Swan Song of Vana'diel; ~Why I Won't Play the Mobile Native App~

[Stompa]

I was reading a Nintendo article following the recent very sad news about Satoru Iwata. Nintendo spokesperson was basically saying that mobile-phone games are pretty much the only thing they are looking at, going forward. The article kept saying how Nintendo is keen to leave consoles behind entirely, in favour of mobile-phone games.

This chimes with earlier posters' comments about this changing marketplace in the Far East.

As I said before, I will not be playing any of the portable games, I still use a Nokia mobile phone from like 1998 lol. I love my PC games, and enjoy gaming at a desk where I can set up my coffee and pizza in the traditional gamer way.

[Draylo-]

Me too, someone please explain to me the allure of mobile gaming? I guess if you are on a lunch break and you wanna play something quick and people won't notice you are gaming if using a phone instead of a PS VITA or something? What other reason could people want for mobile gaming lol.

[Aquilah]

Me too, someone please explain to me the allure of mobile gaming? I guess if you are on a lunch break and you wanna play something quick and people won't notice you are gaming if using a phone instead of a PS VITA or something? What other reason could people want for mobile gaming lol.

You won't always have a Vita or something on you. Meanwhile, you'll always have a phone and it's always online. Bored at the doctor's office? Play something on your phone. Bored on a bus or as in the passenger's seat? Play something on your phone. Got some dead time? Well, you have a game to fill it nomatter where you are.

I'm pretty sure Square Enix is well aware mobile gaming is done in bursts rather than long sessions, so I doubt FFXI will be the timesink it is now. When I say timesink, I don't mean how long it takes to get gear and stuff. I mean, how long it takes to do things like get to a BCNM or Dangruf Wadi. A duty finder ala FFXIV seems like a likely addition for this reason.

[Zeargi]

You won't always have a Vita or something on you. Meanwhile, you'll always have a phone and it's always online. Bored at the doctor's office? Play something on your phone. Bored on a bus or as in the passenger's seat? Play something on your phone. Got some dead time? Well, you have a game to fill it nomatter where you are.

I'm pretty sure Square Enix is well aware mobile gaming is done in bursts rather than long sessions, so I doubt FFXI will be the timesink it is now. When I say timesink, I don't mean how long it takes to get gear and stuff. I mean, how long it takes to do things like get to a BCNM or Dangruf Wadi. A duty finder ala FFXIV seems like a likely addition for this reason.

How are you expected to play anything in those jammed packed Trains? While I get that mobile gaming is nice, but it's a different lifestyle in Japan than it is here. They go to school, then more school, then cram school, after school job, back to night school... and just about every type of school you can throw in there. Where we in the west focus on having holidays and a division of 'work' and 'social' lives. Both the console market/PC Market are still strong this side. That being said, SE has said that if any more of their titles 'fail' it's not likely they'll stay in either of those markets and focus on mobile. Which is why I was surprise to see the FF7 Remake. But it also depends more so which demographic developers want to woo. If Nintendo does go to the 'mobile market,' I'd place my bet on it be a mobile console they develop themselves. Larger than the 3DS, and maybe a tablet-like functionality. I want these people to stay in the gaming market.... And I want my Playstation 9... D:< I better be getting my mind control, holographic surround movie system, and telepathic personal music!!

[bungiefanNA]

Japan is a country where people are in transit a lot of the time during the day. Trains are a big mode of transport there. Cell phone connectivity is cheap, and coverage is very good. Cell phones are also cheaper than game consoles there, and games on the phones are generally less expensive. That's why it has major appeal there.

[Aquilah]

One thing to keep in mind is that gaming on tablets at home or a Wi-fi location is becoming a bigger thing over here. Square Enix is probably going to retain more of its customers than you'd think, whether they stay here, play FFXI mobile or play FFXIV.

I also wouldn't rule out like, a PC viewer or a hand-held port. Until we hear more of what Square Enix's plans are, anything could happen.

I certainly hope none of their games fail, though. I happen to like them developing for console and PC lately.

[Arciel]

one of the biggest considerations to take note of for mobile/tablet is the built in userbase. You don't need to encourage people to buy an android or ios device. Millions of people already own them.. and that means the potential outreach for that is exponentially higher than a dedicated mobile gaming device like the Vita, as more and more people feel such devices are not necessary when they have their phones that can already do most of that.

Most people also prefer convenience over technical specs for mobile so they dont care for a dedicated mobile gaming device. if they wanted quality it'd probably be on console? but even that has a smaller market

[Dragoy]

Now that they have X|V going, they don't need XI around to fund it that much any longer, and they will instead use the XI-fund into remaking VII finally (not entirely serious words there), and although I feel I should be excited for VII — The Remake Edition, I really can't say I am... I may play it at some point (on a Linux PC), but I'm sure the original will always be win for me.

You won't always have a Vita or something on you. Meanwhile, you'll always have a phone and it's always online.

I don't own any hand-held consoles, and my main phone is from 2005, still running on its original battery. I also have some phones (that still work) from the 90s, but the point is that the phone from 2005 has not failed me yet. Should it become unusable, I'm not sure if I would find me a replacement phone, or one of those mini-PCs (smartypants phones).

Bored at the doctor's office? Play something on your phone. Bored on a bus or as in the passenger's seat? Play something on your phone. Got some dead time? Well, you have a game to fill it nomatter where you are.

Ha! How do people have the time to be bored, I wonder. I'm not sure I was bored much when I was younger even, though I remember I didn't like waiting for something (such as growing up, heh!). It's not like I'm old now, but it feels like time is only moving faster and faster, so it's getting worse, still. Heck, I'm currently unemployed (might be the why) and I still feel like I don't have enough time for things!

I do realise it's very different for many (most?) other people, like those who spend lots of time while waiting for something during their daily routines.

I have been playing around with computers since the 80s, which sometimes makes me wonder why I am not interested in the mobile technology of today and tomorrow: computers everywhere! I guess I'm simply stuck to them old ways like that. ^^

I especially dislike their integration with cars, but I digress!

Time. Give to me.

I'm pretty sure Square Enix is well aware mobile gaming is done in bursts rather than long sessions, so I doubt FFXI will be the timesink it is now. When I say timesink, I don't mean how long it takes to get gear and stuff. I mean, how long it takes to do things like get to a BCNM or Dangruf Wadi. A duty finder ala FFXIV seems like a likely addition for this reason.

I guess I like time-sinks, even though I often have been against certain ones. Not all of them are nice, but when it comes to exploring a world, all this fast-travel we now have do make the large world so very small. It takes something away, though it's not that I'm complaining about that. I, too, do on the other hand enjoy being able to effortlessly get to some places.

It's probably quite clear that I am not of the target audience for the future FFXI, and that's fine. Mobile is the future, desktop is history, right? Consoles kick around their own parts, but I don't do that, either (last console I bought currently is a PlayStation 2, which I got for FINAL FANTASY XII (the Last Fantasy I mean last Final Fantasy game I have played on a console, and aside from XIV and X|V, the last one in the series).

I sort of wish they would have left FINAL FANTASY XI out of this. Make another spin-off, if they must, for it will not be FFXI.

Still, I can think positive, if there are people who want it to happen and who will really enjoy it. It's the same with FFX|V, really. I was in that since the very first αlpha phase, helping as I could with issues it had, yet it never really made me interested in it more than on a technical level (I like squashing bugs I maybe guess, and I was — and during free-to-play periods still am — testing it for Wine; I have been playing on Gentoo Linux since 2010, and often do what I can to help out the open source projects I make use of).

After they put it behind service fees, I did pay for the 90 days required for the Legacy status (just in case I'd want to have it some day), but not more (partly of course because FFXI isn't cheap either, and I tend to have two accounts for that). That game simply doesn't do it for me. Not visually, or with its content. Not even with things I can never ever dislike: Nobuo Uematsu, and all the throwbacks to the old, the good games.

Once FFXI is no more, who knows. I might go say “Blubb!” to friends at Eorzea, but I hope that time won't be here for a long while yet.


Long story short, the mobile FFXI, the everything FFX|V, and likely any other future and/or past products from SqEX are probably not for me, and so be it! I'll accept that.

[saevel]

Me too, someone please explain to me the allure of mobile gaming? I guess if you are on a lunch break and you wanna play something quick and people won't notice you are gaming if using a phone instead of a PS VITA or something? What other reason could people want for mobile gaming lol.

It's profit to expense ratio. Mobile apps are extremely cheap to make, a fraction of the cost of a console / PC game. Mobile apps also hit the largest target market since Apple and Google have pretty much standardized the entire cellphone industry, you can write the game for one platform and it's available to everyone. If Nintendo makes a console, they need to compete with every other console maker for market share that also is competing with mobile since people don't like carrying multiple devices with them. So from their point of view, it's cheaper and has an order of magnitude larger consumer audience. If if their games don't sell well and are cheap, they are virtually guaranteed to make a profit on them by virtue of having exclusive access to brands. The only Zelda, Metroid, Mario or other Nintendo brand games going to be made would be by them with a profit for them.

SE is seeing this trend and hoping on board. The game quality is going to be crap, expect bad graphics on a small screen that you need to squint to really see. It's going to have minimal development effort, as compared to a standard AAA title, but it will be so cheap to make and enough people will buy "just because" that SE will make profits of it. This is the trend in gaming now, massive amounts of cheap games that people play for a few months the toss away to buy something else. Games have become wallmart commodities and it's a race to the bottom for big developers. I foresee another gaming market crash in the next five to six years as this massive rush to mobile dilutes the market with enough clones and cheap knock offs that users just stop buying.

[Seillan]

SE is seeing this trend and hoping on board. The game quality is going to be crap, expect bad graphics on a small screen that you need to squint to really see. It's going to have minimal development effort, as compared to a standard AAA title, but it will be so cheap to make and enough people will buy "just because" that SE will make profits of it. This is the trend in gaming now, massive amounts of cheap games that people play for a few months the toss away to buy something else. Games have become wallmart commodities and it's a race to the bottom for big developers. I foresee another gaming market crash in the next five to six years as this massive rush to mobile dilutes the market with enough clones and cheap knock offs that users just stop buying.

Despite wanting to stay as optimistic as I can, I'm inclined to agree with this viewpoint. Honestly, if it wasn't for the dedicated fans running/developing private servers for many of the superior online games of yesteryear, I probably wouldn't have much hope for the future of this genre at all. That said, I feel a sense of relief when I see examples like Project1999 and how popular it is, or how the guys working on the SWGEMU are still going at it after many years, because it lets me know that no matter how far this genre ultimately falls commercially, gamers that appreciate all the care and effort that went into these old games will hopefully always have a place to go. I only hope that the FFXI emu is able to reach similar heights as development continues.