Square Enix Fans: The Silent Killers

[Spooniest]

SE just doesn't seem interested in or capable of engaging the fanbase of their intellectual properties anymore.

There's really only one sentiment that can possibly be behind this, and it's definitely not apathy. Apathy doesn't go over big in Japan. :) It's fear. SE have set up numerous redundant barriers to their fans contacting them directly, and have never been ones for copious amounts of question-and-answer. This was ok in the SNES days, because we were teenagers, and everything they were doing was fine with us.

The elephant in the room, now, is that SE has a legion of 30-something and 20-something fans that they treat like red headed stepchildren. When their latest Big Thingtm fails to win them a new legion of adoring 12 year olds begging their bewildered parents to buy them the latest Interactive Confection from Sqeenix, and they finally turn back to their grown fans and ask for us to shell out money for some half-hearted window-dressed remake of a SNES era hit or two, I worry that the reaction for many of us will be to scoff at them. I worry that that will be my reaction.

The once-mighty Square forgets who made it great, grows proud, and falls.

This is what will happen.

Thoughts?

[Vyk]

anymore

Did they ever?

Plus I don't think it's just them. I always thought this was just a thing in Japan

I have heard similar stories about SEGA and Nintendo snubbing their noses or closing their doors to open discussions with their fans

I know I never remember a time when I felt engaged by Square/Square-Enix. They made things I wanted, once upon a time. But not because I wanted it. It used to be because its what they wanted to make. Until recently they simply wanted to make ... other, not so satisfying things. Still not with any consult from me or any other fans I'm aware of xD

[maybee]

Haven't they always done this though ? Final Fantasy VII was new and completely different from the first six games, and would of been aimed towards the male teenagers and tweens of 97, and Final Fantasy VIII was a highschool game and highly highschool centered, that would of be aimed towards the tweens that grew up with FF VII, and the teenagers who played FF VII and the new tweens who would be looking forward and curious about highschool coming.

They did do Final Fantasy IX, but then they also did Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy X-2 aimed for the 12- 18 year old age group.

Alot of the Final Fantasy XIII fanbase is people aged between 12- 16, because it's aimed towards them, the HD X- BOX 360 generation.

Though FF IX proves that Square knew back in the old days, that they had a old fandom too. They just have to make a modern day FF IX. Though looking back at history, they are always going to be aiming for the teens.

[Spooniest]

They are always going to be aiming for the teens.

Why? Has anyone bothered to ask? Have we examined the likely motivations behind such a decision?

I highly doubt it's because SE feels a strong moral compulsion to make quality entertainment for teenagers. It seems more likely to me that they have reasoned that teenagers are more likely to be spoiled brats who can just ask their parents for money.

I don't respect such a greedy philosophy. I don't care what you shoot back at me about "the realities of life," that's a troutty way to do business, and eventually it's going to backfire.

With the way the FFXIV release went, that All The Bravest horsetrout, and now this Final Fantasy VII PS4 Steam release announcement too, I'm really considering eating some Moogles alive, or at least trying to find out who wants to devour SE's market share the most, and handing them my money instead.

In brief: where's the bully I can hire to beat up SE and steal their lunch money?

[Spuuky]

They are a Japanese company, I recommend just letting them continue to commit seppuku instead.

[Spooniest]

They are a Japanese company, I recommend just letting them continue to commit seppuku instead.

Dude, das racist

[Spuuky]

Dude, das racist ...is a great band

[Vyk]

They are always going to be aiming for the teens.

Why? Has anyone bothered to ask? Have we examined the likely motivations behind such a decision?

Not sure of the reasoning, but it's completely true. A few years ago there was an article where ... Nomura (I think?) was quoted in an interview having been asked a question along these lines, about why they don't make their games more for their growing audience. His response was that it was natural to grow out of Final Fantasy and that it had always been aimed at teenagers and they always want it to be aimed at teenagers. Every year or so a topic like this comes up and I bring up this interview. And every time I am asked to quote and cite it. And it's always a pain in the ass to find. I've quoted it at least twice in my 7,000 posts lol So its in there somewhere if anyone wants proof. The person who said it, or the company themselves may have changed their tune since. But it is on record, and it stands to reason by their actions and creations that when it was spoken, it was definitely spoken in truth

[Spooniest]

I read the same interview...that is how I know that it was said.

But why would anyone want to create products solely for teenagers, is the question I was asking.

The answer is that it's easier. You can depend on the stupidity of the audience a lot more, and they'll have the money to buy it, because their parents spoil them rotten.

So SE is saying, without using so many words, "We like to do things that are easy, and profitable."

Do you see where I'm going with this now?

[Vyk]

Yeah.. I never agreed with it on the principle and nature of the thing. But looking at it like that makes it much worse, and sadly makes even more sense. Which is probably why XIII was so popular, despite horribly crafted character personalities, and a plot so contradictory with such massive plot holes

[Wolf Kanno]

Okay, I'm going to comment on this after I get some actual sleep otherwise it will be just some unintelligible wall of text (nothing new WK) but I will point out that the article you're mentioning where SE revealed they only really target youth culture was actually with Yoshinori Kitase (the guy actually in charge of the FF franchise) when the interviewer mentioned that fans did genuinely have a positive reaction to Sahz in XIII.

I'll get to the other points later but right now I need some R&R.

[chionos]

You know what. I haven't made a serious wall-o-text at almost four in the morning in a hell of a long time. Let's fix that, shall we?

Marketing to teenagers is solid business sense. It's not about the fact that SE's "fans" from the early games have grown up. It's not about them not realizing that they have fans who don't fit that niche. It's about continuing to evolve their business.

The one big problem with it is that they start out as young guys making games aimed toward gamers not all that much younger than they are, but then those young developers become middle aged developers who are more disconnected with their young audience. And let's face it, it's not only agist to disregard teenagers' influence on business, on culture, on this industry in particular, it's also stupid. Whether you like it or not, it's teenagers more than any other group that determine the ebb and flow of popular culture, especially in the 21st century.

As far as the business aspect of it...
It's also true (EoFF bears this out) that while they will lose some of the previous generation with each new iteration, they will retain some, if not most, of that previous generation.

Older generations will stay with the company out of loyalty, out of nostalgia, out of hope.

Let's make up some random numbers to illustrate:

WARNING: FAKE NUMBERS ALERT
Numbers are rounded for the sake of simplicity

Let's say SE starts with Final Fantasy Alpha which they market toward a potential audience of one million teenagers. Out of those one million they establish an audience base of one hundred thousand.

100,000 / 1,000,000

Now when the time comes to make Final Fantasy Beta, the Alpha players have grown up and there's a new generation of potential new audience members of 1,100,000. SE now has two options, basically:

a. They can market toward that previous established base of 100,000 and ignore the new generation. They may gain a few or lose a few thousand, but that doesn't matter overall.

100,000+-10,000 / 1,000,000

They remain where they were and make no progress. Uh-oh the shareholders are bitching, why is there no growth! If a business isn't moving forward, it's stagnating. I don't particularly like this aspect of the business world, but it is what it is.

b. They can make a game for the new generation of 1,100,000, and if they achieve the same % penetration, they've now got an audience of one hundred and ten thousand.

110,000 / 1,100,000

PLUS, they're going to retain some percentage of the previous generation. Let's say that number is 10% of the previous, so ten thousand.

They've now got an audience of 120,000, anywhere from ten to thirty thousand more than they would with option a. And it's highly likely that they're actually going to retain more of that previous audience than we estimated even if the game isn't directly made for or marketed at them.

Not to mention that each new generation is MORE into video games than the previous generation and there are MORE of them in the first place. i.e. my kids started playing games way earlier than I did, play more sophisticated games at five than I did at fifteen, will hopefully grow up without the stigma that games are only for nerds/boys/introverts/social outcasts/whatever.

Also, which is more likely: parents wanting to play a game because their kids are playing it, or kids wanting to play a game because their parents are playing it? As a father, I can promise you that I'm more often pulled into my kids' games than they are into mine. Parents aren't cool. Parents are lame. Kids want to do the opposite of what their parents do. (I want to make it clear real quick, that a lot of this is exaggeration to make a point). While there's also the stigma that kids are young and dumb so older people don't want anything to do with their silly games/fashions/etc., it's not as strong as the former, and in fact in a lot of cases it doesn't exist at all (but shhhhh, it's a secret).

Furthersmurfingmore, it's easier to build a game around the--even if only perceived--desires of a teenaged audience because teenagers typically have a stronger sense of group identity, herd mentality, than that of an older audience. The whole "finding oneself" thing hasn't happened yet. They don't know who they are yet (for the most part, EoFF teenagers please don't be insulted) so they follow trends. Not to say that 20-somethings or 30-somethings or 40-somethings don't do this too, but it's to a lesser degree, and it's not quite ubiquitous or unanimous or some other u-ous.

It's not because teenagers are "stupid." Easier to pigeonhole perhaps. More naive, more gullible perhaps. But that's not "stupid," it's ignorant, and I'm not just playing semantics here, it's a significant difference. In any case and in other words, it's not a lowest common denominator kind of deal.

I really don't think of SE as a company that takes the easy way out or makes decisions based on how easy or hard it would be. It may not seem like it, but they've taken enormous risks in the past. smurfing enormous, gargantuan SPIRITS WITHIN sized risks. Final Fantasy XI/PlayOnline sized risks. Enix sized risks. A Realm Reborn sized risks. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say no other company has ever attempted (nor less yet pulled off) the kind of reboot that SE did with FFXIV 2.0.

I sound like I'm fanboying, but I'm not. This is just the truth. I'm as critical of SE as anyone. (FFXIII is an abomination, and it's not the only thing SE has smurfed up).

So yeah, what was I saying? SE something something.
Oh, right, SE makes decisions in order to be profitable, as they should. If they didn't, they'd soon have to close down and then we'd get no games at all, whether good, bad, or otherwise. As an audience, the potential for bad games should not outweigh the potential for good games. i.e. Since the audience has the option of whether or not to get a particular game, past performances should not have any affect on the audience's desire for the company to keep making games, because what does it really hurt the audience either way? If they make a bad game, then I don't buy it and my life is exactly the same as it would be if they'd never made the game at all, other than a little letdown from anticipation, and if I can't handle that, then I should fully expect to get my ass kicked by the big bad real world.

It's certainly not a lose-lose proposition. It's not even one that's win/lose. It's win/nothing. If they fail, I lose nothing that I don't voluntarily give when I allow myself to get hyped.

I don't have a damn clue what I'm talking about, but I'm going to stop there. smurf your lazy ass tl;dr bulltrout, but I'll summarize: Growing old sucks, but I can't blame SE for that. Chocobos rule, Moombas drool. Scoffing is for hopeless, bitter people, and I don't want to be a whiner. spoiler: realists aren't whiners. Take the good with the bad and vice versa. Final Fantasy Firefly: who's a better Cid, Wash or Kaylee??????? Teenagers get a bad rap, My name is Cloud Strife and I cannot lie...some trout like that. Never bet against a wiener.

EDIT EDIT EDIT: Why are all pictures of Weiner on the internet so smurfing huge??

https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS_MhsEGAHH8_JmDBVNhwlPJpFUnupvrPDOII7CufAsVNYzEjUB

[Spuuky]

Blah blah the Internet is full of huge WeinersBut with a company the size of Square marketing to teenagers isn't an all-or-nothing proposition. At that size you really can be different things to different people. Making a Real Final Fantasy As Per The Dreams Of People Who Bothered Making An Account On A Final Fantasy Website though, that was always a niche thing; FF7 created a bubble which could do nothing but burst.

[maybee]

Teens are more likely to be quite apathetic, naive, and more easily led, and most likely to follow the crowd. If it's something is in fashion, they are going to follow it. They are also less likely to give a smurf if the game has storyline flaws and character flaws, as longs as it has the newest and flashiest graphics, and it's entertaining.

While a young adult/ adult is more likely to say, screw this, I deserve more for my money, a deep storyline with effort and hardwork put into it and characters that are relatable and memorable.


While making a solid Final Fantasy makes more sense, at the end of the day, Square is a business and they are going to do whatever they can to collect money and collect that money quickly. So cut corners, focus on a main character that's stylish and cool towards the teenage demographic, pretty graphics, and a battle system that even the dumbest person could use and understand.

Final Fantasy XIII is dreadful, though at the end of the day, it sold and created enough interest for Square to make sequels.

Looking back, I don't think that I would ever pick up FF X if it came out today, but I went bonkers over it when I was about 12.

[Aulayna]

I only really skim-read this, but I wanted to touch on the point of Square putting up barriers of contact. Honestly I think this is completely untrue. I think SQEX are being more transparent than ever, dare I say it, I think they actually learned their lesson.

I know that 90% of you don't care about Final Fantasy XIV, but the developers of XIV regularly have live stream events where they show off what they're working on for the game and field Q&A from the forums (not just the Japanese forums either) which has actually resulted in a couple of the developers becoming minor celebrities. They also did the FFXIV Fan Festivals last year where they were very down to earth and liasing with everyone.

The company has clearly taken note of this approach considering that we're seeing a lot more face time with Tabata in regards to both Type-0 HD and FFXV.

Plus the fact that Bravely Default has finally shown them, what we've all been yelling for years, that there is a market for a traditional JRPGs still and that they are returning their focus back to console development.

They probably will still make a load of mobile titles, this is largely because the mobile market is absolutely huge in their home territory and also costs very little to outsource localisation for other regions. While it isn't a practice I may like, it's something that keeps their bank tinkers rolling which is only a good thing after the unexpected success of FFXIV's re-release (which itself was a smurfing humongous gamble to take and most other companies would've just left XIV dead in the water) pretty much single handedly returned the company back into a comfortable financial situation. That means more money that can be funneled into bigger title development, which is also something they themselves have admitted that they need to speed up on.

Though there was also that Tabata (maybe it was Sakaguchi) interview a while back, that pretty much said that FFXV is going to make or break them - that they know the pressure is on to deliver with that title and if it tanks they may consider withdrawing from the big-budget console market all together and focus on making smaller, more tightly-knitted games.

So while yes, in the past they have been relatively mute - I think there has been a very clear and visible paradigm shift in the past 12 months toward community management and transparency by SQEX.

[Spooniest]

The problem, to me, is that marketing takes precedence over game making to them.

If video games are merely toys meant to be used and discarded when the new toy comes out, then this is fine.

If video games are an art form, this is a recipe for stagnation.

Does the series seem especially stagnant to you? Is that a bad thing?

I think so.

[Ayen]

Final Fantasy XIII is dreadful, though at the end of the day, it sold and created enough interest for Square to make sequels.

Not sure I believe this. FFXIII has its fans, sure, but I think the main reason the original game sold well was because it was Final Fantasy. Final Fantasy had a rap sheet. The sequels did worse in sales because by that time fans knew what they were getting, and they didn't like it. Lightning Returns doing the worse of all of them.

As for the topic itself, I agree with Aulayna.

[Wolf Kanno]

I only really skim-read this, but I wanted to touch on the point of Square putting up barriers of contact. Honestly I think this is completely untrue. I think SQEX are being more transparent than ever, dare I say it, I think they actually learned their lesson.

I know that 90% of you don't care about Final Fantasy XIV, but the developers of XIV regularly have live stream events where they show off what they're working on for the game and field Q&A from the forums (not just the Japanese forums either) which has actually resulted in a couple of the developers becoming minor celebrities. They also did the FFXIV Fan Festivals last year where they were very down to earth and liasing with everyone.

The company has clearly taken note of this approach considering that we're seeing a lot more face time with Tabata in regards to both Type-0 HD and FFXV.

Plus the fact that Bravely Default has finally shown them, what we've all been yelling for years, that there is a market for a traditional JRPGs still and that they are returning their focus back to console development.

They probably will still make a load of mobile titles, this is largely because the mobile market is absolutely huge in their home territory and also costs very little to outsource localisation for other regions. While it isn't a practice I may like, it's something that keeps their bank tinkers rolling which is only a good thing after the unexpected success of FFXIV's re-release (which itself was a smurfing humongous gamble to take and most other companies would've just left XIV dead in the water) pretty much single handedly returned the company back into a comfortable financial situation. That means more money that can be funneled into bigger title development, which is also something they themselves have admitted that they need to speed up on.

Though there was also that Tabata (maybe it was Sakaguchi) interview a while back, that pretty much said that FFXV is going to make or break them - that they know the pressure is on to deliver with that title and if it tanks they may consider withdrawing from the big-budget console market all together and focus on making smaller, more tightly-knitted games.

So while yes, in the past they have been relatively mute - I think there has been a very clear and visible paradigm shift in the past 12 months toward community management and transparency by SQEX.

Wow, I was going to say somethings but Aulayna beat me to most of the points I wanted to make.

SE has become far more transparent in the last few years and honestly the very idea of a company having direct dialogue with its fanbase is a relatively new concept brought on by mass communication so I don't feel SE is especially worse about this than other companies.

As for Tabata's questioning of the consoles future, this is also simply a matter of business practices as well. The newer FFs, barring the MMO entries, while phenomenal for the genre have been not quite the numbers like say CoD or Madden which is what SE seems to be shooting for. We also have no idea what kind of money is going into these games and considering we're all too well familiar with the companies delays and poor development practices; it is very likely that games like XII and XIII barely made back the money that went into making them, whereas the low cost development of mobile makes it a both a safe and intelligent business decision. If SE can make all their bank on mobile, MMOs, and their side business in manga, music, and anime then I don't see why they should feel the need to cater to us oldbies who still want a AAA console RPG on our overpriced gaming machine and entertainment systems that will likely make no one happy because fans are unpleasable.

I mentioned in the "What if the FF series ended" thread that I feel that Squenix's "Cinematic RPG" design has become an evolutionary dead end and while some fans may still clamor for it, the world wants something more and until SE can figure out what that is, they shouldn't embarrass themselves by making console titles that take forever to produce and alienate the fanbase they are trying to recapture. Kitase's comment about catering exclusively to the teen demographic I feel both represents standard practices (most media business cater to the youth culture) but also the fact SE may have wised up to the idea that their older fans are whiny, self-entitled assholes who will never be happy with anything you give them and despite what they say, really don't know what they want. Why waste money on such a demographic if it's too risky? Despite some fans believing that a VII remake would make the company the richest in the world, the reality is that the fanbase will be split from those whining about the changes made to their nostalgia and how it's "ruined forever" while the other half would probably whine about how the game hasn't aged as well and SE should have been more ambitious with changing the game up to fit in line with modern standards instead of being cheap and just giving the game a new graphic engine and leaving it untouched. I mean it's a PR nightmare and the recent port to PS4 kind of shows that even just releasing the game to a new generation gets them hate.

I'm sorry when I say that I don't think SE is wrong to say "fuck the old fans" as a business practice. The days of Square being an artistic powerhouse died in the PS1 era and they are now a business first and foremost. The fact they still occasionally throw older fans a bone is a nice gesture that most companies wouldn't bother with.

[Spooniest]

It's one thing to ignore your old fans. It is quite another to actively antagonize them.


I think there has been a very clear and visible paradigm shift in the past 12 months toward community management and transparency by SQEX.

How do you explain this?

IfsE1r7zS4c

Everyone's entitled to an opinion, and my opinion is that SE needs to be called to task for this, among other things. They have not earned my loyalty back yet.


The fact they still occasionally throw older fans a bone is a nice gesture that most companies wouldn't bother with.

Enabling a troutty game company much?

Game makers are supposed to make fun things, not make fun of people. My feelings aren't hurt, but it makes me question the corporate culture of SE as it stands if trout like this is allowed to happen.

I thought these people went to school for marketing. T_T At most, this warranted a tweet: "Hey SE fans! Download PC FF7 for PS4 here!"

I just got an idea for another thread.

[Shauna]

At no point have the claimed to be remaking FF7 though, so how are they not being transparent? The fans getting overly hyped is not a fault SE has to apologise for?

Unless I am misunderstanding what you are trying to say in response to Auly's comment.

[Spooniest]

At no point have the claimed to be remaking FF7 though, so how are they not being transparent? The fans getting overly hyped is not a fault SE has to apologise for?

Unless I am misunderstanding what you are trying to say in response to Auly's comment.

How does someone go to school for marketing and not learn that "bait-and-switch" advertising is ham-fisted and rude, especially the louder you do it?

This was just a really stupid thing to have done.

[Aulayna]

And they've got a huge amount of shit for that FFVII reveal, which yes wasn't handled in the best way possible. However, one blip in the tide of very positive tide of change from the company is something I'm happy to overlook, especially as Japanese gaming companies have been very slow on the uptake of community management in the way that we've become accustomed too from western based studios. There is also a very fundamental difference in consumer attitudes between the East and West too.

Let alone, when they re-released VII on Steam, it rocketted onto the Top Sellers on Steam despite widely being available as "warez" via torrents for ages. The fact of the matter is, if people weren't buying these re-releases en masse, they wouldn't make such a big deal out of announcing them. I'm fairly sure the marketting meeting would've went something like "so FFVII and VIII have sold really well on Steam, can we port those to PS4 now the install base has grown" "yes" "how much will it cost?" "not much" "well clearly our fans want this as they keep buying it, so let's do it." If anything I'd put that down to misattribution of sales figures as expressed interest.

Besides if the rumours whirling around on NeoGAF are to be believed, an actual VII remake could very well be hitting within the next 2 years.

[Psychotic]

You could market FF towards teens in the SNES, PSOne and 2 eras and be successful. Now you've got Call of Duty and Minecraft to compete with, only you can't compete with them. And if you think they're going to sit through hour upon hour of your Fal'Cie L'Cie cutscenes before they get to have fun whereas in GTA V they can just drop straight into a game with their friends then good luck to you Square-Enix. The average gamer is in their 30's (google it) not in their teens, time they woke up and realised it's 2015.

[Aulayna]

And by that note, the average person in their 30s also has so many other commitments in life vying for their time that they don't have time to sit through hours upon hours of cutscenes either. ;)

[Psychotic]

Damn right! Ain't nobody got time for that! :p

Naw though. Binge watching is a real thing thanks to Netflix and other streaming services, and Telltale have shown how have a game basically made of cutscenes - just let people participate them.

[Ayen]

And by that note, the average person in their 30s also has so many other commitments in life vying for their time that they don't have time to sit through hours upon hours of cutscenes either. ;)

Unless it's Metal Gear.

[Bolivar]

Spooniest, I applaud your determination to create this thread every year but I think it's unreasonable for you to expect a Japanese company to accommodate your decidedly Western expectations. Japan has completely changed, the young developers there are not the same people we grew up on and the developers we grew up on just just aren't the same people they were 20 years ago. Their market really has moved on from console gaming, it's why Kitase and Sakaguchi are reuniting for a mobile title of all things.

They're capable of making the greatest games in the world but I'm not going to lose sleep if they dont. I'm content trying out newer game experiences and picking up older titles when I feel the itch.

[Spooniest]

Spooniest, I applaud your determination to create this thread every year

I love applause.