Final Fantasy XV now ships 6 million units

[Squall Leonhart Loire]

http://gematsu.com/2017/01/final-fantasy-xv-total-shipments-top-six-million

[Loony BoB]

Glad to see the series doing so well, here's hoping it continues for a long time!

[Elly]

yeah despite the handful of people that wanna claim "it's not a real Final Fantasy" or "it's not worthy of the Final Fantasy brand" it seems to be doing quite well... i really hope to see this title continue to sale and more improvements made upon it, like added chapters, characters, & features beyond what the season pass already gets us...

[Scruffington]

yeah despite the handful of people that wanna claim "it's not a real Final Fantasy" or "it's not worthy of the Final Fantasy brand" it seems to be doing quite well... i really hope to see this title continue to sale and more improvements made upon it, like added chapters, characters, & features beyond what the season pass already gets us...

It's more than a handful of people. This game sold well because it had a massive marketing campaign behind it. If it were a better game, I guarantee it would be doing much better than 6M. The number is still impressive though, which means there is some chance of another mainline FF game.

Also those improvements won't really matter much to the 6 million people who have already purchased the game. Some of those enhancements are probably still at least 6 months out.

[FinalxxSin]

Also those improvements won't really matter much to the 6 million people who have already purchased the game. Some of those enhancements are probably still at least 6 months out.
I don't know where you're getting your info on that, but it isn't as black and white as you make it out to be. The improvements, regardless of how long they take to complete, are still going to be getting looked forward too by some of the people that bought the game day one. For some of those people, it'll be a deciding factor in rather or not they spend more money on the game with some of the DLC content.

[Loony BoB]

Based on feedback from people at EoFF, on reddit and metacritic and elsewhere, I'd say that FFXV has done very well with customers and that the high sales reflects this well.

"If it were a better game, it would sell more" can literally be said about every single game in the entire world, including every other game in the Final Fantasy series.

The feedback from the public has been better than that of XII and XIII, as far as I can tell. I agree more than a handful said it was not good, but again, that can be said about every other game in the FF series.

[Fox]

Nice to see a handful of people enjoyed it at least!

[Scruffington]

I don't know where you're getting your info on that, but it isn't as black and white as you make it out to be. The improvements, regardless of how long they take to complete, are still going to be getting looked forward too by some of the people that bought the game day one. For some of those people, it'll be a deciding factor in rather or not they spend more money on the game with some of the DLC content.

It's completely speculative. My guess is that the 3 DLC episodes are going to take a decent amount of time to complete (maybe 2-3 months each, perhaps longer). Also creating cutscenes, getting voice work done, and potentially adding new gameplay sections is a huge task. I assume they are going to do all of this to give Ravus a bigger role in the story, and it will definitely take a long time.

For me the changes are far too late. I already got burned on the story and don't really care anymore.


Based on feedback from people at EoFF, on reddit and metacritic and elsewhere, I'd say that FFXV has done very well with customers and that the high sales reflects this well.

"If it were a better game, it would sell more" can literally be said about every single game in the entire world, including every other game in the Final Fantasy series.

The feedback from the public has been better than that of XII and XIII, as far as I can tell. I agree more than a handful said it was not good, but again, that can be said about every other game in the FF series.

I should have gave my post more context.

At some point before the game came out (I believe it was 2015 or 2016) Square Enix had said they were looking to sell 10 million copies of FFXV. I'm not sure if that was the company's goals or Tabata's team's goals, but it was a stated goal either way. My point is that if they had been able to put out a better product, they would have been closer to achieving their objective.

Also the feedback from the public has not been better than XII or XIII. If we're just going off of Metacritic scores, XII has a 92%. XIII has an 83%. XV has an 82%, which I believe is the lowest score in the entire series excluding the original XIV.

XIII has also sold somewhere around 7.5 million units (including the Steam release). It sold over 6.6 million units by mid-2013. This is despite its disadvantage of having come out in 2010 when digital purchases of full games weren't as frequent as they are now.

By the numbers I think XV has underperformed compared to the two games you have referenced.

[Squall Leonhart Loire]

I still don't know how much it's selling in Japan. I think console gaming is literally dead there if even the most popular franchise next to Dragon Quest can barely pull a million(from what I heard).

[Freya]

This game is taking me a long time to finish because I keep playing social co-op games with friends and fam instead of spending my time with it haha. I've put in about 12 hrs now though so i'm slowly working through it.

So i'm glad it's selling well. I will have the time to wait on DLC since i'm taking my time with the story. It's only been out what like 2 months? I'm sure it'll have even more sales over time :jess:

[Loony BoB]

Also the feedback from the public has not been better than XII or XIII. If we're just going off of Metacritic scores, XII has a 92%. XIII has an 83%. XV has an 82%, which I believe is the lowest score in the entire series excluding the original XIV.

I mean, if you think critic scores are worth going by, sure. I pay more attention to user scores when evaluating public opinion. In my experience over the years at EoFF and elsewhere, the user scores tend to be fairly reflective of public opinion.

FFXII: 7.6
FFXIII: 7.2
FFXV: 7.7

[Del Murder]

Average user scores can also be skewed by people rating it on the extremes just to affect the score. Another measure is the distribution of positive/neutral/negative reviews. Here's how the last FF games stack up:

FFXII: 68%/16%/16%
FFXIII: 62%/16%/22%
FFXV: 72%/10%/18%

XV has more positive ratings then the two prior games but less neutral ratings, meaning people were more likely to love it or hate it. Overall, though, it's hard to argue that XV has been received worse than XIII or even XII by fans.

[Scruffington]

I mean, if you think critic scores are worth going by, sure. I pay more attention to user scores when evaluating public opinion. In my experience over the years at EoFF and elsewhere, the user scores tend to be fairly reflective of public opinion.

FFXII: 7.6
FFXIII: 7.2
FFXV: 7.7

Basing your opinion off of "user scores" is a pretty bad metric to go by.

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, for example, has a 3.5 user score on Metacritic. This is because the series is notorious for a lot of people dismissing it as a repetitive and tired franchise that fails to innovate. A vast majority of these people giving it a low score have simply never played the game. And the ones that have are exaggerating its problems, as it is far from a terrible game. A 3.5 score should only be reserved for games which have severe technical flaws or other terrible problems. The game doesn't deserve a bad score just because of its title alone.

With respect to FFXIII a lot of people have adopted a similar mentality. They hear others complaining about it being a "corridor simulator" and give it low score reviews despite either not having played the game, or exaggerating the issues with the game. Some people will call a game "boring" and give it a score of 0. It isn't justified.


Average user scores can also be skewed by people rating it on the extremes just to affect the score. Another measure is the distribution of positive/neutral/negative reviews. Here's how the last FF games stack up:

FFXII: 68%/16%/16%
FFXIII: 62%/16%/22%
FFXV: 72%/10%/18%

XV has more positive ratings then the two prior games but less neutral ratings, meaning people were more likely to love it or hate it. Overall, though, it's hard to argue that XV has been received worse than XIII or even XII by fans.

I disagree. Despite its supposed linearity issues, I never heard nearly as much complaining about XIII as I have about XV. I browse NeoGAF, reddit, and sometimes even /v/ and XV seems to be a disappointing entry by unanimous decision. Of course this doesn't account for the whole 'XIII vs XV' debate, and it's entirely my interpretation of the general consensus. It also doesn't account for people who have positive feelings about the game as they aren't as likely to post about it.

I really don't think XV is a bad game. In fact there are elements of it that I absolutely love. But in terms of overall quality I feel that XV was a disappointment.

[Squall Leonhart Loire]

I think XIII was a fundamentally better game than FFXV.

[Del Murder]

I disagree. Despite its supposed linearity issues, I never heard nearly as much complaining about XIII as I have about XV. I browse NeoGAF, reddit, and sometimes even /v/ and XV seems to be a disappointing entry by unanimous decision. Of course this doesn't account for the whole 'XIII vs XV' debate, and it's entirely my interpretation of the general consensus. It also doesn't account for people who have positive feelings about the game as they aren't as likely to post about it.

I really don't think XV is a bad game. In fact there are elements of it that I absolutely love. But in terms of overall quality I feel that XV was a disappointment.
Hearing people complain on forums is anecdotal, even if you visit a lot of forums. Obviously XV is not unanimously disliked because 72% of those users liked it. You are right that people are more likely to post about something to complain about it than praise it. And it could be true that the differences in the Metacritic ratings are not statistically significant and that you would need to compile these scores from other sites and factor in that XIII has been out longer and maybe even do a head to head comparison... but I'll leave that to people who want to project presidential elections. This isn't really that important. And besides:


I think XIII was a fundamentally better game than FFXV.
I just took a poll based on a random sample of people with FFVIII inspired names who have posted in this thread and the verdict is in: 100% of users people believe that FFXV is worse than FFXIII. We can shut this whole debate down, now.

[Loony BoB]

Man, if you genuinely think that XV gets more criticism than XIII, I'm just going to hold my hands up and say I'm not going to argue the point, because that's legit insane to me. xD Fun fact: I like FFXIII, this isn't a secret at EoFF or elsewhere. But the game got shredded more than any other single player FF by a huge distance based in my own anecdotal experience on the internet.

[Fynn]

Man, if you genuinely think that XV gets more criticism than XIII, I'm just going to hold my hands up and say I'm not going to argue the point, because that's legit insane to me. xD Fun fact: I like FFXIII, this isn't a secret at EoFF or elsewhere. But the game got shredded more than any other single player FF by a huge distance based in my own anecdotal experience on the internet.

Yeah. I remember. I was there, too. Heck, XII got more hate than XV is getting. XV is the best received mainline FF in a while, tbh.

[Sephiroth]

As I said once - Fans in the West massively started complained about XIII when it was not even released as 2009 was only the Japan release. I will never forget the thread of some fans "blabla Linear as a piece of string" and them ranting on about it even though they did not know anything about it.

[Fynn]

(they was right tho)

[Sephiroth]

(they was right tho)

About what? Their rant based on nothing? No.

[Scruffington]

Man, if you genuinely think that XV gets more criticism than XIII, I'm just going to hold my hands up and say I'm not going to argue the point, because that's legit insane to me. xD Fun fact: I like FFXIII, this isn't a secret at EoFF or elsewhere. But the game got shredded more than any other single player FF by a huge distance based in my own anecdotal experience on the internet.

There is one huge difference between XV and XIII to me: XV brought in a surprising amount of newer players compared to XIII. I haven't seen this many new people jump on board with a new FF game before.

My point with this is that a lot of these newer players aren't aware of what past FF games were comprised of. They didn't know that the games had engaging stories, full character development, strategical combat, and a huge amount of fantasy elements including unique settings, summons and magics. Therefore they don't see its flaws or its lacking components nearly as much as an OG Final Fantasy fan would.

On the surface this sounds great. I think every gamer should come into a new game neutral and open-minded. But this is a series in its fifteenth entry in 30 years, so there has to be some sort of standard and consistency. You have to consider the legacy of Final Fantasy each time a new game comes out, and how it retains core elements from the series while creating something new.

Ultimately though, I try to base my opinion on fact more than anything. I do think a lot of the numbers point to XV being worse received than XIII -- at least by critics.

[Freya]

I remember when Del Murder and I were at that PR event, where we met Director Motomu Toriyama and Producer Yoshinori Kitase, for Lightning Returns. They were trying to hype us about Lightning Returns, giving us exclusive info and what not. In turn, we had to then try to write for EoFF and attempt to Hype them too!

Let me advise you how hard it was:

Hard.

It was hard.

More people were excited that Square Enix had invited us to such an event than another sequel to XIII. Trying to convince fans (and our much larger user base at the time) that this new XIII entry was totally going to be better, was hard. The fans just.. weren't there. At the time we were in contact with many fansites as part of this PR event. We talked a lot. They also had a tough time.

You probably have the perspective as a pure fan who did enjoy it. Well from a perspective of a "Gaming Journalist" trying to write about it and generate content for it, XIII and its sequels were not received as well. So we had to be careful on what we wrote cause otherwise, we wouldn't get any activity on an article. Fans just weren't as interested. We want to celebrate all FF here so it made our jobs a little harder.

I'm not nearly as active in writing about it or connecting with my fellow writers anymore but from what I have, the XV hype has been much more positive.


Hope that puts a little context on the topic at hand :D

[Slothy]

XIII has also sold somewhere around 7.5 million units (including the Steam release). It sold over 6.6 million units by mid-2013. This is despite its disadvantage of having come out in 2010 when digital purchases of full games weren't as frequent as they are now.

So you're saying that FFXIII was a success because it sold 6.6 million units in about 3 years and XV is a failure because it's shipped (and let's face it, it will sell all of the shipped copies) 6 million in under 3 months? I'm not sure you know what success means. :p

And you're going to use critic scores with a difference of 1% average to claim XIII is better while ignoring user scores which show a significant percentage difference going the other way and saying those user scores don't matter?

Honestly: FFXIII was a bad game in the eyes of a large number of people. It did not do that well (compared to previous entries, and isn't doing well compared to XV), and I will even go so far as to suggest that had XIII and it's sequels been much better games, XV would probably be doing even better than it already is because people like me who consider FFXIII to be one of the worst games ever made (or really even just didn't like it) might have actually been hyped for XV and willing to buy in at release sight unseen.

[Squall Leonhart Loire]

Man, if you genuinely think that XV gets more criticism than XIII, I'm just going to hold my hands up and say I'm not going to argue the point, because that's legit insane to me. xD Fun fact: I like FFXIII, this isn't a secret at EoFF or elsewhere. But the game got shredded more than any other single player FF by a huge distance based in my own anecdotal experience on the internet.

There is one huge difference between XV and XIII to me: XV brought in a surprising amount of newer players compared to XIII. I haven't seen this many new people jump on board with a new FF game before.

My point with this is that a lot of these newer players aren't aware of what past FF games were comprised of. They didn't know that the games had engaging stories, full character development, strategical combat, and a huge amount of fantasy elements including unique settings, summons and magics. Therefore they don't see its flaws or its lacking components nearly as much as an OG Final Fantasy fan would.

On the surface this sounds great. I think every gamer should come into a new game neutral and open-minded. But this is a series in its fifteenth entry in 30 years, so there has to be some sort of standard and consistency. You have to consider the legacy of Final Fantasy each time a new game comes out, and how it retains core elements from the series while creating something new.

Ultimately though, I try to base my opinion on fact more than anything. I do think a lot of the numbers point to XV being worse received than XIII -- at least by critics.
You're spot on with that. I'm seeing people who have never played a JRPG or FF before in their entire life and interested in this game. Could have to do with the open world aspect and how, with many casual mainstream gamers, a game with open world slapped on it, pretty graphics, and a flashy combat system equal a buy. These people will never be inclined to play the older games. Angry Joe is an example of this. I've always labelled hjm as a Japanese game basher but this game got his attention. However, the old games are too drastically different from XV for them to feel accustomed to it. Like going from XV and then to FFX or FFVI. Stark difference.

[FinalxxSin]

..
The legacy of Final Fantasy? What difference does that really make in the grand scheme of things? Sure, one can look and say x,y,z is how things should be done based on past examples. I’m more concerned with what is going on today, and not so much with what took place in the past. You speak of newer people probably not being able to see the flaws in FFXV, but wasn’t that the EXACT same thing that happened with FFVII? I believe so. Hell, there are people still today that will talk up FFVII like it’s the Holy Grail of gaming, despite the reality that the game has some glaring flaws. That isn’t taking place with FFXV on the vocal side. People acknowledge the game has flaws, but despite that most are still able to enjoy the game greatly. Perhaps that boiled down to the pros of the game being so significant that the cons ended up not being as major of a problem for a good number of people. A game with flaws =/= a game that will be chalked up as a bad game. A game from a design outlook could objectively have the best everything, but none of that matters if it fails to connect with people.

Also, FFXIII objectively from a vocal aspect is the most criticized mainline game in the series. The only game imo that would have gotten more criticized would be FFII. Luckily, the internet had not blown up during the release time frame of FFII, therefore it evaded that bullet. If you want to argue that FFXV has gotten more criticism, then not only will you be barking up a tree, but you will also give me proof of how out of touch you are with the vocal part of the community.

One more thing: Critics can have a bias rather that is in support or against a title. I personally tend to take some things with a grain of salt.

[Scruffington]

You probably have the perspective as a pure fan who did enjoy it. Well from a perspective of a "Gaming Journalist" trying to write about it and generate content for it, XIII and its sequels were not received as well. So we had to be careful on what we wrote cause otherwise, we wouldn't get any activity on an article. Fans just weren't as interested. We want to celebrate all FF here so it made our jobs a little harder.

I'm not nearly as active in writing about it or connecting with my fellow writers anymore but from what I have, the XV hype has been much more positive.

Your story was about the second sequel to XIII, not XIII itself. Each mainline entry is always going to get more hype than its potential sequels, so I hardly think that's relevant.


So you're saying that FFXIII was a success because it sold 6.6 million units in about 3 years and XV is a failure because it's shipped (and let's face it, it will sell all of the shipped copies) 6 million in under 3 months? I'm not sure you know what success means. :p

And you're going to use critic scores with a difference of 1% average to claim XIII is better while ignoring user scores which show a significant percentage difference going the other way and saying those user scores don't matter?

Honestly: FFXIII was a bad game in the eyes of a large number of people. It did not do that well (compared to previous entries, and isn't doing well compared to XV), and I will even go so far as to suggest that had XIII and it's sequels been much better games, XV would probably be doing even better than it already is because people like me who consider FFXIII to be one of the worst games ever made (or really even just didn't like it) might have actually been hyped for XV and willing to buy in at release sight unseen.

First of all I never said XV was a failure. I simply stated that it underperformed compared to its predecessor. Initially that has proven to be the case, but we'll see if the lifetime sales of XV end up higher than XIII's. It does look like they will, however.

Having said that, I personally feel as though XV has a lot of advantages compared to XIII in terms of sales. First, I don't even remember if XIII was available as a downloadable title. This factor alone counts for over one million of XV's sales. Second, word of mouth definitely hurt XIII. A bunch of people got angry and decided to reduce the game to simple phrases such as "corridor simulator" and "linear." A lot of people associated the term "linear" with being "bad" and therefore wrote the game off entirely. Because of this kneejerk reaction, a lot of potential buyers got turned off of the game based on bad things they heard about it. This hurt the lifetime sales of the game, as had people actually given it a chance, they would have possibly found the complaints of players as an overreaction.

TL;DR: No digital release and false negative connotation of "linearity" hurt the lifetime sales of XIII.

Also as I explained earlier, user scores are highly manipulable and unreliable. And if you really think XIII is "one of the worst games ever made," I legitimately don't take your opinion seriously. That's such an overreaction it's almost funny. A little sad, too.

[Sephiroth]

Those sales will all not matter anyway once FFVII comes out next year.;)

[Slothy]

Your story was about the second sequel to XIII, not XIII itself. Each mainline entry is always going to get more hype than its potential sequels, so I hardly think that's relevant.

The reason people weren't interested in it had nothing to do with it being a sequel.


First of all I never said XV was a failure. I simply stated that it underperformed compared to its predecessor. Initially that has proven to be the case, but we'll see if the lifetime sales of XV end up higher than XIII's. It does look like they will, however.

Except, again, it's sold almost as many in under three months as XIII did in three years so saying it's underperforming compared to XIII is flat out wrong.


Having said that, I personally feel as though XV has a lot of advantages compared to XIII in terms of sales. First, I don't even remember if XIII was available as a downloadable title. This factor alone counts for over one million of XV's sales.

This assumes that people who prefer to download games never bought them in any other way which is a pretty silly assumption to make. If those million that have bought XV as a digital download were gaming in 2010 and wanted XIII they would have gone to the store and bought it. The lack of digital downloads at the time wouldn't have any impact on a sales performance difference between the two.


Second, word of mouth definitely hurt XIII. A bunch of people got angry and decided to reduce the game to simple phrases such as "corridor simulator" and "linear." A lot of people associated the term "linear" with being "bad" and therefore wrote the game off entirely. Because of this kneejerk reaction, a lot of potential buyers got turned off of the game based on bad things they heard about it. This hurt the lifetime sales of the game, as had people actually given it a chance, they would have possibly found the complaints of players as an overreaction.

I seriously doubt that anyone who actually listened to the negative criticism of FFXIII was likely to buy it in the first place. And there was a lot more to said criticism than it simply being linear. Linear can be fine. FFX was just about as linear for most of the game and it wasn't bad.

[Mirage]

ffx still had more things to do along that linear path. more variation

[Scruffington]

The legacy of Final Fantasy? What difference does that really make in the grand scheme of things? Sure, one can look and say x,y,z is how things should be done based on past examples. I’m more concerned with what is going on today, and not so much with what took place in the past. You speak of newer people probably not being able to see the flaws in FFXV, but wasn’t that the EXACT same thing that happened with FFVII? I believe so. Hell, there are people still today that will talk up FFVII like it’s the Holy Grail of gaming, despite the reality that the game has some glaring flaws. That isn’t taking place with FFXV on the vocal side. People acknowledge the game has flaws, but despite that most are still able to enjoy the game greatly. Perhaps that boiled down to the pros of the game being so significant that the cons ended up not being as major of a problem for a good number of people. A game with flaws =/= a game that will be chalked up as a bad game. A game from a design outlook could objectively have the best everything, but none of that matters if it fails to connect with people.

It makes a huge difference. A series in its 29th year (at the time of XV's release) has a history and reputation to live up to, as well as certain themes to maintain.

The unique thing about Final Fantasy is that every entry has its unique flair while still maintaining a specific formula in each installment. Specifically, each game has several key 'fantasy' elements. For example, the magic and enemies are huge parts of the Final Fantasy universe. A newer fan might look at XV and think that the magic looks cool, yet they won't be aware that the very first game of the series (FF1) actually had more magic spells and more varied enemies to fight.

My main point is that newer fans who started with XV won't be aware of the reduction of fantasy elements or other downgrades compared to past entries in the series.


One more thing: Critics can have a bias rather that is in support or against a title. I personally tend to take some things with a grain of salt.

Critic scores are far more reliable than user scores. There is always bias when someone gives their opinion on a video game, but critics have their opinion published and held to a professional standard.


ffx still had more things to do along that linear path. more variation

This is utterly untrue. FFX was identical to XIII in linearity, it just did a better job of disguising it.

[Mirage]

nah, it did have more variation. I don't remember many blitzball tournaments in ff13

[Scruffington]

nah, it did have more variation. I don't remember many blitzball tournaments in ff13

That doesn't have anything to do with the linearity of the gameplay or story. It's a minigame.

On that note....I don't remember any Cie'th Stone Missions or Titan Trial equivalents in FFX. Monster Arena isn't the same thing.

[Mirage]

It's variation, and it's an example of variation early on. There's also the cloisters scattered around, and the optional summoner's trials that you can either do as you get to them, or whenever you feel like it later. Both games follow the same sort of formula with the games being very linear for the first half, and then opening up later. FFX has more gameplay variety in the first half than FFXIII.

[FinalxxSin]

@Scruffy
Says you on the themes part. Part of the reason why FFXV pulled in as many people as it did is because it is not a turn based game. Yes, there are people that exist that have been aware of the series, but have been put off by it in the past for various reasons. More variety =/= a better experience. For you sure the opposite is true so whatever floats your boat. That correlation doesn't exist with me, nor does it for some other people as well. You say downgrade this and that, but FFXV had done some things better than any of the prior games. Rather or not you want to overlook those things is your call and one that I personally don't care about.

LOL, yeah okay I will totally take critics more seriously. When you got a critic for example that gave a game a negative because it has too much water....please.

[Scruffington]

It's variation, and it's an example of variation early on. There's also the cloisters scattered around, and the optional summoner's trials that you can either do as you get to them, or whenever you feel like it later. Both games follow the same sort of formula with the games being very linear for the first half, and then opening up later. FFX has more gameplay variety in the first half than FFXIII.

I think that's a fair point to make. X does have more varied gameplay than XIII in terms of the opening part of the game. I really did enjoy the Cloisters and Blitzball. I can definitely see where you're coming from when you say that it's less linear in the first section than XIII was.

I guess my only point is that outside of the Cloiser trials and the single mandatory Blitzball game, it is still incredibly linear until you reach the Calm Lands. I would also argue that XIII has a far more open area in the latter stages of the game compared to X. Ultimately it doesn't matter much to me; both games are incredibly good and have their own strengths that set them apart.


Says you on the themes part. Part of the reason why FFXV pulled in as many people as it did is because it is not a turn based game. Yes, there are people that exist that have been aware of the series, but have been put off by it in the past for various reasons.

You're definitely right about this. Square Enix absolutely tried to cater this game to a wider audience by making it more accessible towards newer players. On the surface I have no issues with this development philosophy: it always make sense as a business to try to bring more people to the product. Having said that, while SE did succeed at making the game easier to play for newer players, they have alienated some of their fanbase. Making the game more accessible for new players should never come at the expense of the enjoyment of loyal fans. People are welcome to disagree with me on this, but I truly do feel as if Square Enix was simply trying to hop on the open-world bandwagon in an attempt to market the game to a wider audience, yet in the process discarded some of the most enjoyable elements of the series to me.


LOL, yeah okay I will totally take critics more seriously. When you got a critic for example that gave a game a negative because it has too much water....please.

So one reviewer from one publication makes one comment about one game, and you immediately disregard all of journalism? Nice logic.

[Fynn]

But there's still tons of loyal fans that love this game.

[FinalxxSin]

.....
My logic is that critics and users both say unreliable things when it's all said and done. Neither is really better than the other. Yes, my logic is nice. Tabata specifically didn't want to make FFXV a difficult game. Division 2 understood the number of people in the fan base that may have never touched an ARPG in their life. So doing an easier transition probably played in their favor more. Your alienate part is a moot point because that's been happening for decades. Every FF game since at least FFVII is going to alienate some aspect of the fan base. We all don't like the same things. It is what it is. FFXVI, FFXVII, FFVII:R, and whatever else may follow will also alienate some aspect of the fan base.

[Slothy]

One more thing: Critics can have a bias rather that is in support or against a title. I personally tend to take some things with a grain of salt.

Critic scores are far more reliable than user scores. There is always bias when someone gives their opinion on a video game, but critics have their opinion published and held to a professional standard.

You're giving games media too much credit since there are a number of high profile examples of companies buying, or trying to buy, good review scores. This includes the firing of some of the few games journalists who took a stand against that.



ffx still had more things to do along that linear path. more variation

This is utterly untrue. FFX was identical to XIII in linearity, it just did a better job of disguising it.

That is literally what Mirage was saying. FFX was just as linear but there was more variety in the things you had to do along the way. You're literally disagreeing with him so you can make the exact same argument.

[Scruffington]

But there's still tons of loyal fans that love this game.

True, but I don't count myself among them. Don't get me wrong...I still think there are a ton of things that XV does right. And I ultimately do think it's a decent game. But I really hope that future FF titles don't follow the same path it did (at least in some ways).


My logic is that critics and users both say unreliable things when it's all said and done. Neither is really better than the other. Yes, my logic is nice.

I don't think I need to explain how illogical and borderline offensive it is to generalize and dismiss an entire group based on one comment that you didn't like from one person.

[Slothy]

My logic is that critics and users both say unreliable things when it's all said and done. Neither is really better than the other. Yes, my logic is nice.

I don't think I need to explain how illogical and borderline offensive it is to generalize and dismiss an entire group based on one comment that you didn't like from one person.

It'd be nice if you'd explain because I have no idea what you're on about and how it relates to his post.

[FinalxxSin]

I don't think I need to explain how illogical and borderline offensive it is to generalize and dismiss an entire group based on one comment that you didn't like from one person.
How long have you been under the impression that only one instance exists? I think you do need to explain your radical thought process on this. You'll give me something to laugh about at the very least. The floor is yours.

[Scruffington]

You'll give me something to laugh about at the very least. The floor is yours.

Apparently you're incapable of having a proper conversation with someone you disagree with. A comment like this is straight up immature. I would never laugh at someone for having a different opinion than me. Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs and preferences. At least now I know that you're not a very respectful person.

You took a single comment from one journalist from IGN out of context in an attempt to slander all of journalism as being "unreliable." The comment in question came from a review of Pokemon: ORAS, in which the reviewer felt that Water-type Pokemon were incredibly overpowered in the game. Which definitely has some validity to it as there are an overwhelming amount of water Pokemon in the game, and they are incredibly effective to use.

It's fine to meme, but clearly you didn't understand what the reviewer was talking about. Even if there was no validity to her argument, that would still not be justification to basically say "every reviewer is unreliable."

[Slothy]

But many reviewers are unreliable if only because their employers are getting their money from the people whose games they review. As I said before, there have been a number of examples of journalists either giving good reviews to avoid pissing off advertisers, or getting fired when they refuse. There's no shortage of video game companies that will and have pulled advertising from sites because they didn't like the review scores they got. Companies frequently threaten to not send review copies prior to release if they get bad reviews from a company. In the case of some of the people free to be more honest about games like Jim Sterling and Total Biscuit, they are outright blacklisted by some companies because they'll speak their mind about games and the actions of companies whether what they have to say is good or bad. Now they can afford to be honest regardless of the consequences from publishers because their fans are the ones supporting them and making sure they earn money. They don't rely on advertising from game companies to pay the bills. But everyone else working at big sites or for magazines that make most of their money from advertising? If they speak their mind they risk hurting the company they work for and losing their jobs as a result. And unless they have the fan support to strike out on their own, which most certainly do not, it'll be the same story anywhere else they work. And since I assume they're all human beings who need a home to live in and food to eat that doesn't leave them with many options.

So he's right, pretty much every professional game journalist and critic is unreliable because they have a huge financial incentive to not tell the truth about bad games. Does that mean they all lie all the time? Probably not. Does it mean their review scores are largely meaningless and they may have to be very careful about tearing apart bad games from major publishers? Absolutely. The present way that game journalism works is an incestuous relationship between the people reporting on games and the companies they're reporting on. The former can't really afford to exist without the latter. I see no way that a person can know that without taking everything they report and every review they write with a pretty hefty bit of salt. And again, I'm not saying they're bad people, but they're in a pretty fucked up situation that does not lend itself well to keeping up ones professional ethics.

At least with user reviews, especially for big titles and despite the possibility of there being some fake reviews or trolls eviscerating a game for no reason and fanboys giving it a 10 because they love the series so much, I'll get thousands of people who's only financial connection to the company is that they bought the game saying what they think of it rather than the views of a few dozen people who have plenty of reason to appear biased whether they are or not. Personally, I'm going to give more weight to the 20,000+ that review a game on the steam store than to journalists.

But then, I've worked as an auditor before and one of the things you learn is the appearance of bias or unethical behaviour (taking money from the people you're supposed to report honestly on) is just as bad as actual bias because everyone outside of your head will never e able to truly tell the difference between the two. If you want to be credible as a game journalist, you've got to be independent from the game advertising. It doesn't work otherwise.

[Loony BoB]

Just a quick word, please try to remain polite with each other even if you disagree with each other's viewpoints.

Also, remember it's okay to disagree overall. Sometimes you, or another person, will not change their minds. Not saying don't continue the discussion, but just don't exhaust yourself on it, nor expect someone to change their stance or come out and say "yes, I was wrong on the internet".

[FinalxxSin]

...
I have to love how far your imagination runs at times. Let me get this straight, you made a conclusion on how I handle disagreeing just based on what little you have seen on this forum? This forum makes up a very small part of my life. Or, perhaps you secretly stalk me in real life as well and have records of every single conversation I have ever had.....Thanks for making another radical remark I can laugh at.

Obviously one of my prior posts you completely read as something else. I meant what I typed. Rather you want to deem me as a liar or not is something that's irrelevant to me. We're both random people on the internet when the bottom line is drawn.

[Scruffington]

So he's right, pretty much every professional game journalist and critic is unreliable because they have a huge financial incentive to not tell the truth about bad games. Does that mean they all lie all the time? Probably not. Does it mean their review scores are largely meaningless and they may have to be very careful about tearing apart bad games from major publishers? Absolutely. The present way that game journalism works is an incestuous relationship between the people reporting on games and the companies they're reporting on. The former can't really afford to exist without the latter. I see no way that a person can know that without taking everything they report and every review they write with a pretty hefty bit of salt. And again, I'm not saying they're bad people, but they're in a pretty smurfed up situation that does not lend itself well to keeping up ones professional ethics.

At least with user reviews, especially for big titles and despite the possibility of there being some fake reviews or trolls eviscerating a game for no reason and fanboys giving it a 10 because they love the series so much, I'll get thousands of people who's only financial connection to the company is that they bought the game saying what they think of it rather than the views of a few dozen people who have plenty of reason to appear biased whether they are or not. Personally, I'm going to give more weight to the 20,000+ that review a game on the steam store than to journalists.

But then, I've worked as an auditor before and one of the things you learn is the appearance of bias or unethical behaviour (taking money from the people you're supposed to report honestly on) is just as bad as actual bias because everyone outside of your head will never e able to truly tell the difference between the two. If you want to be credible as a game journalist, you've got to be independent from the game advertising. It doesn't work otherwise.

If you want to wear a tinfoil hat and believe that every review is paid for, that's on you.

There are dozens of examples to the contrary -- including one just recently where an indie developer threatened to not give more game keys to a reviewer if they gave the game a bad review. The reviewer publicized this threat.

Even beyond that, there was a report just recently about how there is a steady decline in games with 90+ review scores on Metacritic (https://www.finder.com.au/metacritic-score-comparison). Clearly reviewers aren't afraid to give games the scores they deserve, as you seem to suggest they are.

The ironic part about your argument is that the example FinalxxSin cited was a reviewer speaking their mind and giving their honest opinion about a game, which they thought had an overpowering water element and gave it a score of 7.8 / 10. It was clearly not a "paid review" as you seem to suggest most are, yet he made fun of the reviewer anyways.

Honestly though, I don't put as much stock into reviews as my posts would indicate. I originally just used review scores as a way to argue that the game was worse received than XIII -- at least by critics. The only opinion that matters to me about any piece of media is my own. Of course it's always nice when others share your opinion, but if they don't...that's okay too.

[Slothy]

If you want to wear a tinfoil hat and believe that every review is paid for, that's on you.

I'm afraid you've missed the point of my post.


There are dozens of examples to the contrary -- including one just recently where an indie developer threatened to not give more game keys to a reviewer if they gave the game a bad review. The reviewer publicized this threat.

Indie developers are rarely advertisers because they rarely have money. This example doesn't contradict anything I've said.


Even beyond that, there was a report just recently about how there is a steady decline in games with 90+ review scores on Metacritic (https://www.finder.com.au/metacritic-score-comparison). Clearly reviewers aren't afraid to give games the scores they deserve, as you seem to suggest they are.

Seeing as the majority of critic reviews score in the 75-100% range regardless of how bad the game is I'm not sure why I should care that the last few years have had a few less over 90. Particularly when the last few years have had series like Assassin's Creed release games that were actually broken at launch, and we're seeing fewer massive triple A franchise titles every year with the skyrocketing of development costs in the last 20 years. In fact, all your link is evidence of is that there are fewer games getting over a 90% average. Whether it's because reviewers are more honest or there's simply fewer games is not something you can discern from that metric alone and it's silly for either of us to try and read any of that into it.


The ironic part about your argument is that the example FinalxxSin cited was a reviewer speaking their mind and giving their honest opinion about a game, which they thought had an overpowering water element and gave it a score of 7.8 / 10. It was clearly not a "paid review" as you seem to suggest most are, yet he made fun of the reviewer anyways.

Considering I didn't look at his cited review or use it to support my argument it's not really ironic at all.


Honestly though, I don't put as much stock into reviews as my posts would indicate. I originally just used review scores as a way to argue that the game was worse received than XIII -- at least by critics. The only opinion that matters to me about any piece of media is my own. Of course it's always nice when others share your opinion, but if they don't...that's okay too.

Fair enough. But I disagree with the idea that all game journalists are professional enough to separate their financial incentive to give good coverage from their evaluation of a game, or that their editors and superiors would let them publish anything that was too disparaging. The simple reality is, and this is the point I was making, so long as such an obvious and significant incentive to go easy on big game publishers exists with nearly every media organization out there, we can't say whether their reviews are reliable or not with any certainty. They may be, but there's plenty of reason to think they wouldn't be either. And if we can't tell whether they let that financial bias sway their opinion then the only choice we have to protect ourselves, as customers, from bad information is to assume that they can't be considered reliable and read anything they publish with that bias in mind. It doesn't mean everything they say is worthless. A preview of a game where they show or describe how it works is probably pretty reliable at least in so far as telling you what the game is supposed to be like. But it's foolish in my opinion for anyone to spend money based solely on the word of professional critics.

It'd be like a politician who got most of their campaign money from the oil industry telling you that what the world needs is fewer environmental regulations around the extraction and transportation of oil. Are you going to take that politicians word for it that less environmental regulation is in everyone's best interests when they're literally being paid by people who would financially benefit from such laws? Of course you wouldn't. So why assume that every reviewer is credible when the companies they review are literally paying their salary?

[Scruffington]

Fair enough. But I disagree with the idea that all game journalists are professional enough to separate their financial incentive to give good coverage from their evaluation of a game, or that their editors and superiors would let them publish anything that was too disparaging. The simple reality is, and this is the point I was making, so long as such an obvious and significant incentive to go easy on big game publishers exists with nearly every media organization out there, we can't say whether their reviews are reliable or not with any certainty. They may be, but there's plenty of reason to think they wouldn't be either. And if we can't tell whether they let that financial bias sway their opinion then the only choice we have to protect ourselves, as customers, from bad information is to assume that they can't be considered reliable and read anything they publish with that bias in mind. It doesn't mean everything they say is worthless. A preview of a game where they show or describe how it works is probably pretty reliable at least in so far as telling you what the game is supposed to be like. But it's foolish in my opinion for anyone to spend money based solely on the word of professional critics.

It'd be like a politician who got most of their campaign money from the oil industry telling you that what the world needs is fewer environmental regulations around the extraction and transportation of oil. Are you going to take that politicians word for it that less environmental regulation is in everyone's best interests when they're literally being paid by people who would financially benefit from such laws? Of course you wouldn't. So why assume that every reviewer is credible when the companies they review are literally paying their salary?

I wasn't suggesting you were wearing a tinfoil hat...I should have worded that more clearly. My mistake.

My point with the indie game example is that some reviewers do have integrity. Sure you can say "well it wasn't a AAA developer bribing them" but it is still a scenario of a reviewer with some degree of honesty. I also do feel that the reason fewer games nowadays have 90+ reviews is twofold: there are fewer good games and reviews are becoming more legitimate. That's just my take on it.

I think there's actually a lot both you and I agree on. I definitely side with you on the fact that reviews shouldn't be the sole motivating factor for someone to buy a game on. They should be met with skepticism just as someone should be skeptical of user reviews. All reviews -- professional or not -- are simply someone else's opinions. I also agree with you that some reviewers are definitely under pressure to be lenient on games that otherwise deserve poor scores.

However, I don't think it's as bad of a problem now compared to the past. A lot of games that are getting low to mid 80s might not have received the same score years ago. I do think reviewers should be harsher on games that truly deserve it, and I think we are moving in the right direction.