Square Enix Gives Final Fantasy VII to Angry Gamers for Free

[kitsuta]

Square Enix Gives Final Fantasy VII to Angry Gamers for Free

Early FFVII adopters are miffed after accidentally buying a broken, pre-release build.

Square Enix had a bit of a snafu a few days ago when the upcoming PC port of Final Fantasy VII made an unexpected early appearance, becoming briefly available for sale on the company's website. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/118892-Final-Fantasy-VII-Accidentally-Re-released] Sadly, since the game wasn't actually ready for primetime yet, it was unplayable - the SecuROM DRM refused to accept the ostensibly legitimate serial numbers customers had purchased. The response was less than enthusiastic, but Square Enix has announced its intent to make amends. Specifically, the company is giving all customers who bought Final Fantasy VII a refund and a free working copy of the game upon release.

In a statement to Kotaku, the developer explained that the erroneous listing was due to a problem during testing of the game's website. Square Enix also made sure to mention that the version sold was a "pre-release build" of the game, giving disappointed audiophiles a glimmer of hope that the final game might use the original soundtrack instead of the inferior MIDI version [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7E9fSgPtmc], which some intrepid file diggers reportedly found in the game's files. Of course, 'pre-release' could also just mean that the DRM doesn't work properly yet.

Square Enix did not mention exactly how many people bought the pre-release game, but claimed it was "a small number of people." Either way, getting Final Fantasy VII for free should assuage most angry early buyers, one of whom even threatened to contact the Better Business Bureau over the issue. The relatively quick and definitive response from the company may have only saved each buyer $12.70, but the public relations value for Square Enix was probably much higher.

While details about the game, like the intended release date, are still under wraps, Square Enix promised to release more information "shortly."

Source: Kotaku [http://kotaku.com/5932509/square-enix-offering-free-copies-of-final-fantasy-vii-to-anyone-who-accidentally-bought-it-last-weekend]

Permalink

 

[Sheo_Dagana]

At this point, they pretty much HAVE to put the original soundtrack onto the game. That MIDI version pretty much pales in comparison.

At any rate, how does stuff like this happen? It reminds me of Square saying why they didn't take another year to fix the bugs in Final Fantasy XIV before releasing it. They claimed that if they took another year on the MMO, they'd just have another years worth of problems to deal with. So... they create as many problems as they solve in a year? Seems legit, given how things just keep going wrong with their own games.

 

[Gearhead mk2]

In an age where the industry standard seems to be "screw over your customers as much as humanly possible", it's nice to see Square have a heart and a brain and actually treat people something close to right. And on the subject of the music, I hope they'll swap out the MIDI tracks, but if not then it shoud be easy to do some modding and put the proper tracks, or maybe their updated versions, in there.

 

[Roxas1359]

I had a feeling Square Enix would do something like this because they aren't really ones to screw over their customers from my experience of buying games from them for years. That being said, I wonder how it accidentally was released before it could actually be fixed. Seemed like a big error there.

 

[Phlakes]

So the "fuck you Squeenix I'm pirating your game now because you suck and I hate you" was completely unnecessary? What a surprise.

 

[tetron]

That's nice that they're refunding them and stuff but in all honesty if you see a game appear for sale on a site long before its release date and you buy it you should expect this to happen. I say square should keep the money since they probably would've spent it on something else equally as stupid.

 

[9thRequiem]

That's nice that they're refunding them and stuff but in all honesty if you see a game appear for sale on a site long before its release date and you buy it you should expect this to happen. I say square should keep the money since they probably would've spent it on something else equally as stupid.

See, problem is, there never was an announced release date. Just looked like a no-fanfare actual release from the point of view of buyers.

This is how you fix a bad PR move. Offering refunds and politely asking to be patient till actual release would calm people down, but something like this actually generates good feelings.

 

[Covarr]

I will point out that they didn't merely include the original MIDI soundtrack... They seem to have gone out of their way to OGG support, presumably for the sake of replacing the soundtrack with a proper one, and converted the MIDI soundtrack to OGG instead! Setting up the framework for an improvement, and then tweaking the old crap to fit in the new framework; kinda embarrassing, really.My guess is that this was done by a programmer as a placeholder who hadn't gotten the proper soundtrack, and never got replaced in the build they accidentally sold; an easy enough mistake to fix in the final one.

That being said, I bought the game SPECIFICALLY to compare it to the old one, see what's changed. I've already got the 1998 version, and have been fairly active in the modding scene, so this wouldn't actually be a huge value to me. It was nothing but curiosity that funded my purchase, so I wasn't TOO disappointed not to play it, as long as I could dig through the files.

P.S. Thanks

 

[GAunderrated]

So the "fuck you Squeenix I'm pirating your game now because you suck and I hate you" was completely unnecessary? What a surprise.

I wouldn't go that far. Actually I think it was the uproar of angry fans that got them to finally give them something to seem like they care. Otherwise I think SE would have just waited to give them the game when its released.

 

[thethird0611]

This is a great move by square enix, but it makes me think that if another company does this accidentally, everyone is going to try their darndest to buy it just to try to get a free copy.

I dont exactly have a positive outlook.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

And for fuck's sake remember to check your game's web status.

Because you never ever make any mistakes ever, right? Point is, they admitted their bad, and are making amends for the customers who got screwed.

This is a great move by square enix, but it makes me think that if another company does this accidentally, everyone is going to try their darndest to buy it just to try to get a free copy.

I dont exactly have a positive outlook.

Eh, if people want to take that risk, that's up to them. It's not as-though you can really predict that kind of thing, anyway.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Can someone explain to me why SE even released this game on PC after all those years? Wasn't there already a PC version of this game? I don't play FF so I don't know what the big deal is with this game.

 

[frostay]

At this point, they pretty much HAVE to put the original soundtrack onto the game. That MIDI version pretty much pales in comparison.

I will point out that they didn't merely include the original MIDI soundtrack... They seem to have gone out of their way to OGG support, presumably for the sake of replacing the soundtrack with a proper one, and converted the MIDI soundtrack to OGG instead!

The original FFVII music was in fact sequenced and played back on the PlayStation synthesizer hardware, very similar to MIDI. The music tracks were not digital audio as in MP3 or OGG files.

On a site such as Zophar's Domain, you can see for yourself how the ENTIRE Final Fantasy VII music data is only 807 KB. That's kilobytes, not even 1 Megabyte:

http://www.zophar.net/music/psf/final-fantasy-7.html

I bought the original Eidos release of FFVII for PC many many years ago. The music was highly disappointing. It was in MIDI format, but instead of trying to imitate the synth instruments on the Playstation, it simply used the lame synths that most every PCs had (and still do). The result was that craptastic music in that YouTube video linked in the article.

I wasn't the only one disappointed thankfully. A few techno-savvy fans tapped into the relatively new Creative SoundBlaster SoundFont and Microsoft DirectMusic technologies and did a bang up job recreating the sound of the PS hardware. With the new custom SoundFonts/DLS's created by said techno-savvy fans, the same MIDI files were capable of sounding just as if it was being played back with Playstation hardware.

I don't know how Square Enix is gonna implement the music this time 'round. Short of implementing music emulation software into the game itself, they will most likely have to resort to MP3's or OGG's of the original Playstation MIDI's. I sincerely hope they paid special consideration to the music. It's half the experience for me.

If you're interested in listening to the music linked above, use emulation software such as Highly Experimental by Neill Corlett available as a plug-in for Winamp:

http://www.neillcorlett.com/he/

 

[sneakypenguin]

i'd like to play it but did they mess with the graphics any? cause I can't imagine running a 320x240 game at 1920x1080. I can imagine it scaling horribly.

 

[Covarr]

At this point, they pretty much HAVE to put the original soundtrack onto the game. That MIDI version pretty much pales in comparison.

I will point out that they didn't merely include the original MIDI soundtrack... They seem to have gone out of their way to OGG support, presumably for the sake of replacing the soundtrack with a proper one, and converted the MIDI soundtrack to OGG instead!

The original FFVII music was in fact sequenced and played back on the PlayStation synthesizer hardware, very similar to MIDI. The music tracks were not digital audio as in MP3 or OGG files.

On a site such as Zophar's Domain, you can see for yourself how the ENTIRE Final Fantasy VII music data is only 807 KB. That's kilobytes, not even 1 Megabyte:

http://www.zophar.net/music/psf/final-fantasy-7.html

I bought the original Eidos release of FFVII for PC many many years ago. The music was highly disappointing. It was in MIDI format, but instead of trying to imitate the synth instruments on the Playstation, it simply used the lame synths that most every PCs had (and still do). The result was that craptastic music in that YouTube video linked in the article.

I wasn't the only one disappointed thankfully. A few techno-savvy fans tapped into the relatively new Creative SoundBlaster SoundFont and Microsoft DirectMusic technologies and did a bang up job recreating the sound of the PS hardware. With the new custom SoundFonts/DLS's created by said techno-savvy fans, the same MIDI files were capable of sounding just as if it was being played back with Playstation hardware.

I don't know how Square Enix is gonna implement the music this time 'round. Short of implementing music emulation software into the game itself, they will most likely have to resort to MP3's or OGG's of the original Playstation MIDI's. I sincerely hope they paid special consideration to the music. It's half the experience for me.

If you're interested in listening to the music linked above, use emulation software such as Highly Experimental by Neill Corlett available as a plug-in for Winamp:

http://www.neillcorlett.com/he/

I already knew this. I meant they used the abysmal General MIDI/XG versions as a source for the OGGs they are currently using; as if they ran the old PC version's MIDIs through Winamp's waveout plugin and re-encoded that. In any case, this is not a good solution. They should either use sequenced music and emulate the original synths, or they should use a proper recording from the original.

And yes, the presence of libvgmstream.dll as well as dependencies such as libvorbis.dll (and those OGGs) in the accidental leak suggests that they definitely plan to use OGGs in this release. The actual MIDI.lgp from the original 1998 PC release is there also, but as far as I can tell they left almost all of the old data alone and the new stuff runs on top of it, rather than re-coding anything.

i'd like to play it but did they mess with the graphics any? cause I can't imagine running a 320x240 game at 1920x1080. I can imagine it scaling horribly.

Judging by the shaders included in the leak, they seem to be natively rendering 3D elements at higher resolutions, and backgrounds and other 2D element sare upscaled. I can't say for sure since I was unable to run the game, but that's the impression I got.

P.S. Thanks

 

[Epona]

Can someone explain to me why SE even released this game on PC after all those years? Wasn't there already a PC version of this game? I don't play FF so I don't know what the big deal is with this game.

The game was released in 1998 for PC. That means it was designed to run on Windows 95/98. It doesn't play very well with modern systems. You can make the old one work on Windows 7 64 bit but I guess SE figured there would be enough people who wouldn't want to mess with that. Plus a PC version isn't cheap anymore. $11.99 is a bargain compared to:

http://www.ebay.com/ctg/Final-Fantasy-VII-PC-1998-/6537

Lowest Price; $ 29.95
Buy It Now: $ 74.99
Highest Price: $199.99

Also, I have a question. Star Trek TNG was put on Blu-Ray and they say it runs at 1080p (my TV says it's running at 1080p too), yet they aren't widescreen. Could that be what happens with FF7?

 

[ScruffyMcBalls]

I've been down on Square Enix in recent years, and this is still a fuckup but I'm proud of how they handled this. Short of actually getting on camera and apologising directly to the fans, this is about as well as you could've handled it. You'll see nothing but applause from me for it.
The members of the community who still shits all over the people who bought the game, however, you guys are still cock monchers.