Jimquisition: An Industry Of Pitiful Cowards

[Thanatos2k]

You may notice that after FFIX, the series started to slowly decline. This is no coincidence, FF9 really was the beginning of the end for traditional Final Fantasy. It was where FF began to stagnate and Square started trying to find more and more places to take the series as a whole. We can see where that has taken the series so far.

Um, what? FF10 is a far better game than FF9. FF9 is probably my least favorite FF game excluding the two awful ones (FF2 and FF3). FF9 was a low point for sure, that rebounded with FF10. (Not so much FF10-2, and DEFINITELY not with Dirge of Cerberus) And it's not like FF10 wasn't that different of a game compared to FF8, so what did they abandon, exactly?

If anything the downfall began at Kingdom Hearts, when they realized Final Fantasy the franchise was more important than each Final Fantasy game.

Personally I never understood the hate that FFXIII generated. Exploration and stupid minigames are the things I hated most of FF games. No one seems to notice that the combat system is COMPLETELY BROKEN. They definitely tried to fix things with FFXIII-2 and FFXIII-3.

I noticed. I've long maintained the true problem of FF13 is that the battle system is broken on a fundamental level - that simply changing paradigms and mashing autobattle (because autobattle is smarter and faster almost every time than entering commands manually) is flawed beyond belief. The leader dies = you lose "feature" in FF13 when death is common and revival cheap and easy is a design decision that is absolutely inexplicable. Especially loved when the last boss had an unblockable autokill attack.

And don't remind me about Gambits. The game literally played itself. They say this about XIII but no, in XIII you still need to switch paradigms and do stuff in the right order to get the 5 star rating. XII had no ratings and gambits made it play itself.

Hey at least you set up the gambits yourself, and could take total control of all characters whenever you needed to (most serious battles had you micromanaging all actions).

In FF13 you control only one character (WHY???) and mash autobattle while periodically changing paradigms. Haste everyone, 2 Rav 1 Com until break, 3 Rav until ~900%, 3 Com. 3 Medic if healing needed. 5 stars for everything. The whole game. That's not progress. That's not even fun.

 

[Lilani]

The one criticism I have for Jim is that the situation is not as simple as he makes it to be. People's taste are cyclic in nature. Look at Titanfall, it looks shiny and new but the gameplay came straight from Starsiege: Tribes. What happened was "realistic" cover based shooters became popular and other FPS were dropped. People said adventure games are dead but thanks to GOG and mobile devices, people are rediscovering lost treasures and new games are being made. Even Space sims are coming back thanks to Eve Online and Star Citizen. People are going to get sick of even CoD and then after a few years it's going to comeback and be as popular as ever.

Except, as Jim and others in this thread have pointed out, the Final Fantasy and Resident Evil series weren't suffering due to a change in people's tastes. FFX was a smash hit, and after Square put FFXI out on the MMO market and returned to their single player games with FFXII, for some reason they suddenly decided that in spite of FFX selling wonderfully turn-based combat was holding them back. So they made the slightly confused gambit system, and that eventually escalated into FFXIII's also confused combat system. There were no drops in sales or criticisms to indicate they should leave turn-based combat. They just...did.

Same thing with Resident Evil. The series was doing just fine, and Capcom decides to gut the series right as soon as they make it to the top. That had nothing to do with a shifting of tastes.

 

[Yminale]

I always wondered whee exactly it was coming from when Somone said BS like "single player games are no longer" just look at titanfall I mean Christ, goat simulator has more lasting appeal and even though I'm looking forward to evolve I know it will never accrue as many hours as XCOM....you know, that game that No one played because it don't conform to what's popular?

I think developer and game companies fall in to a cycle of wishful thinking, hoping to drive the market in a direction that benefits them. Multiplayer game with DLC and micro-transactions is a dream come true for game companies, very little piracy problems, no issues with second hand sales with a steady source of income. Fortunately the market abhors a vacuum and if you won't deliver what the people want someone else will.

One other thing, demographics are changing. People who liked CoD are getting to the age where their time and income are more restricted (college, jobs, families). People who like X-com well their careers are pretty much set, their children are grown to the point they have free time, so they have the time and money to play games again (and introduce their kids to games). I've seen many genre's once deemed "dead" come back to life all of sudden thanks to the internet, mobile devices and kickstarter.

 

[Yminale]

Except, as Jim and others in this thread have pointed out, the Final Fantasy and Resident Evil series weren't suffering due to a change in people's tastes.

As I posted, it's not that simple. Some brands like Zelda and Mario seem to defy trends. Other well regarded brands just fall off the map. Part of it is due to poor management and part of it is due to change of taste or changing demographics. I don't know anything about Resident Evil except their big problem is high development cost. For FF, it's not as simple as disappointing your audience. Ask 10 FF fans what makes a perfect FF game and you will get 10 different answers. FFIX is almost universally loved (it's often called the last great FF game) but it only sold 5.3 million copies. FFXIII is almost universally hated but it sold 6.9 million copies. Why the difference? A lot of things went wrong with FFIX and a lot of things went right with FFXIII. As for the fans, if we are not satisfied most us will shrug and wait for the next game.

 

[Rabidkitten]

I wish it were this simple. I truly do, but it is in fact a lot less simple then this. So basically the issue stems from the fact that game companies or any art creating enterprise should probably not be publicly trade (At least its not in the best interest in the health of the company, but probably in the best interest of the founders who want to get more rich). When a company is big enough to go public it means the company has a line up of successful franchises. Once the company is public the stock holders want to see the company grow in value. Not over the long term, but for short term gains. Because game companies are tech stocks and tech stocks are volatile. The holders want to see short fast ups, so they get hold em while they grow and then dump them.

So how does that hurt a game company? Well the share holders want to see returns that would in turn raise the stock price. There are a few ways that can happen, but the easiest one is to have yout earning reports go up each year. Not just turn a profit but more of a profit. If you make the same as last year and your operating costs are the same then your stock price flat lines, and probably goes down. At which point the investors who want to see it go up will suggest layoffs to help get them that short term gain so they can dump the stock. They don't give a shit about the long term stretch of the company. Now if your company has some ludicrous holding within its core members such pressures can be averted, but... such a holding means your IPO was probably not well received, thus its an unlikely situation.

So how does result in company's taking their core franchises and turning them to porridge? Well if Square Enix just kept making Final Fantasy... Final Fantasy. They would see slow growth because its an established series with an established base, but the series is doing nothing to bring in new sales. Think Call of Duty's slowly reduced sales each iteration. Now that is not something a stock holder wants. They want you to pull in new sales, to further monetize your franchises. And how? By making them more accessible of course, by broadening their customer base. Thus Square Enix, EA, Capcom, and the gang slowly turn their games to mud.

And when Square Enix says something like they should reconsider games that are more like their old games? It generally one of 2 things. A) They are trying to pull in "lost" customers again. B) They are showing signs of not attempting to grow their stock, because they abandoning attempts to grow their market and are returning their old revenue stream customer base. So from a shareholder perspective that statement is bad news.

 

[Luminos564]

Oh Jim. I wonder what you'll say after Square-Enix takes this so called epiphany and grinds it to the ground? Given their track record, they're just as likely to go "Hmm, Bravely Default did extremely well it seems. So surely it will be an equal or greater success if we milk it about 10 times more".

Now, I won't speak for survival horror or anything like that, but in the case of Final Fantasy exclusively, Square-Enix generally attempted to mix up the formula in some ways. I remember playing FF7 and then shortly after, playing FF8. The difference was astounding to me at the time. For better or worse, every subsequent Final Fantasy game has been about re-inventing itself, though it largely remained a turn-based combat system until something like FF12 (and FF11 but that's an MMO so it doesn't count). I don't particularly care much that they are focused on making FF more action-based though. It can be fun if done right. Hell, you thought Lightning Returns was too "actiony"? Then just wait until FF15. That game will either make or break Square-Enix's future.

 

[OrpheusTelos]

What JRPG fans still want is to explore an interesting world with endearing characters. Most long-time-JRPG-fans-but-detractors-of-recent-Final-Fantasy-games will tell that that is what FF has been lacking.

Yet when Squeenix delivered what they were asking for with FF12, the very same people complained because the game had no story (except it was there, if you bothered to speak to the NPCs instead of waiting to be spoon-fed everything in the next expository cutscene), that the protagonists deeds felt meaningless (ignoring the fact that "Big Epic Clashes of Armies that storytellers love to talk about so much are Not the most important historical events" is one of the main recurring themes of Matsuno's games), that its battle system was boring (because of course having a great customizable IA which spared players the busywork of micromanaging every meaningless encounter with mooks meant that you spent a lot less time fiddling with the battle menues: oh the heresy), that the protagonist was a non-entity (despite the fact that he acts as the commoner foil to Ashe's aristocratic self-righteous vengefulness, who, by rejecting his own desire of revenge and embracing his childlike curiosity about the world and its inhabitants ends up teaching compassion to his queen and stops her from becoming the genocidal puppet-tyrant she was about to become, gaining the unbridled freedom he craved for in the process).

So they caved in and with FFXIII gave their audience a giant corridor even more corridoresque than the already corridorly FFX, which sold more copies than 12, despite all the complaints about its galring flaws.

One thing that Jim ignores is that there are plenty examples of mediocre, designed-by-commitee, branded-for-mass-appeal, expensive exercises in shallowness which sold a lot more copies than expertly crafted niche products.
Sure, the business model he rails against is so morbidly unsustainable that it deserves all the scorn it receives, but it's not a pure product of insular circle-jerking among industry execs as he implies.

***

The thing is, the biggest culprit seems to be the need to make sure most games' budgets conform to AAA norms. Players are used to lavish cinematics, hours and hours of gameplay time, extensive customization and a certain modicum of freedom, and offering these things costs money - on top of the ever-increasing graphics pipeline.

Which is why I think that to survive the most expensive AAA games are going to become prestige projects: that is, expensive games not meant to be profitable on their own but which exist to showcase the talent of a company developers and increase the brand recognition.

Just thought I'd step in to say that I agree with you when it comes to FF12! I think that more people have come to appreciate it as time goes on- holding out hope for an HD version.

 

[Saltyk]

You may notice that after FFIX, the series started to slowly decline. This is no coincidence, FF9 really was the beginning of the end for traditional Final Fantasy. It was where FF began to stagnate and Square started trying to find more and more places to take the series as a whole. We can see where that has taken the series so far.

Um, what? FF10 is a far better game than FF9. FF9 is probably my least favorite FF game excluding the two awful ones (FF2 and FF3). FF9 was a low point for sure, that rebounded with FF10. (Not so much FF10-2, and DEFINITELY not with Dirge of Cerberus) And it's not like FF10 wasn't that different of a game compared to FF8, so what did they abandon, exactly?

If anything the downfall began at Kingdom Hearts, when they realized Final Fantasy the franchise was more important than each Final Fantasy game.

Personally, I like FFIX and FFX. Each has strengths and weaknesses.

FFIX has some great characters, for example. It's a rather beautiful game. The plot is pretty good, too. But I dislike the lack of attacks that exceed 9,999 or hit multiple times. The Trance system is just plain broken, too. Using Zidane's basic Dyne skills do as much damage as his stronger hits at the end game and Stiener's claim to Trance fame (increased damage) is just as pointless as he can do 9,999 with a hit with his Ragnarok sword.

FFX has great combat, and some decent voice acting (that scene is taken out of context). Overdrives are probably the best "Limit" system the series has ever had. And switching party members in the middle of battle is great. On the other hand, Tidus needs to shut up, it isn't his story. And getting the Ultimate Weapons is a pain.

I liked Kingdom Hearts, but I think I see what you're saying to an extent.

Personally I never understood the hate that FFXIII generated. Exploration and stupid minigames are the things I hated most of FF games. No one seems to notice that the combat system is COMPLETELY BROKEN. They definitely tried to fix things with FFXIII-2 and FFXIII-3.

I noticed. I've long maintained the true problem of FF13 is that the battle system is broken on a fundamental level - that simply changing paradigms and mashing autobattle (because autobattle is smarter and faster almost every time than entering commands manually) is flawed beyond belief. The leader dies = you lose "feature" in FF13 when death is common and revival cheap and easy is a design decision that is absolutely inexplicable. Especially loved when the last boss had an unblockable autokill attack.

Agreed 100%. I hated the combat in FFXIII. It was even more boring than FFXII. And I watched TV while fighting in FFXII!

And don't remind me about Gambits. The game literally played itself. They say this about XIII but no, in XIII you still need to switch paradigms and do stuff in the right order to get the 5 star rating. XII had no ratings and gambits made it play itself.

Hey at least you set up the gambits yourself, and could take total control of all characters whenever you needed to (most serious battles had you micromanaging all actions).

In FF13 you control only one character (WHY???) and mash autobattle while periodically changing paradigms. Haste everyone, 2 Rav 1 Com until break, 3 Rav until ~900%, 3 Com. 3 Medic if healing needed. 5 stars for everything. The whole game. That's not progress. That's not even fun.

To me, the Gambit system was a precursor to FFXIII. And, in some ways, I like FFXIII better. At least, I didn't have to buy the basic commands to tell my characters "If the enemy is weak to fire, cast fire."

Other than that, I agree. FFXIII had a horrible combat system. Plus, enemies tended to have way too much HP. Having to Stagger an enemy two or three times just to kill them was a bit much. Say what you will about the characters and story, but I think that was forgivable next to the combat.

 

[Yminale]

Oh Jim. I wonder what you'll say after Square-Enix takes this so called epiphany and grinds it to the ground?

Last time SQENIX drove an epiphany in to the ground we got FFVI, Vagrant story, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Evermore, FFVII, Final Fantasy Tactics, Secret of Mana, Xenogears and it pretty much ended with FFIX and Chrono Cross. I am cautiousely hopeful this time.

 

[Nixou]

XII you could get lvl 3 quickenings super early in the game and solo bosses in 1 move 20 hours into the game. 20 hours!

FF6 battle and leveling system are so broken and easy to exploit that the game presents no challenge that isn't self imposed or provided by a mod.
Yet it's often hailed as the best episode in the series.
FF7 also allowed a ton of exploit and presented little challenge: yet it's FF6's main contender at the top of the series.

The people complaining about FF12 difficulty come in two groups: those who got stuck against the Elder Wyrm, did not realize that there was an easy grinding spot right next to it and concluded that the game was unfinishable, and those who discovered -or gamefaqed- exploits for leveling up fast in the early parts of the game and called the game a joke.
I've been gaming for nearly 30 years and those-who-get-pissed-at-the-slightest-challenge and those-who-get-bored-after-abusing-cheatcodes have always been part of the audience.

***

FFX was a smash hit, and after Square put FFXI out on the MMO market and returned to their single player games with FFXII, for some reason they suddenly decided that in spite of FFX selling wonderfully turn-based combat was holding them back

That's because FF12, like XI was build around a network of large interconnected zones where seamless transition between exploration and battle was essential.

 

[Yminale]

The people complaining about FF12 difficulty come in two groups: those who got stuck against the Elder Wyrm, did not realize that there was an easy grinding spot right next to it and concluded that the game was unfinishable, and those who discovered -or gamefaqed- exploits for leveling up fast in the early parts of the game and called the game a joke.
I've been gaming for nearly 30 years and those-who-get-pissed-at-the-slightest-challenge and those-who-get-bored-after-abusing-cheatcodes have always been part of the audience.

I don't like FFXII because all you can do is walk around. The game basically plays itself (literally).

 

[Colt47]

What a strange six years it has been. The statement about the games industry only knowing extremes kind of reflects the political situation in the United States, which is making me think that the entire problem is probably at the feet of market analysts codifying gaming demographics in such a way that it made pitching a game that didn't fall into an extreme difficult. Hence we ended up with military shooters, action based RPGs, and hybrids of the two taking the lions share of gaming funds, MMO or not. The only games not effected were the sports games. That genre has been chugging along for eons it seems.

Well, and then there is Nintendo, but they're kind of in their own world.

 

[Vault101]

I think developer and game companies fall in to a cycle of wishful thinking, hoping to drive the market in a direction that benefits them. Multiplayer game with DLC and micro-transactions is a dream come true for game companies, very little piracy problems, no issues with second hand sales with a steady source of income. Fortunately the market abhors a vacuum and if you won't deliver what the people want someone else will.

One other thing, demographics are changing. People who liked CoD are getting to the age where their time and income are more restricted (college, jobs, families). People who like X-com well their careers are pretty much set, their children are grown to the point they have free time, so they have the time and money to play games again (and introduce their kids to games). I've seen many genre's once deemed "dead" come back to life all of sudden thanks to the internet, mobile devices and kickstarter.

if anyone thinks about it for more than 2 seconds its rediculous...what is going to compel a COD kid to play ME3? or dead space 3? how could every single game be a titanfall or (at best) a borderlands or a left 4 dead? it couldnt because the market would be over saturated and it just doesnt make any fucking sense

the only genre thats truly dead is the rail shooter...probably for the best

And I have noticed a slight blind spot in some console gamers who don't play PC games, and thus are completely unaware when games like Amnesia and Slender and LIMBO become huge hits. So perhaps these devs have the same sort of blind spots, where if a genre like survival horror is finding most of its success on PC and it's a developer like Capcom we're talking about who mostly deals with console games, then perhaps they are aware of these games but for some reason assume that because they're all on PC they simply cannot succeed anywhere else, and thus simply do not exist to them.
.

[i/]but they got GTA5 bro! ITS THE MOST AMAZING GAME EVAR![/i]

if you eat up everything the AAA machine feeds you I supose its a diffferent story...but with the internet and all that its hard to see how they can remain in the dark

I don't mean to hate AAA because while I've enjoyes many indie games I don't think its the second coming thats going to fix all of gamings woes...we need better games with better suport from the big players and that means they have to pull their heads out of their asses and stop playing the mass appeal game

 

[Flunk]

Right in all ways Jim, I want a real JRPG damnit! Last one I bought was Tales of Vesperia. Survival horror I couldn't care less about, but that doesn't matter, if people want it it will sell!

 

[Banzaiman]

I agree with everything said in the episode, no surprise there, but I'm most fond of that ending. Thank God for you, Jim.

 

[Disthron]

I think the problem is that the executives are sitting in giant echo chambers. They think something is a bad idea and go out of their way to ensure that it fails (executive meddling, less development time, lower budgets and so on) and then point to that failure and scream "SEE!?!?! IT FAILED!!!!". This is not unique to the video game industry, anyone who is a fan of Sci-Fi and good cartoons on television will attest to the same shit happening (Firefly the most famous example among many others). And if they think something is a good idea then they will put all of their resources into it and even if it fails they will blame everyone and everything (pirates, new console generation, microwaves, conspiracy of journalists, mind control).

Also, to expand on some of the genres that were mentioned in the video, here are some more:
Space Sim genre is dead outside of X series, Eve online and possible hope of Star Citizen

Point and Click adventure genre was dead until it was revived by Phoenix Wright and then Telltale

WW2 FPS are gone

DDR, Guitar Hero, Rockband also gone

RTS hanging on thanks to Blizzard and Relic

TBS hanging on thanks to CA and 2K


Video Game industry is bigger than it ever was and at the same time it is blander than ever before. And I have no idea what can be done to wake those executives up. Bravely Default acted like a wake up call but most publishers are not willing to risk even a small niche title whose success might shock them.

I have to say, this sounds pretty plausible to me. Another good example is that BBC CEO who took one of the highest rating shows in history (Dr Who) and basically drilled it into the ground.

 

[Haru17]

I agree with most everything said here, but turn based combat is rather lame. It feels like a lazy copout to actually programing and fine tuning gameplay. Look at the Tales of [Name] series, those are all good JRPG stories that don't make me fall asleep while playing them. I wish more turn based games would try new and different styles of combat.

 

[Haru17]

Also, why revert to the old intro song. It's so annoying...

 

[Something Amyss]

[But the industry has always had those sorts of popularity booms for certain genres, hasn't it? Just look at JRPGs in the 90's. How come this is so different?

You'll have to remind me which genres they declared dead back in the 90s, and which practices they declared dead, too. There was still a healthy number of other games, including fighters, platformers, puzzlers, and they were "AAA" titles. So if there was an actual similar practice, I don't know it.

"Follow the leader" is nothing new, but it's hardly the only issue here.

 

[Thanatos2k]

FFIX has some great characters, for example.

It has some terrible characters as well, like Zidane, Dagger (still can't believe one of your characters is named that the whole game), Freya, and the horror of horrors, QUINA.

I liked Kingdom Hearts, but I think I see what you're saying to an extent.

I love Kingdom Hearts. Just saying it was when they started treating Final Fantasy like a franchise that needed to be exploited for cash rather than a series of great games.

FFIX is almost universally loved (it's often called the last great FF game) but it only sold 5.3 million copies.

It most certainly is not almost universally loved. Where are you getting that from? People who hate FF10 for some reason? Because it falls in line with your point?

I don't like FFXII because all you can do is walk around. The game basically plays itself (literally).

So don't set up any gambits and play the game yourself. All gambits do it save your time and button presses. You set them up, you decide what they do, you can change them, you can ignore them and at any time jump into the action and control everything.

Why do people suggest the game plays itself? The game does what you tell it to do.