Tokyo RPG Factory Loses 224 Million Yen from I Am Setsuna

[Depression Moon]

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According to financial statements released by Official Gazette, Square Enix's new studio Tokyo RPG Factory, the developers of I Am Setsuna have sees a 224 Million Yen loss this year which is roughly 2.4 million US dollars. Their first game, I Am Setsuna, released in Japan back in February of this year for PlayStation 4 and Vita. In Japan I Am Setsuna sold 33,629 copies on PlayStation 4 and 27,994 copies on PlayStation Vita in its first week. That is not awful for a new IP, but it wasn't good in regards to Square Enix and the deficit makes it clearly apparent.

Source: Gematsu

[Wolf Kanno]

To be fair, the financial year ended in March, almost weeks after it's release so it stands to reason the sales wouldn't have covered the development cost.

It's also obvious that this game is most likely going to be a cult hit at best. The chances of it doing well were sunk the moment it became digital only, especially since Squenix has never really been great about promoting their online stuff. The forecast might look better once the worldwide release sales are factored in, but I'm sure they'll still be short of Squenix's goals. The best it could hope for is to pull a Xenogears/Lost Odyssey and become a cult favorite that word of mouth keeps it's sales going long afterwords.

[Elpizo]

My worry is that SE will use this as 'proof' that classic RPGs 'don't sell anymore'.

[Fynn]

Nah, Bravely Default already convinced them otherwise

[Shauna]

Nah, Bravely Default already convinced them otherwise

But they are still hesitant about it though!

[Loony BoB]

It's hit or miss, really. I feel that they have to space out the "classic" style stuff because if you put them out on a regular basis then the novelty wears off.

I hope this game does well but in the end once I found out that there is no real variation other than "snow" for the world, I lost a lot of interest. I get really into exploring new worlds with lots of variety. World of FF and hopefully FFXV should help me out there, though.

[Midgar Mist]

I've accepted I might not have a lot of turn based RPGs to look forward to. I've also learnt as an explorer of all things PS1 and 2, that turn based RPG doesn't necessarily mean good. I've started to find action RPG/action adventure to be just as interesting and addictive. I am however worried for SE as a company, this company will do even more damage to its reputation if FFXV doesn't live up to expectations, particularly since they've had this one cooking for too long.

[Randy]

Nah, Bravely Default already convinced them otherwise

But they are still hesitant about it though!

Yeah, they hardly acted on this supposed confidence. The budget for Bravely Second was clearly even smaller than the first. And surprise surprise, it's sold significantly less.

[maybee]

My worry is that SE will use this as 'proof' that classic RPGs 'don't sell anymore'.

Yeah same here.

[Elly]

actualy i'm not a bit surprised... it appears i'm not the only gamer sick of Wizards & Warriors Vs Dungeons & Dragons... and yeah this whole digital delivery of games is stupid, give me a box i can put on a shelf, why would i want to fill up my hard drive when a disc can do the same job without filling my HDD to bursting... 500GB is not a lot when you consider modern game sizes and they're only getting bigger...

[Mirage]

well if it is proof that old school RPGs don't sell anymore, what's wrong with using it as proof that they don't sell anymore?

[Randy]

A single data point isn't proof of anything. The are lots of different potential explanations. It being a traditional JRPG is only one of them. Other explanations might be that it was overpriced, it didn't review that well, it didn't look especially interesting in the trailers (because pretty much every part of the game looks identical). etc

[Mirage]

i'm not really worried in either case. A company in the business of making money from video games probably has more data on game sales than an end user could ever hope to get. selling a game isn't what matters. earning money from a game is.

[Skyblade]

A single data point isn't proof of anything. The are lots of different potential explanations. It being a traditional JRPG is only one of them. Other explanations might be that it was overpriced, it didn't review that well, it didn't look especially interesting in the trailers (because pretty much every part of the game looks identical). etc

How about the fact that it wasn't well advertised? I mean, compared to even just Bravely Default, the marketing for I Am Setsuna was pretty terrible. I know people who were interested in the game who still didn't know that it actually released.

[Elly]

not so sure it was lack of marketing when i saw commercials for it and Bravely Second all over Cartoon Network/Nickelodeon and in various game magazines... honestly if it was presented as an homage to Chrono Trigger and had a physical copy i would have snapped it up in a heartbeat, but from screenshots and no real descriptions of the gameplay itself it looked like the same old orks and trolls high fantasy i'm sick to death of... i really don't think it's because it's a classic style RPG, people aren't sick of the old turn-based gameplay, look how well the HD Remaster of FFX did, i think the perceived setting is most likely putting people off, that and a lack of a physical copy... that's just my impression though...