December 2022 FINAL FANTASY XI Digest

[Stuzey]

Why do you have to argue against everything? My point was that the playerbase care about the game and it was a missed opportunity, it doesn't matter if you feel SE didn't promise anything new, if the playerbase that came back for the 20th anniversary have not stuck around.

The more people who play the game, the better it is for the game

[Immortal]

Hello,

Love the game been playing off and on since NA launch. Reactivated my account in hopes of job updates. Master levels are fine but that's not the same. Somewhere along the way for whatever reason plans for the 20th changed. I've looked for months. And there is no explanation as to why planes changed. Whenever the question is even brought up it gets ignored.

I'm grateful you do this digest every month. And i know you only have a fraction of the team size. Thing is the FFXI team has always kept a tight lip on the game. I've seen players ask for more active in depth communicate for years. Now its even worse. See the 20th anniversary AMA for example. There are questions you simply refuse to answer. And i can't continue justifying paying for a game that treats its player base like this.

To the players happy with the game as is, fine. You have every right to your opinion. And i wish you nothing but the best and many years of future enjoyment. Will i check back in hopes for more open communication, sure. But i'm out for now

To all the staff at FFXI, Take Care & all the best.

Cry babies like you abandoning the game are why it wont change, all you quitters going to private servers are accelerating the death.

[Immortal]

STOP BLAMING FFXIV for FFXI's state, FFXI was declining before FFXIV came out and at that time the gaming community at large already didn't care. FFXIV maybe sped it up a little bit but it started going the way it was going long before. Yoshida himself saved the game from death when they were considering pulling the plug. Every penny CBU3's projects make goes to all of its projects based on funding allocations. There is no specific funnel of FFXI monies into FFXIV or into any other specific project. THIS IS NOT HOW BUDGETING WORKS. you CANNOT identify any given dollar recieved as being sent to a specific other project.

Oh and CBU3 is working on Final Fantasy 16, so monies from all its other projects i.e. both FFXI, FFXIV, and anything else they are doing are indirectly being spent on that as well. Stop telling people they're funding FFXIV, they're funding everything Square Enix does, because that's how budgets work. They're funding Square-Enix / Creative Business Unit III, not FFXIV or any other specific project.

lol this is so wrong its hilarious. XI was "declining" before XIV came out because they were spending all of XI profits to create XIV, and when it came out and flopped they continued pouring money to stop the bleed.

[Alhanelem]

XI was "declining" before XIV came out because they were spending all of XI profits to create XIV,

Nope, before that too. It was already happening before anyone even knew FFXIV was coming.

I'm just really tired of this false narrative that FFXIV killed FFXI, it simply isn't true and Producer/Director Yoshida, who is also head of Creative Business Unit III, made sure support would continue. if they really wanted to destroy FFXI they would not have done that.

That's aside from the fact that as you mentioned, the original release was a huge failiure. It was not going to be pulling many, if any, players from FFXI. whatever issues FFXI had to lose players, it had those before this.

[Immortal]

Where exactly are you getting that information from? What was "happening"? During that timeframe there were periods of huge delays between updates, thats causing a bleed. All because their resources were focused on XIV. XIV did directly impact XI negatively, if you can't see it you are blind. It wasnt some direct intention to hurt XI, it just happened naturally when they poured all their resources into advertising and support one game over the other.

[Pixela]

Check every financial report, XI is never listed in any way. There is no finance reports that ever mention XI since playonline accounts were merged with Senix accounts.

All the money XI makes goes to XIV operations, whatever budget we get is from that.

Dragon quest online is also part of BD3 and is always counted on financial reports, none of the people working on XIV work on it and you can't use crysta to pay for it.

I know you have this deadset idea you have to defend XIV and you think players knowing XI was merged into XIV operations hurts it, I think it's quite the opposite. Them being merged helps both games, I just want them to spend a little more on XI to be more profitable to.

[Alhanelem]

All the money XI makes goes to XIV operations, whatever budget we get is from that.

Stop. Saying. This. It's False at worst, disingenuous at best. Period.

None of the money XI makes -specifically- goes to FFXIV. None. All of the money goes to Creative Business Unit III (and/or profit for Square-Enix proper), who spends it how they see fit. Even by your own admission, the income from both games is identified as coming from Square-Enix Accounts, and you've never been able to determine the specific dollar sources, one way or the other.

You cannot say based on the financial reports or anything else that Dollar X was earned from FFXI and then later spent on XIV development. It cannot be shown because THAT'S NOT HOW BUDGETS WORK. There is ONE pot of cash for all projects- and again, those projects go beyond both FFXI and FFXIV. CBU3 is working on FF16. So some portion of the income from BOTH games is being spent on that- along with anything else the business unit has ever been involved in.

Dollars earned from any one of these projects can not be specifically identified as going to any other specific project. Not FFXIV, not FFXI, nor FFXVI. Those financial reports do not detail which dollar from which project was spent on what. It simply does not work that way- no matter how many times you repeat that nonsense.

And again, FFXI did not falter simply because SE decided to spend money on other projects (Whether FFXIV or not). FFXI was already in decline: Before FFXIV was announced. Before FFXIV 1.0 was released. After FFXIV 1.0 bombed. And so on. If FFXIV was largely or solely responsible for FFXI's decline, then why didn't it bounce back after XIV 1.0 had proven itself a failiure? By your logic, it should have stolen XI's palyerbase, but that didn't really happen. No, the playerbase was shrinking for other reasons. A lot of people cite Abyssea, though my personal opinion is it was post-abyssea (Abyssea was a power playground and honestly I thought it was really fun. But future content could not live up to what Abyssea offered, because Abyssea made us too strong for regular open world content to allow its mechanics).

I'm just really tired of you constantly repeating "oh, FFXI funded FFXIV, these financial reports (don't) prove it!" It's BS and i've explained at length multiple times (even in just this one post) why it's BS.

[Immortal]

We just have to disagree then because I believe the opposite. XI was faltering before 1.0 because they were already beginning to siphon funds to XIV... lower dev time and resources as a result, hell even the same producer was working on the new game (Tanaka.) It did bounce back after XIV 1.0 failed, thats why an expansion was greenlit for XI, Adoulin. Also most people left because they were butthurt their precious 75 era crap was outdated w/Abyssea. SE made the mistake of outdating things all at once instead of a slow burn. I can only imagine that was because they planned to end XI if their XIV 1.0 was a success because Tanaka was that kind of person. Instead it bombed and they had to pedal back and pour something into XI to hold onto while they fixed the new game. After Abyssea, we had Voidwatch which ended up without the powerful atma buffs and people had more of a challenge with it. Future content did live up to it, but the players became jaded, so many of them just could not get over the fact that things changed so drastically and with XIV on the horizon they felt it was just over. I know so many people who literally forced themselves to like 1.0 because they felt XI was done for.

You don't need absolute paper trail proof that the funds from XI went to XIV, just use your common sense. Its so easy to see that is exactly what happened, I would bet everything that if 1.0 was a success, we wouldn't even have XI around and there would never have been an Adoulin. Just look at Star Wars Galaxies, arguably they had a bigger IP than Final Fantasy and they shut that down so quick once a new star wars MMO came out.

[Pixela]

Stop. Saying. This. It's False at worst, disingenuous at best. Period.

None of the money XI makes -specifically- goes to FFXIV. None. All of the money goes to Creative Business Unit III

No it goes to XIV operations, they are a combined service. All money paid into XI is paid into the XIV account system.

[Sp1cyryan]

No it goes to XIV operations, they are a combined service. All money paid into XI is paid into the XIV account system.

You don't know how SE handles things internally so just stop it already.