Eorzea's Future (and SE's) Looks ProfitableFollow

Good news!

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/11/05/final-fantasy-14-success-lifts-square-enixs-fortunes

Yoshi-P and the development team really knocked this out of the park.

Look to Square Enix, Yoshi and Team for how to do things right! On the other hand....

http://www.gameskinny.com/a5s9j/phantasy-star-online-2-ignores-western-audience-in-favor-of-2014-asia-release

Look to Sega if you want to know how to do things WRONG.

Edited, Nov 6th 2013 2:43pm by Valkayree

I just love that all the trolls totally left this game for dead, and claimed that SE was just digging itself into a giant hole...

And now, this game is very successful and turning things around for SE!

And it's P2P. :D

People left it for dead because it pretty much was for 3 years. The odds of it coming back to flourish were pretty low.

Also, they make their earnings available to the public. Go back over the past dozen or so quarters they've reported since XIV's launch and compare how many of those quarters are + or - and you'll see that the digging a hole comments were pretty accurate.

It's fair to link the projected profit to the success of ARR. I think it's also fair to link the previous several years of downturn to version 1.0

All that really matters as far as coming out of the red on ARR is retention. How many subscribers can you keep through 2.1? How many of those are still around for 3.0?

I think the biggest hurdle SE has to cross for the future success of ARR will be content. People leave when they chew through the content and get bored. If SE can keep people interested then they may have a future 'highest grossing FF title in history' milestone to celebrate. So far with the reports of what will and won't be in 2.1, it's not looking so great in my opinion

As a whole I agree but what I have bolded. No way. FFXIII was a disaster. It deviated from every aspect of a FF game and sent the company a few steps back. Add in 1.0 and then you have a company on its heels trying to figure out where all its fans and money went. There is also the lack of releases of other games and quality games.

Fast forward to 2013. You have the re-release of 2.0, a successful campaign for FFXIII-3, Tomb Raider (arguably one of the top 5 games of the year), KH 1.5, FFX HD, KH3 and FFXV announced, Thief. This company has jumped back on the path that made them so successful in 1997-2005. Although 2.0 has been a great success it is not the only reason why SE has started to see a turn around and neither was 1.0 the reason they started to see a loss in profit.

Last note. SE was on the same path as CAPCOM, Comcast, and any other company that has had a lack of competition over the years. They fell into a rut and cruise control, pumping out the same generic crap over and over because the title is what sells. Well add in the new players over the last four years, naughty dog, Bandi (with JRPG remakes and Ni No Kuni) with some of the others, older companies making a little better game and suddenly the money train slows down to these companies who think they are so good and so valuable that we will always be there. I think the last few years have been good for gaming, unless you are a war game fan, see Call of Duty: Groundhog's Day. We are starting to see some innovative and unique games pop up and its making the big dogs rethink because our money is going somewhere else.

I like RPGs, and apparantly I am in the minority of these gaming company's market trend indicators which seem to group gamers into two categories: boys that like to shoot things and girls who like puzzles. I completely left the Xbox 360 and 100+ friends because literally the only thing I hook up the system to do is play Rock Band II and let my kid play the Kinect. Other than that I could play Skyrim for the 850 billionth time. Once I realized that out of ten games made for the Xbox 360, six were first person shooters, one was side scrolling arcade junk, two were racing, and the last was a sport of some kind, I sort of realized that those werent the games I wanted to play. Am I going to digitally shoot a terrorist in the head in front of my four year old? Steal a car in GTA V and run someone over? Maybe if I didn't have kids. But now I do. So I took my money elsewhere.

I ended up carrying a 3DS with me for a while. Really cool, especially since I got in when Shin Megami Tensei IV and Fire Emblem IV were released. I played Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate and stuck around for Rune Factory IV. Really cool game, I still play it on the toilet. But the content and games for the system were released at snails pace. You know CAPCOM is on the ropes when Project X Zone (a game where they run the same mechanics over and over and chunk 9 billion of their franchises in your face) was their hit game on the 3DS! And the 3DS is a really fragile system, despite the fact they make you want to carry it around with you. I have to blow air into it on a daily basis to get my L bumper to work. And my 3D mode is stuck in overdrive and I cant turn it off. Bleh.

Then FFXIV:ARR was released and the hallelujah gates opened. I bought a PS3. Now I'm hearing that the game will be on PS4 so I can finally turn back on my spell effects. Im stoked about that. And I am eager to try Assassins Creed: Black Flag on PS4. Pirates are cool.

Bottom line, you are right. Microsoft hasnt released a good RPG in a year and Nintendo is at a trickle. My PC sucks. So I stick with Playstation because at least the Japanese still like RPGs and I am good with that.

Edited, Nov 7th 2013 8:53am by Valkayree

Two new primals, at least two new dungeons, the 24-man Crystal Tower raid, player housing... I think PvP, too...

Those are just some of the highlights, but looks to me like there will be plenty of content to keep the hardcore players happily grinding away.

You have to remember that most players are not hardcore, and many of those people are taking their time through the story. Most people didn't zerg all the content and "run out of things to do" after a month.

I'm also not really concerned about Legacy dropoff. Many Legacy players stuck around through all of 1.0. They're not going anywhere in 2.0.

Related: some anecdotal information about how this game is being perceived by people with no bias for or against SE:

Prior to starting I tried to get my gamer friends into it. 2 of them had never played a FF before. Between them all 8 copies of FF was purchased; some bought multiple copies for PC/PS3 access. Only one of the 6 no longer plays basically because he's not that into MMOs anymore, but all of the first-timers have subscribed and are loving their experience.

I am wondering if I am having mmo burnout.
I like FFXIV mostly more than FFXI but I find myself having a harder time getting on or wanting too.. Might just be because I am working so much and feel left behind because I lack the time I feel needs to be stuck into this game..... MMO's just require such a large chunk of time. I was looking more too FFXIV because I thought it would be more casual but I still feel it requires allot of time.

I find myself wanting to go back and play some of the classics type games. No FPS or 3rd PS.. I almost want a WII U for like Mario Bros., Zelda etc.


Edited, Nov 7th 2013 1:46pm by Nashred

FF13 was the second-best selling FF ever, after 7.

http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Final_Fantasy

Thats a pretty awesome "disaster".

The thing that was hurting Square Enix so badly was arcade game sales, specifically, pachinko machines. Their arcade division showed a marked improvement this quarter too.

I'm currently locked into endgame farming mode... really aiming for a Titan-level gear setup before proceeding past Ifrit HM.

ARR will be fine, 200k or a million subs? That's an answer that only really good/deep or shallow content will answer in future expansions.

I don't see the visuals being much noticeably better this console generation. But I do so them having much better play-ability. I think the IP's that will flourish are the ones that don't try and push the envelope graphically. And just focus on making bigger, deeper worlds on which the games are set.

MIddle tier pcs and next gen consoles are similar in power so it should be cheaper to the developers who embrace it and don't cut corners too often.