@SquareEnix: Kickstarter campaign to get a graphic upgrade?

[Zarchery]

Say it however you'd like, it's not going to change the fact here that if players don't foot the bill or do it themselves then it will never be done. We have to either accept it'll never be done or we do something like kickstarter and hope we get enough money for them to do it. If you leave it to only be done by them then kiss your wish goodbye. There's no real downfall to doing it this way anyways, so I don't understand why the objections to it.

I'm saying that it's not going to happen under any conditions. Why do you confuse "this idea will not work" with "this idea should not be done"?

[Alhanelem]

Say it however you'd like, it's not going to change the fact here that if players don't foot the bill or do it themselves then it will never be done. We have to either accept it'll never be done or we do something like kickstarter and hope we get enough money for them to do it. If you leave it to only be done by them then kiss your wish goodbye. There's no real downfall to doing it this way anyways, so I don't understand why the objections to it.

Many of us have been footing the bill for over a decade. A kickstarter won't change that and as I said before, I will never back a kickstarter for an already released product, no matter how good it it is, on principle and the whole purpose of kickstarter, which is to kick-START something, not kick-SUSTAIN something.

[Demonjustin]

I'm saying that it's not going to happen under any conditions. Why do you confuse "this idea will not work" with "this idea should not be done"?

Your closing line...

I'd rather that this business use the funding it already has in place; profits from sales of its products and services.

That looks a lot more like "this should not be done" than "this won't work" to me.

Many of us have been footing the bill for over a decade. A kickstarter won't change that and as I said before, I will never back a kickstarter for an already released product, no matter how good it it is, on principle and the whole purpose of kickstarter, which is to kick-START something, not kick-SUSTAIN something.

We've been paying yes but there's a large difference between something like an expansion and something like a graphical overhaul. Which would likely get more revenue for them in the end? A new expansion like SoA was can bring new players in, bring old players back, and extend the game quite a bit. A graphical overhaul makes the game look more modern but it's a nice coat of paint on a car that's more than a decade old, dress it up as you wish it won't change what's under the hood. The graphical overhaul would be nothing more than a whimsical desired fulfilled and as such it wouldn't really create any additional revenue, no one who quit would suddenly return and no one who's currently not interested in the game will all of a sudden buy the game and it's new super-duper-graphic pack to play it. It's for this reason that it makes no sense for SE to do this with their own money, it'd be stupid from a business position to do such a thing. I understand you wouldn't support it, I honestly wouldn't either though that's more a matter of a lack of funds on my part to do so, but the beauty of the idea is if enough people don't care to pitch in enough to get it done then nothing is lost in the venture. It fails, we move on, nothing happens.

To address something else though, you point out it's to kick-start rather than kick-sustain, this is rather misleading. If the idea were that the servers were shutting down and we wanted a kickstarter to keep them up, that would be sustaining. If it were the idea of starting one to continue the french and german support, that'd be sustaining. If it were a matter of already having better graphics but they need to tone it down a bit due to costs, that'd be sustaining. But right now we're basically asking for a kickstarter that would start a graphical overhaul, thus it's starting and not sustaining. I do understand the arguments about SE being a large company and having their own money as well as having their own profits from this game in which to do this with but that argument is really kinda pointless when it's be stupid to redo the game's graphic with no profit as a foreseeable result of it.

[Alhanelem]

We've been paying yes but there's a large difference between something like an expansion and something like a graphical overhaul. Which would likely get more revenue for them in the end?

If their income is sufficient that they can produce and sell an expansion, then it should be sufficient to work on something like what people are asking for here. Square Enix doing a kickstarter just screams big issues:

Any one of the following could be indicated by a kickstarter
1) "We don't have enough money (our company is doing badly- something they wouldn't want to display or admit)
2) "We have plenty of money but we'll hold out on doing this til they beg us to make something and offer money for it"
3) "We're too lazy and we don't want to do this unless people band together and make us rich"

None of these exactly make SE look good.

A big corporation with millions and millions of dollars in capital has no business making a kickstarter for any product, much less one that's already released and sitll is making money.

I want them to do an update at least to use higher res textures (we know the current engine can handle it because many textures have already been upgraded)

That said, asking for extra money from us to do it is an insult and slap to the face. They should do it anyway. They are not starved for cash.

[Demonjustin]

If their income is sufficient that they can produce and sell an expansion, then it should be sufficient to work on something like what people are asking for here.

This is where you're not understanding how this works. It's not a matter of not having the money to do it. It's a matter of it being a waste of money for them. Making an expansion can create profit due to more people playing and playing for a longer period, meaning more revenue. Updating the graphics won't have the same kind of effect, it will be a net loss rather than a net gain, as such it would be stupid for them to spend their own money on such a thing. If players funded it though they'd lose nothing, only gain.

2) "We have plenty of money but we'll hold out on doing this til they beg us to make something and offer money for it"

This is simply the reality of the situation. There's no point in doing it if they only serve to lose money as a result.

[Alhanelem]

This is simply the reality of the situation. There's no point in doing it if they only serve to lose money as a result.

The message of 2) was "we're greedy, therefore we will intentionally wait until they get so desprate they start throwing money at us". Which in reality is unlikely to really happen, more likely is more people will quit and they'll get less money, not more.


I stand by the last 2 statements I added in my edit. They shouldn't ever consider a kickstarter nor should we buy into one. This is something they should just <insert vague frustration word here> do. And if they're not going to do it, we should speak with our money by NOT giving it to them, because then they might realize they have more to lose by not doing it.

[Demonjustin]

This is something they should just <insert vague frustration word here> do. And if they're not going to do it, we should speak with our money by NOT giving it to them, because then they might realize they have more to lose by not doing it.

But they've nothing to lose, no real reason to do it other than we asked. I keep saying that.

[predatory]

But they've nothing to lose, no real reason to do it other than we asked. I keep saying that.

But you missed the important part of what Alhanelem said so I'll quot it and bold it. By quote I mean put it in quotation marks.

Alhanelem: "I stand by the last 2 statements I added in my edit. They shouldn't ever consider a kickstarter nor should we buy into one. This is something they should just <insert vague frustration word here> do. And if they're not going to do it, we should speak with our money by NOT giving it to them, because then they might realize they have more to lose by not doing it."

If people actually speak with their wallets (IE not pay for a product they feel is inferior), companies lose money, so the statement: "But they've nothing to lose, no real reason to do it other than we asked. I keep saying that", is really wide of the mark, when they actually have everything to lose. Companies who do not please their customers go out of business

If everyone who plays told SE if you don't fix our graphics and our UI we will not pay next month, then actually carried through on the threat, SE would be back pedaling as fast as they could to give us batter graphics and a more modern UI, because believe it not, this game still brings in huge profits. There may only be 800-1k player on at any given time, but not everyone plays at the same time, and everyone has multiple mules, there may be as many as 4k paid accounts per server, we have no real way of knowing, but lets do a little guess work.

2500 active accounts per server, *that seems like a fair number) now lets guess each account has 3 mules, (Iknow people with more, and some with less) that's $15.99 per account, and 16 servers, so 2,500x$15.99x16= $639,600 SE would be hit for one month. I can't that of any company on the planet that would happily say "oh well it's just a little over a half mil we can deal with it." There would probably be an emergency meeting of the board of directors and heads would roll

[Malithar]

You're assuming that not doing a graphics update would lose them 2500 accounts per server, which is beyond crazy. Assuming people really did leave just because a lack of a graphics update, do you think they'd really put fourth the money to revitalize it in the hopes of getting people back? I'd put my money on them just letting it die off. I think they've found a happy medium where they can put fourth enough effort into updating the game to keep it interesting for those around, while still churning a steady profit. I highly doubt FFXI is nearly as lucrative as some seem to make it to be. Sure, $13 an account, $1 per mule, etc, now toss in the staff, development, networking, bandwidth, server up keep, customer service, etc.

Cost > profit wise, I'd imagine it's at a good spot that we'll continue to see development for the game that will retain players or entice others back. Typically, that's gameplay changes, new jobs, new content, etc. Graphics, as someone else put it, is just a fresh coat of paint on whatever turd it's hiding. They have no reason to do it, and speaking with our wallets by cancelling will only hasten the end of the game.

[Emdief]

I disagree with some of you guys. I understand new visuals would only be a new coat of paint, but I believe that it could help to push the marketing machine of the game again. I work for the press myself, and I know for sure that many players would go around looking for news, finding maybe some new screens with nice graphics, and start thinking something like "hey, this looks cool, might be worth a shot".
If you think about all the press coverage they can have (it is still a Final Fantasy, and it is still a very old and successful MMO), I think many players could develop some kind of interest in the game, those being former players or new ones.
Adoulin has changed the game deeply, the grinding has been severely reduced, and even if the inner structure of the game is still 12 years old, the new team of developers is managing to apply several changes that are making FFXI some kind of a modern game. Sure, it has its flaws, it has still PlayOnline which is a massive problem compared to modern clients, it has no in-hud maps etc. But they are addressing a lot of issues with constant updates, and they are doing a really good job, in my opinion.

I was talking with a former player yesteday, he told me he didn't want to come back because he doesn't want to exp again and level his jobs to 99. I explained him how reives and Adoulin work, and he showed interest in the fact that you get exp just by doing your daily stuff. That is gathering informations. A graphic update and news around the web would definitely push towards gathering informations from whoever likes what he sees in the new screenshots/videos. And if they like what they learn, they might give it a try.
SE still offers one free month, like most of the MMOs. Having to pay for the subscription only (instead of having to buy the game as well) would be better, of course, but still today some games adopt the monthly fee thingy with relative success.
I think a graphic update would be a great way for them to not have their amazing work go wasted.