Eidos Founder: Square Enix Needs to Learn How to Sell Games

[Steven Bogos]

Eidos Founder: Square Enix Needs to Learn How to Sell Games

Eidos Montreal founder Stephane D'Astous claims a terrifying vacuum of internal information led to his departure.

Square Enix Polygon [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/123150-Square-Enix-Faces-10-Billion-Yen-Loss-in-Restructuring-Efforts].

"We brought three triple As to the market, and despite that great line up and those great critical reviews we still managed not to respect our financial goals, so that really shook up a lot of people. When the fiscal results officially came out, we were all surprised."

"We are in a situation that we have great games that could have sold more," he said. "They need to attack that very, very seriously. Last year was supposed to be a home-run season, but we didn't hit a single home run; maybe a double or a triple, but they weren't home runs."

D'Astous blames the very distinct divide that still exists within the company for a lot of its problems. He says a segregation still exists between Tomb Raider, Hitman and Thief publisher Eidos, and Square Enix, the Japanese giant behind the Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest series.

"Square Enix is in a tight spot because there are compromises that are made, investments that are made that should not have been and things that they didn't invest in but should have," he said. "Communication is very lacking."

His decision to leave was not an easy one, as he says, "Eidos Montreal was my home, blood, sweat and tears, call it what you want, for the last six-and-a-half years," but ultimately grew unable to deal with the problems of the publisher.

Source: Polygon [http://www.polygon.com/2013/7/23/4549404/eidos-montreal-founder-square-enix-makes-great-games-but-needs-to]

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[oldtaku]

Squeenix is not going to have any idea how to sell games unless they first figure out how to make good games again.

So sad.

 

[rednightmare]

Sure, because spending so much money making the games, that you need to sell the same number of copies Call of Duty did, had nothing to do with it.

Personally, I think they need to look at their spendings, not their sales figures.

 

[Ryan Hughes]

"They need to learn how to sell games." Says one of the people most responsible for the Tomb Raider "definitely not rape" trailer, and the Hitman: Absolution "Nun-punching sexist game play massacre" trailer without even the slightest hint that he understands the hypocrisy of that statement.

 

[Rainforce]

he IS right - Squeenix has some internal communication problems.

(Also baseball symbolism)

 

[Steven Bogos]

Edios Founder: Square Enix Needs to Learn How to Sell Games

D'Astous blames the very distinct divide that still exists within the company for a lot of its problems. He says a segregation still exists between Tomb Raider, Hitman and Thief publisher Edios, and Square Enix, the Japanese giant behind the Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest series.

shouldn't those be "Eidos"? (somewhat confused here)

But yes, he is right - Squeenix has some internal communication problems.

(Also baseball symbolism)

Do'h! I always have a dyslexic moment with Eidos. Thanks for that!

 

[Yagami_Kira]

Gee, a French-Canadian man, formerly the head of a French-Canadian company, is complaining that a Japanese company, well known for their insular nature, as well as an underlying current of racism throughout their entire culture, doesn't communicate well. HUH. Who could have imagined?

 

[Irridium]

Needs to learn how to sell games? Are you serious? Is he one of the people who were disappointed by to "measly" numbers of Tomb Raider selling 3.2 million, Hitman selling 3.4 million, and Sleeping Dogs selling 1.8 million?

"We are in a situation that we have great games that could have sold more," he said. "They need to attack that very, very seriously. Last year was supposed to be a home-run season, but we didn't hit a single home run; maybe a double or a triple, but they weren't home runs."

So he is. "Could have sold more", they sold absolutely amazingly. Tomb Raider broke franchise records. Stop fucking expecting every game to get Call of Duty numbers because you tried to "appeal to a wider audience" already.

 

[KeyMaster45]

"Square Enix is in a tight spot because there are compromises that are made,

Like outsourcing all the boss fights in Human Revolution to a 3rd party company that has no idea what the rest of the game is like, in some psychotic bid to save money?

investments that are made that should not have been

Like letting Nomura shit-can FF13 Versus 85% into production and letting him take so long rebuilding it from the ground up that they were forced to turn it into FF15; or hastily building a shit MMO with an astronmical budget and then deciding after it falls flat on its face to rebuild it from the ground up (I'm sensing a pattern here); or how about making not one but two sequels to FF13 to keep the game alive long enough for Versus to come out; or investing money into so many goddamned Kingdom Hearts spin-off games that you'll either have to ignore 90% of what went on in them come KH3 or bloat KH3 with so much loose end wrapping up that it collapses under the dead weight that's been piled on to the franchise?.

and things that they didn't invest in but should have," he said.

Like not laughing in Nomura's face when he asked to shit-can all the work already done on FF13 Versus and instead spend the money he wasted rebuilding the damn game to have him work on KH3; or hiring a surgeon to cut out the cancerous tumor in the company called Nomura that has been the root of a majority of your financial woes; or maybe just firing Nomura and using all the money he's wasted to hire someone who's head isn't shoved up their own artistic ass?

"Communication is very lacking."

 

[shirkbot]

"We are in a situation that we have great games that could have sold more"

I'd like Mr. D'Astous to reflect very deeply on that statement. Could it really have sold more? Probably not because, amazingly, video games are still a niche market and so 3 million per AAA title is about as good as it gets. As Jim said (paraphrased), "You don't reach an unreachable sales goal just because you want to."

Additionally, why are we listening to a man from Eidos about marketing when this is the same company that is releasing the next Deus Ex as an iPad exclusive? If you want to talk about "Could have sold more" or "Needing to learn to sell games" let's start with that.

 

[KeyMaster45]

*self snip*

I don't see how that's a bad thing. If the game doesn't meet his standards why shouldn't it be torn down and rebuilt? it is his game after-all.

Because when you're working with as much money as he is there is no starting over when you're almost finished. Nomura was working with a budget close to that of a major motion picture, if not more, if you tried to pull what he did with FF13 Versus in the movie industry you'd get blacklisted by most producers in the business. By letting him build one game, scrap it, then build another one he's essentially had square pay to make two games; one of which saw zero return on its investment. That is literally what the metaphor "pissing away money" is meant to describe. It's great that Square had that much confidence in Nomura's abilities, but it was a colossally bad business decision to make and could be considered the beginning marker of the time period where everything bit Square in the ass.

In fact I would go so far as to say that Nomura's decision caused square to pay for the production of 3 more games than they should have. If you remember, Versus was supposed to tie into FF13 and it's sequel with Versus rounding out the trilogy. With Versus having become FF15 they were then undoubtedly left with 2/3 of a story and were required to make a 3rd to wrap that up; enter Lightning Returns. So by my count Versus has gone from costing Square the budget of not just one multimillion dollar game but three. Even if they manage to recoup the budget from FF15 and Lightning Returns that's still going to leave them with 1/3 of that money being just flat gone. Their only hope right now is that they see a good showing from the relaunch of FF14[footnote]You didn't hear it from me but that's actually looking like a damn solid MMO. Of course you didn't hear that from me because I'm under an NDA.[/footnote], and that the resulting subscriptions from it last long enough to recoup the losses from that debacle and then Nomura's.

 

[Strazdas]

"We are in a situation that we have great games that could have sold more,"

thats the problem. you dont.
Yeah, you have sleeping dogs, you have Deus EX, and thats what, 2 games in 3 years? that wont keep your boat afloat.

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

Yes they seriously do. After I found out they blocked their games on jailbroken iPhones and rooted androids I've basically decided to avoid all their mobile games. I'm not even sure what they could possibly do to get me buy any of their stuff because it was such a nonsensical dickish move

 

[james.sponge]

investments that are made that should not have been

Like letting Nomura shit-can FF13 Versus 85% into production and letting him take so long rebuilding it from the ground up that they were forced to turn it into FF15; or hastily building a shit MMO with an astronmical budget and then deciding after it falls flat on its face to rebuild it from the ground up (I'm sensing a pattern here); or how about making not one but two sequels to FF13 to keep the game alive long enough for Versus to come out; or investing money into so many goddamned Kingdom Hearts spin-off games that you'll either have to ignore 90% of what went on in them come KH3 or bloat KH3 with so much loose end wrapping up that it collapses under the dead weight that's been piled on to the franchise?.

and things that they didn't invest in but should have," he said.

Like not laughing in Nomura's face when he asked to shit-can all the work already done on FF13 Versus and instead spend the money he wasted rebuilding the damn game to have him work on KH3; or hiring a surgeon to cut out the cancerous tumor in the company called Nomura that has been the root of a majority of your financial woes; or maybe just firing Nomura and using all the money he's wasted to hire someone who's head isn't shoved up their own artistic ass?

I don?t see how that?s a bad thing. If the game doesn?t meet his standards why shouldn?t it be torn down and rebuilt? it is his game after-all.

It is a bad thing because company loses money and resources on badly designed projects that do not bring any profit. Nomura is a good character designer but he is atrocious at directing games, FFverus13 history is a good example of that.

 

[Chester Rabbit]

"Square Enix Needs to Learn How to Sell Games"

More like learn how to properly budget them.

 

[cidbahamut]

Sure, because spending so much money making the games, that you need to sell the same number of copies Call of Duty did, had nothing to do with it.

While this is absolutely the root cause of their financial woes with those games, I do feel SE needs to step up their marketing. If you've been following along for years you'll know that SE rarely does any marketing for their games, relying largely on their brand name to do the work for them. Even when they do manage to put some marketing behind a game, it's rare to see that marketing effort leave the shores of Japan.

 

[The White Hunter]

Maybe Square, like many companies, needs to accept that it can't pull Call of Duty levels of sales figures with, say, Final Fantasy, by dumbing it down and streamlining the experience. Because the market it's chasing isn't interested and it alienates long-time fans and repeating customers.