Quote Originally Posted by Alhanelem View Post
The only context in which this is true is that htey never would have made FFXIV Online if they didn't make FFXI Online.

As I wrote in my previous post, Only the money actually budgeted for FFXI is obligated to be spent on FFXI. The rest is profit, and SE can spend their profit however they desire. Even moving developers around doesn't change this fact. We didn't fund FFXIV with FFXI more than we funded it with any other Square-Enix product we might have bought. No funds earned by FFXI were explicitly allocated to FFXIV. They all go into SE's coffers where it can be collectively spent with all of their other income.

I'm really tired of people making this argument, it simply isn't true for one thing, and it also creates a false implication that wasn't being worked on or developed in any way during that time. It was, and therefore any assertion that we were directly funding FFXIV instead of FFXI

It's all irrelevant anyway, because SE has the right to spend its profits on whatever they want to spend them on, Are we supposed to hate or resent SE purely because they wanted to build a new MMO? FFXI was largely a successful project, why would they NOT want to try another project like it in the future?

From the beginning they had only planned to develop FFXI for a certain length of time, and even with the existence of FFXIV, they ended up developing for it far, far, far longer than that. So the truth is, far more of the dollars we spent benefitted the game we were playing than SE had originally planned for. We should be happy about this, not resentful.

Ultimately, I fail to see the point in making the observation you made, even if it were accurate.
They have stated in interviews (and even in the recent we-are-vandiel developer showcase things they have been putting out) that they were deciding on an engine remake for ff11 15+ years ago or make a brand new game because it would cost a similar amount, they decided to make a brand new game and that is why ff14 exists (it was even called "project rapture", the intention was clear). They have also stated that the only reason the ff14 races look the way they do (when it makes zero sense) is to make transitioning of their current players on 11 over easier, ff14 was made for ff11 players by ff11 developers and we got massive content droughts for it to be made "for us". The problem is, they got caught up in making a game without the restrictions FFXI forced upon them and made a game that had little in common with ff11 at all.

When the game completely flopped because 11 players hated it, they had to make a decision. Make it more like ff11 to try appeal to us or gamble and try appeal to the mainstream audience and basically duplicate wow with a FF skin, they (he) decided to do that. Ultimately that was a fantastic choice because it allowed him to also copy the cash shop model wow employs and again the new playerbase happily accepted it and threw money at them for mounts, outfits and hats, something we never would.

So yes we did pay for it, our developers were put onto ff14 because the initial idea was "it was for us". FF14 would not exist at all if not for FF11, ARR would not exist if not for ff11 players bankrolling the developers to work on it for years at not cost to 14 players, and we got barely anything during that time because of it.

Don't get me wrong, in the long run it worked out "ok" because now the online division has more money and isn't as reliant on ff11 as they used to be, but this is still how ARR came into being. It also means they didn't "modernize" ff11 (shudder) so it worked out fine, Square are stronger with 2 games than 1 because in the most part the games appeal to different kinds of players. Also of the ff14 players that come to 11, they usually still play ff14 and are only playing 11 because they are burned out or on a break, and as such it's better to play a game where the money still goes back to Square than be playing ESO or whatever else.

However yes, FF14 players now asking for them to get a 50% off deal kind of sticks in the craw a bit given the history of their games creation.

I could go off on why ff14 is so awful to most ff11 players but really it doesn't matter because Square don't need us to play ff14 anymore, and indeed it's a good thing to have two different games as they do that appeal to different kinds of players. Square are happy to fund both games because BOTH games make a profit for the online division together, and losing one game would mean they make less money as "the online division". Losing ff11 would not drive those players onto 14, they would lose almost all of them.

Square does not need to lose money, the last thing they want is to have less profits showing up on their quarterly shareholder presentations either.