The answer to the question everyone has been asking.

[MatthiasS]

I keep seeing people asking what has happened to the game. Why does the content feel like copy/paste? Why is Eureka...what it is? Why isn't the Dev Team trying something new?


The answer is money. The money we pay into FFXIV in sub fees doesn't go back into FFXIV. It doesn't make sense to expect that it would, to be honest. Don't you think Blizzard funded the development of Overwatch and Diablo III at least in part with funds from WoW sub fees?

Square isn't in a great place right now ( https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/damie...-million-loss/ ) and is likely looking to cut costs. They already have a team working on our next expansion, certainly, because that is likely to sell well enough, and doesn't require a large investment. No new tech is being developed for it, the servers and engine are already there. Other then new overworld maps, an expansion is basically just like getting 5x patches worth of content at once.

Without funding, what the Dev Team can do is limited. With the company losing money right now, the Men In Suits are not going to look kindly on scraping ready-to-go content. I'd imagine, based on player reaction, the Dev Team would love to re-work some of those ideas, but they can't.

Something we forget is they also can't directly come out and say "We've seen the players hate this, and want to re-work it, but we can't because money". Even if they hated they way it came it out, in interviews, they are going to say "Yes, wait for what we've made. It is so exciting!" Why? Because it is their JOB to make the game and company look good at all times.

This is something much more ingrained in Japanese culture versus Western. We are used to things like actors saying that their new movie was a trainwreck to film, or game devs saying a product was rushed and blaming the publisher. That just isn't how they roll in Japan.

So, TLDR: The current state of our game is due to economic realities, not that the Dev team doesn't listen. Money from FFXIV is going to prop up the development of AAA titles that SE NEEDS to get out the door in order to stay open.

[Magic-Mal]

It doesn't help that FFXIV lost 220,000 Western subs(NA and EU) since January 2018. That's a lot of money. 3.3M a month...

[InkstainedGwyn]

The irony is that by putting us on a F2P treadmill, they're actually losing money. I would have preferred the "same old hum-drum content cycle" to this nonsense, and they would have saved money and (likely) hemorrhaged fewer subscriptions. People always complained that they were bored, but it wasn't anywhere near the volume of dissatisfaction that each new Eureka zone has gotten. Even if Eureka had been a one-time "failure" like the Diadem (which I enjoyed far more than Eureka), people would have eventually forgotten about it and come back when the new raids and content hit. Dragging it out over the course of the post-4.0 patch cycle is just compounding the losses.

[Lastelli]

Sure, cutting the funds of a subscription based game is a very good idea. That is genius! It's not like they will lose money if people quit the game because the quality of new content has gone down, after all.

[Vaer]

Wouldn't be the first time. It's not like XIV 1.0 was doing that well either, probably had to be propped up by funds from somewhere else when they went through that period where they were probably barely making any money/remaking the game.

They copy/paste when the company is doing well, too. It's more like they don't want to take a risk when the money is somewhat stable. Don't fix what's broken and all that. Yeah, they sometimes lose 10-20% of their active characters every patch, but they regain some when they release a patch. It's probably within expectations, the retention rate seems pretty good to me, plus we don't know how much they are making from the mog station. Might make up for some of the lost characters that drop out 1 month after a major patch, but then come back 2 months later when the next major patch is released.

Even the most popular MMO in the world has retention issues especially after an expansion launch that balloons the number for a couple of months until the "MMO tourists" leave. Stormblood which is basically copy/paste sold pretty good those first couple months, so they're probably going to do the same thing again.

[Gemina]

I've attempted to counter arguments revolving around the financial state of SE. Some people seem to think SE is made out of money, and only sees things like (# of subs * monthly fee) + cashshop = unlimited funding. This is hardly the case, and the Final Fantasy franchise has quite literally kept their whole rig above water for years now. If FF plummets, so does SE baring another hailmary success, which they are also known for.

We players devoted to SE are almost like a cult. Their games have brought us a profound amount of joy and memories, frustration and tears, and has created communities. Despite this success, they are not as successful as some of the other gaming development companies out there. Not even close. They've overcome a lot of challenges trying to stay true to their culture while appealing to the western audience. They have more than compensated in regards to this.

Us westerners though. We don't care, do we? We pay for a product, and we expect on-time delivery of quality material. 'nuff said. From a business standpoint, I suppose that's fair; as is delivering reskinned content so long as it is of the same quality as the previous. I definitely think we could be more understandable instead of standing around shaking a finger. But along with reskinned content, quality has also gone down. And I also believe this isn't how they roll in Japan, if we want to tie things to culture.

[Kurando]

This is hardly the case, and the Final Fantasy franchise has quite literally kept their whole rig above water for years now. If FF plummets, so does SE baring another hailmary success, which they are also known for. .

Perhaps internationally, but locally in Japan Dragon Quest is actually bigger than FF. In the off chance everything goes to crap and FF is no longer the money bringer, SE could probably just return to its home market with more DQ installments. Although in recent years DQ has found much more fame in the West, so that could be their saving grace, not to mention other titles like Nier have done really well.

[Deceptus]

So, TLDR: The current state of our game is due to economic realities, not that the Dev team doesn't listen. Money from FFXIV is going to prop up the development of AAA titles that SE NEEDS to get out the door in order to stay open.

This is 100% absolute rubbish. Even at 600,000 subs (which is conservative), that's $7.8 Million a month. Almost 100 Million a year.

FFXIV is their cash cow and they should treat it's paying customers better.

We players devoted to SE are almost like a cult. Their games have brought us a profound amount of joy and memories, frustration and tears, and has created communities. Despite this success, they are not as successful as some of the other gaming development companies out there. Not even close.

They're not as successful because they're constantly making poor management decisions. Greenlighting massive, expensive projects only to cancel them mid project (FF Versus), barely advertising what they do put out, and then setting expectations so high and not meeting them (Tomb Raider anyone?)

Creating new in house engines(read: expensive) instead of using tried and tested engines. Then scrapping the new engine and going to the tried and tested engines they should have been using from the start.

[Xau]

FFXIV is their cash cow

from what i read somewhere on this forums some days ago(don't remember where) someone claimed what SE gets far more from their mobile titles than FFXIV

[Gemina]

Perhaps internationally, but locally in Japan Dragon Quest is actually bigger than FF. In the off chance everything goes to crap and FF is no longer the money bringer, SE could probably just return to its home market with more DQ installments. Although in recent years DQ has found much more fame in the West, so that could be their saving grace, not to mention other titles like Nier have done really well.

Possibly. I remember some early installments of DQ, and really enjoyed it back in the day. Would be nice if it could gain more popularity internationally along with continued FF success. That would definitely go a long way to increasing their budget.