CEO: Square Enix Has Become "Weaker Than Expected"

[NickCaligo42]

IThey don't want to (or just can't) take time on story or environment anymore, it seems.

Can't, in the case of FF13. The team was mainly newbies who didn't know what they were doing. It wasn't until three years into development, that they actually knew what the gameplay and storyline were going to be like. That demo that came with Advent Children Complete? That was ALL THEY HAD at the time they put it out. The game didn't get developed in five years, it got developed in six months.

Being a story and exploration gamer, I wish we could get past this. I DEFINITELY enjoy me some pretty games. Pretty is definitely pretty, but if time spent on Pretty takes away from Fun or even Interesting, count me out.

People keep saying that, but the truth is that game designers have nothing to do with how pretty the game looks. Game artists have a lot to do with it. The designer? Not so much. Ever play D&D? Those rulebooks, those are the game designer's responsibility and they are ABSOLUTELY NOT INVOLVED with asset creation or graphics programming. Those are separate jobs performed by separate, very specialized people.

Designers are responsible for the layout that those assets go into and the interaction that happens with them, for the logic behind the game's world. If they under-thought that structure, that's when you get games like FF13, where there's no tangible connection between the setting and the game systems; that's where you get linear corridor levels in the game-world with seemingly no purpose aside from being linear corridor levels; that's where you get beat-'em-ups that are just empty rooms with monsters in them and cover-based shooters with no mechanics to make them distinct and transparent "chest-high-wall"-heavy level design.

There is arguably very little reason that a game can't be fun AND have good-looking art assets. Truth be told, the only thing you can blame bad game design on is bad game designers; people who take the design of a game for granted and fill out a checklist or make only superficial goals in the design.

0_o Why? XIII was their fastest selling game ever.

Fastest-selling isn't best-selling. Record sales in week 1, bad word of mouth, HUGE falloff in the following period.

As a point of comparison, it shipped about five million copies at launch and hasn't gone much farther than that. Final Fantasy 10, on the other hand, sold ten million copies across the PS2's lifetime. Those are the numbers Square is USED to pulling in.

 

[Orcus The Ultimate]

my guess is that there's less and less people that plays the Final Fantasy games, since it's follow ups and always the same in a different set.

 

[Lunar Templar]

they need to go back, play the big hits they had, and remember what a good jrpg is
chrono trigger
the SNES FF games, hell even mystic quest (shut up it was fun)
PE 1 an 2
ya know, the good stuff they don't make anymore,
after they have a team that understands what made these games great, THEN they can make news one

 

[Atmos Duality]

Well, that's what one gets when 90% of their games made in the last 8 years have been consistently mediocre or worse. I haven't been happy with a Squeenix title purchase since...War of the Lions? And that was a remake.

The FF7 Compilation was an insult. FF12 started out promising, but became a meaningless grindfest when the story fell flat right after the opening sequences ended. FF13 had just plain terrible gameplay. FF14 was the saddest joke of a mainstream MMO I have ever seen, and their secondary developer commissions (Minjack, Front Mission Evolved) are embarrassments to their respective genres/franchises.

What really blows my mind is that so many of their titles are based on GREAT CONCEPTS, but then they always fall apart right after the beginning.

I guess the lesson learned here is when you start to prioritize profit over customer's ideas, suggestions and feedback, you become weaker.

Revamp what most people here have said and throw in some Mana series reboots. Seriously, any Mana game would probably be epic if done right.

The Mana series is probably my most cherished of all video game series.
Yet I doubt Squeenix would make it again because they would perceive it (from a purely business point of view) as being too "kiddie" to be marketable again. Hell, they already tried that route with all of the Mana titles following Legend (minus one remake), and they sucked.

If they wanted to reboot the Mana series, they would have to create a strong environment, good gameplay, and a coherent story. Following Squeenix's model for such a game (based on damn near every title of theirs that I've played from 2004 onward), they will instead skimp completely on the gameplay or story (or sometimes BOTH, *cough*Dirge of Cerberus*cough*) past the first 20 minutes; which will be dedicated to an amazing CGI opening sequence.

 

[Stammer]

It sucks that it took them as much as $148M to finally realize that they were really falling behind. I feel sympathy for the company and just hope that this slap across the back of the head will help them realize their mistakes and start making good games again.

 

[The Rockerfly]

Rehire Nobo, please.
Look at why your fans liked your final fantasy games and not just for story purposes.
Please don't fuck up the FF series, the hitman series or the Deus Ex game. Specifically Deus Ex because it looks awesome

 

[NickCaligo42]

my guess is that there's less and less people that plays the Final Fantasy games, since it's follow ups and always the same in a different set.

Truth be told, games are timeless. A good game system is a good game system. It doesn't matter if it's one year from release or TEN years from release. Notice that nobody's rushing to make a sequel to Basketball or Football? That's because games are timeless. Nobody got bored with the FF franchise, it's more that they haven't released a proper follow-on to the series in ten years. Plenty of people, I think, would happily welcome a competently done FF title--that's why so many people on this forum want to pin their hopes on V13.

 

[felixader]

Stop overblowing you Storys, your design and your gameplay, with shine and noise while there's no actual content and heart to any of this.

 

[mysecondlife]

Square Enix has also been hacked recently.

Not the best time for Japanese gaming industry...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13394968

 

[Ilyak1986]

Return to the golden age of RPGs. Seiken Densetsu 3. Chrono Trigger. FFVI (never played it but heard it was awesome), FFVII. Take that kind of gameplay, mix it in with new gen graphics, profit.

 

[LightspeedJack]

The only Square Enix franchises I care about are Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts and in the past like 9 years we've had 1 final fantasy game and 0 kingdom hearts games (not counting the shitty spin-offs). < That right there is why your losng money folks.

 

[de5gravity]

Remake FF7-8-9 and release it on every console please Also TWEWY sequel!

 

[mireko]

As long as they don't cancel Versus XIII and Type-0 in favor of Toriyama Time XVI: The Convoluted yet Somehow Predictable and Offensively Clichéd Story, they should be fine.

[sub]And don't remake the old games. That's just not a good idea.[/sub]

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I do believe I already covered what Square Enix needs to do. Let me check my other post...yep. Here it is:

Time to call in the back up plans for guaranteed money.

1) Release Kingdom Hearts 3.
2) Release Final Fantasy XIII Versus or whatever we're calling it now.
3) Release Final Fantasy XV--and make it good, it will sell three times as much.
4) Release sequel to Final Fantasy VIII (okay, so I'm really the only one that wants that).
5) Release a new Chrono game.
6) Remake Final Fantasy VII on the PS3.

Follow these steps, and the company will be back in black immediately.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.283489-Square-Enix-Financials-Fall-Through-the-Floor?page=1 9th post.

 

[twm1709]

It seems like yesterday when Square was on top of the world. When a new Final fantasy or whatever would be something guaranteed to take the world by storm. But no industry moves on faster than this one, and if you can't handle that, you're going to suffer.

BTW: I doubt the way to make a company get in touch with the times is to focus on REMAKING stuff, what they truly need is FRESH ideas. To break away from a formula that doesn't suit them anymore

 

[Wakefield]

Oh good I still get to play XIII-2 I would have been sad if that had been cancled

 

[binvjoh]

I don't understand why they feel the need to publish. I wish they would stick to developing and self-publishing.

 

[Iron Lightning]

So right now we have 5 franchises (Deus Ex doesn't count because a Square Enix title hasn't been released yet) that we're thoroughly botching, what do we do?

I know! We'll add 5 new franchises herp-a-diddly-derp.

 

[ecoho]

Kingdom Hearts 3 would bring a lot more cash than bringing out endless side-games which are slowly killing off the fanbase.
Don't make new IPs, make Kingdom Hearts 3 and make it good.

i agree also if they realy want to milk the profits just rerelease the first 2 for the ps3 with better grafics like they did god of war. I know id buy it as my stupid PS3 cant play ps2 games..............

 

[elvor0]

Kingdom hearts 3 damn it! And make sure it's on xbox AND ps3 (and the wii if it doesn't effect the quality of the game, not to say I think the wii is shit, but it's just one of those games that the wii may drag it down slightly due to its less power), because I will be royally pissed if I don't get to play it.

I can tell you right now. Final Fantasy XIII-2. Cancel that.

0_o Why? XIII was their fastest selling game ever.

.

Yes and? It was also pretty poor, just because it sold well doesn't mean it was actually good, alongside the fact that after the first week sales dramatically dropped.

They could've called it something other than Fantasy, as should've been the case with the FFs past FFX just so it wouldn't soil the name of the franchise, they need to wait till they have a game of massively high calibur and call THAT Final Fantasy, to bring some quality back to the series, the name means nothing as almost all of them aint related to each other and is just used to sell games. Final Fantasy should be the name reserved for the best products they can create, which at the moment just isn't happening for them.