO at it's core and offers the same features just about ever other MMO does. And they're making a push for GW2 PvP to become a esport :D!

Either way, I don't want Square to die so I hope it does well enough to not tank the company but damn that's pretty sad that a company like this needs a MMO to save it :/

[Ouch!]

The free MMORPG with content comparable to AAA studio developed titles is a myth. There are many non-subscription-based MMORPGs on the market, but most of the "free-to-play" titles operate on a "freemium" model with cash shops. Some (The Lord of the Rings: Online) do this better than others (Star Wars: The Old Republic), but ultimately just about any major-release MMORPG involves some form of payment to enjoy content that is otherwise included as part of a subscription package.

Guild Wars 2 is the best example, but it's not free. You paid the retail price to get the game, and you'll be paying for expansion. Also vanity cash shop.

Also, maybe I'm misreading your post, Bolivar, but you do realize that Final Fantasy XIV came out two years ago, right? It launched in August of 2010 to an absolutely horrible (and absolutely deserved) reception. By November, the project lead had been shuffled back to FFXI and the reigns were passed on to a new development team. The game operated free of charge until January 2012, at which point they announced that in addition to providing major updates and fixes via patches to Final Fantasy XIV version 1.x, they had been working on an entirely new game engine for a commercial re-release as 2.0. At this point, with a roadmap in place, they began charging monthly subscription fees. Version 2.0 was eventually re-named Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. It is currently in the final week of its closed alpha test. They have not yet announced whether beta will have a separate application, but the development team has expressed a desire to roll over all existing alpha testers into the closed beta test. There have been no plans for an open beta test announced.

This timeline is delayed from the initial 2.0 timeline released a year ago; according to the developer blog an adjusted timeline which will include the beta test dates and (presumably) a target release date will be released soon (i.e. before the end of the calendar year). The delays have been allowed to happen, as BoB has suggested, because it is absolutely critical for the company that they turn FFXIV around and make it profitable. FFXI was only ever the fourth most popular MMORPG on the market at its peak, and it still has been the most profitable game the company has ever released. You don't have to have WoW's subscription numbers to be a financial success. Square Enix needs FFXIV:ARR to release to success or the company will face some very serious consequences (given that SE's biggest successes lately have been publishing other titles, I would not be surprised to see them move away from large-scale in-house development), and they're giving the development team plenty of time to make sure the game is right this time.

[Loony BoB]

Yes GW2 strays from the DPS/Tank/Healer build of other MMO's but, it's a MMO at it's core and offers the same features just about ever other MMO does. And they're making a push for GW2 PvP to become a esport :D!
I wasn't talking about that end of things, I was more referring to the job/class system, the Final Fantasy 'feel' (chocobos, moogles etc), the crafting system, the materia system, the different style/pacing of combat, the graphics (although I can't speak for this, just going by what I'm told on that end) and the leveling system are all fairly different, which I would say are key proponents. Not to mention GW2 seems much more PVP-centric, although Yoshi-P is a big PVP fan so you never know how that might turn out.


Either way, I don't want Square to die so I hope it does well enough to not tank the company but damn that's pretty sad that a company like this needs a MMO to save it :/
To be fair, if they played their launch right they wouldn't be in this situation. A big game bombing out can destroy a large chunk of a company pretty quickly.

[escobert]

Well I technically didn't "buy" GW2 :p mom got it for my bithday!

anyways yes it cots money to purchase but, the stuff you can buy in the in game store are just (horribe) armor skins and mini pets and crap. It's not a pay to win type system of other non sub based MMO's.


@ BoB - Yeah I can see the FFness in the games, or well what I played of XI. I get that it's different but I'm guessing there's a healer class a DPS class and a tank class. Same as most other MMO's. I'm not saying this game is going to be horrible or anything but, I just feel like they could just done more with XI than make an entirely new game pretty much twice now.

[Del Murder]

Marketing, PR, probably service support (ie, GMs etc), stuff like that. Not sure about the finer details - Murd or Shlup have been there so they can possibly give you a better idea of the size of their office.
We never got to visit the actual office, sadly. The event took place in the hotel.

[Psychotic]

Well, this is the same situation that they found themselves in with the original Final Fantasy. Funny how things come back around.

[Ouch!]

I don't really think it's quite that dire. The company isn't going to go under if FFXIV fails, they're just going to have drastically adjust their overall business strategy. Dragon Quest is still bringing in loads of money, and the various developers they've acquired the past few years for whom they publish titles have done well for them. I would just expect to see a big cut back on ambitious in-house projects. Significant lay-offs. Fewer titles per year, and safer ones (i.e. Kingdom Hearts, Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy pillar IPs only).

[Bolivar]

Arrrrgh that's so crazy because most of what we've gotten over the last 6 years has been FF, Dragon Quest, Kingdom Hearts.

I know what the game is, Ouch, it's just kinda crazy that a company takes 2 years to relaunch a product that was bad at the beginning. I just see a similar thing with XIII: reusing the same resources to make the original better when all anybody wants is a sequel to Chrono Trigger or some new IPs.

I gotta agree with Bert, and not just because I'm also a massive GW2 fangirl (I'm a boy... er, a man!) That subscription model is dead. Only WoW can sustain it, and WoW is dying. Yes, GW charges you for the disc/download (who doesn't?) but GW2 has done so much to reinvent and reinvigorate the MMORPG formula that I doubt FFXIV will be able to compete, especially with subscription fees.

I know a lot of you guys want it to succeed, I do, too, but if it fails, it will be because of an overarching problem that Square has had for a long time now.

[Wolf Kanno]

I don't think it will fail but if SE was hoping for it to surpass XI, I'm very skeptical that it will accomplish it now, even if it is actually a better game overall. I feel the whole debacle os FFXIV has pretty much crippled this title and while I'm sure they can get it to be profitable, I'm sure they will also be falling back on the XI team to keep XI going strong as well since it will be the main money maker. They also have the DQX coming up as well, so SE will be pushing several MMOs for awhile now.

To be honest though, I wouldn't actually mind if they started condensing their development teams into fewer units to save on cost. Doing the "Get To Know Your Staff" articles, I came to the conclusion that part of the problem with the series and some of the franchises is that they've split up all the talented people and made them in charge of their own department when it was the collaboration of these people that made games great. I'm sure I wouldn't be the only person who would be interested in seeing Kitase and Ito working together again.

[Formalhaut]

I have cautious optimism about XIV, though I would not be surprised if it didn't come up to the expectations of XI sales-wise. In terms of MMOs, Final Fantasy just isn't in everyone's first thoughts. Instead it's GW2, or WoW, or whatever.

[Ouch!]

I know what the game is, Ouch, it's just kinda crazy that a company takes 2 years to relaunch a product that was bad at the beginning. I just see a similar thing with XIII: reusing the same resources to make the original better when all anybody wants is a sequel to Chrono Trigger or some new IPs.
You say you know what the game is and then in the next sentence demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of what has been going on behind closed doors for the past two years. Why does it take a company two years to relaunch a product? Because they rebuilt the game. From scratch. Game engine and everything. The only resources that they've kept is concepts, but everything from character models to armor has been completely rebuilt for a new game engine. It's not "I can't believe this has taken two years," it's "I can't believe they've done all this in two years." Whether you expect it to fail or not, there's a reason that Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn is getting attention in the MMORPG community: doubling down on a failed product, letting it run free for over a year, and then re-releasing what is, effectively, a new game, is completely unprecedented in the game industry and it has heads turning.

I see people complain that a subscription model system is dead, but I see just as many people lambasting disappointing free-to-play titles. There hasn't been a non-subscription game yet that's pulled the several million people away from World of Warcraft. It's clearly not the juggernaut some users want to pretend it is.

[Loony BoB]

For the sake of those not playing the game: FFXIV A Realm Reborn is to FFXIV (original) what Mass Effect 2 is to Mass Effect. A sequel game in the existing universe with the option of importing your existing character.

EDIT: Actually, it could be said that FFXIV:ARR has even more difference to FFXIV than ME2 does to ME1, because the FFXIV games use different engines while ME1/ME2 use the same one. And BioWare didn't even have to make the engine, which SE did. Which makes the speed of release even more amazing!

[Raistlin]

I have to underscore what Ouch and BoB have said that it's pretty incredible that FFXIV:ARR has only taken about two years. Especially considering that they were still maintaining and improving FFXIV 1.x during most of this process.

[escobert]

I see people complain that a subscription model system is dead, but I see just as many people lambasting disappointing free-to-play titles. There hasn't been a non-subscription game yet that's pulled the several million people away from World of Warcraft. It's clearly not the juggernaut some users want to pretend it is.

Maybe they haven't all come from WoW (atleast half of my guild has) but there are an estimated 4.5 million+ GW2 players

[Loony BoB]

4.5m characters, surely? The latest records I can find show 2m copies sold, although that was admittedly back in September. But for it to outsell it's original two or three weeks by 125% since then would be an impressive feat, and if even half of those were WoW then it would decrease their population by a very significant percentage.

Still, I feel that GW2 is fairly irrelevant to the XIV state of play. Everyone raved about Rift on it's release and it sold a million copies and it's dropped significantly since then from my understanding and that's despite shifting to a free to play model. As many players as there are in other games, XIV just has to worry about itself. SE can't control other games, it can just do all it can to equal/better them.

The expected cost of XIV isn't something I see as high, so I'm not bothered. 40 characters, 8 servers, something like £6.99 a month? I forget the exact price but that's something I can easily afford and I'll probably only use one character for the most part anyway.

[Freya]

BoB, buy me a fancy computer to play with you guys when it comes back out. kkthx.

[Loony BoB]

You're better off asking Murd, I'm the poor bastard. ;)

[Ouch!]

I see people complain that a subscription model system is dead, but I see just as many people lambasting disappointing free-to-play titles. There hasn't been a non-subscription game yet that's pulled the several million people away from World of Warcraft. It's clearly not the juggernaut some users want to pretend it is.

Maybe they haven't all come from WoW (atleast half of my guild has) but there are an estimated 4.5 million+ GW2 players

Like BoB said, none of the numbers I've seen are that high. The other question is how many of those people from WoW have actually canceled their accounts and stopped playing?

[escobert]

There was an update in the GW2 forums that has said blah blah blah number of accounts were banned = whatever percent of the population which worked out to be about 4 million. and it was a couple weeks old at that point.
also they had to stop selling digital copies for most of sept/oct because the servers were overloaded.

dunno how many WoW players are still around but, my guild is very active and all members from our start are still playing. we're in the 8th or 9th or so ranked server in NA.

[Loony BoB]

There was an update in the GW2 forums that has said blah blah blah number of accounts were banned = whatever percent of the population which worked out to be about 4 million. and it was a couple weeks old at that point.
I suspect this is characters rather than players, in that case. Sounds about right - an average of two characters per player.

[Miriel]

Ok, I know that great products can come to exist purely based on rational business motivated decision making. You can calculate and use formulas and figure out the best possible way to make money and to create a product that will be successful. I know that's possible. Yes.

But I genuinely believe that great products come to fruition better when it's a labor of love. When the people involved are purposeful and set out to create something they're proud of and that they believe in. As opposed to the general, "Oh trout, we need to fix this fast because we need to make a profit NOW" feeling that I get from FFXIV. And this is a feeling I've had about the project since the beginning. It never really felt like a project that came about because a bunch of people had some really great ideas and they wanted to make it come to life. From the get go it felt like they wanted to push hard and fast to make money asap. As opposed to, "We have an awesome idea for a game, and I think people would love it" it always seemed more like, "What kind of game can we make that can make us some money?"

I do think that the original failure of the game has crippled the title to the point where ARR will never be a big success. I think ARR will do mildly well and maybe save SE financially. But nothing more than that.

I hope this is a good kick in the butt for SE. They need some more inspiration in the work that they do.

I feel badly for the people laid off right before Christmas. :(

[Bolivar]

The other question is how many of those people from WoW have actually canceled their accounts and stopped playing?

Me.

The real question is how many of the million+ RIFT players went back to WoW after they dropped out or instead to one of the other countless options out there today. Then you can ask how many of the millions of GW2 players cancelled their subscriptions.


It never really felt like a project that came about because a bunch of people had some really great ideas and they wanted to make it come to life. From the get go it felt like they wanted to push hard and fast to make money asap. As opposed to, "We have an awesome idea for a game, and I think people would love it" it always seemed more like, "What kind of game can we make that can make us some money?"

This is the mindset behind so many games and products today and I just wish it wasn't the case.

[Ouch!]

My point was more that as of just a few months ago, World of Warcraft had over ten million active subscribers, and Mists of Pandaria has been one of their most successful expansions. I'm just not ready to call a subscription model dead on arrival when there's still that many people still engaged in it. Some might argue that WoW is an anomaly because it's the only MMORPG to have that level of success, but that argument ignores the fact that even free-to-play model games aren't bringing that juggernaut down.