Recent Square Enix games have misfired due to the approach of each game being “a single producer’s fiefdom”.
That’s according to a new report from Bloomberg, detailing a recent drop in stock value of the company compared to its closest rival Capcom, though stock over the past couple of years has fluctuated but appears relatively stable. It’s claimed this recent drop is due to underwhelming sales of Final Fantasy 16, though it also follows the disappointing Forspoken and a number of smaller games released at the tail-end of last year that failed to make much of an impression.
Bloomberg sources include current and former Square Enix employees who remain anonymous, but stated the company’s approach is to give each project a single producer.
My two cents …
As much as I have loved FF and other Square Enix franchises since I was a child, as of late, I feel like they want to continually disrespect their fan base. I should be clear that I am not anti-capitalist, by all means, they work in those games and deserve to be paid (even more so the devs to be compensated fairly), that said, there have been this trend over there in the last years, imo, that it’s ok to release unfinished games and sell you the complete version of this games either on dlcs which … not ok, but still manageable, or making you purchase a whoooole new game, sometimes not even being available on one console or the other, just to enjoy the game as originally intended. I’m looking at DQXI, and FFXV, which I love, both of them and feels like a F you to buy a whole complete 60$ game just for added content (not extra, part of the main story) or features.
So, came FFXVI, I decided I’m not a little kid anymore that can’t wait for something, also have already a monstrous backlog from years since I don’t have the time to play so much anymore and I can wait one or two years till they release of, inevitably, the finished/revised version: FFXVI “Royal” “Plus” “Definitive” or whatever “cute” name they are going to slap on that to justify the re-purchase.
Atlus, pulls this also.
That’s the rant.
Everything will be damaged as “Line Go Up” becomes every industry’s mantra. Nothing will get better, expect worse and worse product quality on average.
One exception is new product categories. They need to overcome the barriers to entry.
Once any product has an established user base, that’s when it will inevitably become shit.
Maybe they shouldn’t be doing everything possible to drive off consumers. Exclusivity deals everywhere, prices that don’t like to dip, multiple versions of the same game so you need to pay more for the complete thing later. I tried to get into FF with 15, and I actually really liked it. Then all this nonsense happened with FF7R and I just gave up because it seemed like a pain to try and follow the series.
Final fantasy should have stayed turn based. Realtime combat is what secret of mana was for.
