Square Enix Fans: The Silent Killers

[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 "smurf 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?



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 trout 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!

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.