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Thread: SE doesn't seem to care about Western fans: A complaint

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     Master of the Fork Cid's Knight Freya's Avatar
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    Default SE doesn't seem to care about Western fans: A complaint

    September 17, 2002 is the release date for Kingdom Hearts in North America.

    It's September 21, 2017. We passed the 15th anniversary officially.

    The official SE Kingdom Hearts twitter? Hasn't been active since August 16th, 2017.

    So one of their big series has its 15th anniversary. Now it was released earlier in JP of course but it's a mix of Disney and FF. Disney, an American company that has major roots in american society. You'd think they could at least post something about it. They had released a special anniversary version of the remasters earlier this year, you think they could at least put a "Happy birthday! get this now!" or something.

    Their facebook has a post on Sept 18th but it's a random thing about their mobile game (KINGDOM HEARTS Union χ[Cross] it's about an invasion event going on in it) but again they didn't have anything since Aug 16th.

    I know KH isn't their big flagship FF. But come on. The western markets use FB and Twitter a lot. The lack of support for existing games and cult favorites concerns me.

    Staff interactions spoiler:
    Back when Lightning Returns was coming out we actually had contact with SE's PR. They were trying to push to work with fans and fansites. I remember there was a DA art event even. They were actually interacting with western fans in lots of ways.

    Now, we don't hear a peep out of SE and of all the connections I have with other fansties, they don't hear anything from them either. They've gone mums the word in the PR department.

    I know they have a lot of other series now and so they can't just focus on KH or anything but a 15th anniversary is kind of a big deal.

    I dunno I just feel they tried to connect with western fans but it didn't produce results RIGHT AWAY so they just pulled completely back and don't care about the western market.

    I wanted to grumble when I noticed the KH thing and thought you guys may understand my complaints and wanted to know your thoughts too.

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    'Just Friends' Formalhaut's Avatar
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    I mean, just from a social media perspective (I help with the social media accounts for the library), having no new posts for that length of time is kinda bad.

    And also, it's Kingdom Hearts. It isn't a neat number anniversary, but they should still do something for the 17th anniversary, especially as KHIII is actually getting closer to completion.


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     Master of the Fork Cid's Knight Freya's Avatar
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    It's the 15th anniversary! usually the multiples of 5 are given more weight.

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    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
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    They have a lot going on this year with it also being the FF series 30th Anniversary and technically it's FFV's 25th anniversary and FFVII's 20th. Not to mention Romancing SaGa's anniversary and FFTactics. I imagine the best fans can hope for with VII and KH is that SE might announce a release date for both of their new entries this year.

    They were doing some events fro Mana and SaGa but good luck finding news about it since everyone ignores those series. Oddly enough, their biggest announcement for the celebration this year has been the Dissidia Arcade which is amusing because I remember feeling like SE was a bit underwhelming with the 20th anniversary of the series and that was also the same year Dissidia got released.

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     Master of the Fork Cid's Knight Freya's Avatar
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    Yeah but the difference with all the different FF entries is that they are one of a SERIES while the KH birthday would be the birth of another series.

    Generally i've been mostly underwhelmed about any of their anniversary stuff. I'm mostly judging of their Social Media and community interactions.

    Take Blizzard for example. I laughed my butt off at the Overwatch twitter about "You've heard of elf on the shelf," joke they made yesterday. The blizzard accounts constantly interact with fans and it creates more unity WITH fans. They're more forgiving and more excited about new stuff. I feel like the company is more concerned and wants my attention because of this interaction

    SE doesn't really care about fans or how fans feel about anything.

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    They're too busy trying to push FFXV DLC in everybody faces tbh.

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    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Freya View Post
    Yeah but the difference with all the different FF entries is that they are one of a SERIES while the KH birthday would be the birth of another series.

    Generally i've been mostly underwhelmed about any of their anniversary stuff. I'm mostly judging of their Social Media and community interactions.

    Take Blizzard for example. I laughed my butt off at the Overwatch twitter about "You've heard of elf on the shelf," joke they made yesterday. The blizzard accounts constantly interact with fans and it creates more unity WITH fans. They're more forgiving and more excited about new stuff. I feel like the company is more concerned and wants my attention because of this interaction

    SE doesn't really care about fans or how fans feel about anything.
    Squenix has always had a bad history communicating with fans, hell Japanese companies in general have a difficult time communicating with Western fans and there is usually a number of factors. I kind of feel like a lot of the Japanese game companies are still having a hard time adjusting to social media within a global context. None of this is helped that even creators are often under scrutiny by their companies to stay tight lipped about stuff and watch what they say.

    As for KH getting little love, it may have more to do with waning interest in the West. I mean it's been five years since the last actual entry that expanded the story beyond the tech demo attached to 2.8 and it's been over ten years since KHII, which has since only seen spin-offs and prequels released on multiple systems that only the most dedicated bought. I know they re-released everything for recent PlayStation consoles but a lot has changed since 2006 and a lot of people have either moved on from console gaming (not to be confused with console games) and the series in general. A quick glance at the sales data for the HD re-relases compared to the originals shows a significant drop between the originals and the HD versions. Squenix could easily be looking at those numbers and thinking they may need to wait and see how KH3 does before deciding if this series will remain a pillar for the company as originally envisioned or if it's going to go the way as SaGa, Mana, Front Mission, and Bushido Blade and be that cool series they did back in the day.

    Another idea is that SE is likely more concerned with trying to restore the image of FF, which is why they seem to be focusing more on it. Interviews with Tabata, Kitase, and other directors current and past concerning the series all point to the fact the series has an image problem, and since that's the main bread winner for the company, they may be trying to focus more on that.

    The third idea is that Japan doesn't really think these anniversary's are as important as fans do, as Nomura mentioned earlier this year that he hadn't even planned anything for KH or VII's anniversary's though he would like too if he wasn't so busy.

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    Square released 1.5 + 2.5 HD Remix for the PS4, as well as 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue. Both came out this year.

    So technically SE already celebrated the 15 year anniversary of the series with a new title, and a collection that people have been wanting for years.

    I think they've given KH fans a lot this year already.


    Pull my Devil Trigger!

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    We got a release date for KH3 and a real trailer. Sounds real enough for me.

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    Radical Dreamer Fynn's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Scruffington View Post
    Square released 1.5 + 2.5 HD Remix for the PS4, as well as 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue. Both came out this year.

    So technically SE already celebrated the 15 year anniversary of the series with a new title, and a collection that people have been wanting for years.

    I think they've given KH fans a lot this year already.
    This

    I never really felt SE were big with social media, even with FF none of their stuff really reaches me for some reason? So it's not like KH is neglected in that regard. The remixes, however, were marketed as celebration of the anniversary, so there's that

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     Master of the Fork Cid's Knight Freya's Avatar
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    For example, on final fantasy vii's bday, PlayStation released a little tiny gif with cupcakes and the name and it got thoooousands of retweets and likes.

    Zilch from SE.

    You loyal fanboys missed the point. Disney is an American company. KH is the mix of a Japanese JRPg series with an American companies characters.

    They shouldn't be like "ah well we mentioned something back for its Japan release, that was good enough."

    To not even share a little picture of a happy birthday or feel like something such as that was even worth it is extremely telling on how they actually feel about their western fans. Disney is a western thing. Yes it now has branches in other countries but that's cause they actually have good PR.

    Point is, their PR sucks when it comes to their western fronts. This is just one little thing I've noticed over the course of the years. I've had to actively pay attention to their behavior about this for almost 6 years now. It's gotten worse. Soo much worse.

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    Radical Dreamer Fynn's Avatar
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    I wouldn't say their entire PR sucks. Just SMM. Ture, they could manage their social media better, but saying they don't care about the Western fanbase because of it is kind of reaching.

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    I used to be able to communicate with SE PR fairly easily. When new games were coming out they'd reach out to us for reviews. Last one I think we got was Tomb Raider. And that was from the EU branch. After our PR rep from the NA branch left/gotfired/whatever happened to them, they just stopped caring.

    From the other fansite people I still know from when I met them in San Francisco, they also don't hear much from SE any more either.

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    Radical Dreamer Fynn's Avatar
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    Maybe we're just needed anymore. They've ascended and bracing themselves for Instrumentality.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Fynn View Post
    I wouldn't say their entire PR sucks. Just SMM. Ture, they could manage their social media better, but saying they don't care about the Western fanbase because of it is kind of reaching.
    I disagree.

    This is the company that has been routinely mocked for making announcements of announcements.

    Yes, their entire PR sucks.
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