Development Team Downsizing and Justification Makes no Sense

[Alhanelem]

There is an institutional problem at Square Enix.

The same mindset that lead to the letter from the XI producer last month, is already to be seen in the XIV studios. Which is why almost all the people working on XIV have been working on XVI and whatever follows that. Do you know how bad a sign it is for a large and successful team to suddenly start work on a AAA single player game instead of put all their attention into some new EXP or engine update?

The future for XIV is going along the same path XI took, they are no longer happy updating that 10 year old game. They want to work on new things. Working on a 10 year old engine is bad for their careers.

SE isn't run like other companies, where a success story is latched upon. They constantly want to re-invent the wheel, even if doing so makes no financial sense.

If you were working in game devleopment, you would understand that you need to keep your skills sharp to stay relevant. You would also understand that even in the MMO world, interests change over time. Nothing lasts forever, and you really need to come to grips with that fact. FFXI has already lasted longer than nearly every other MMO on the market. SE is in many ways run like any other media company. Normal companies work to stay relevant because needs and wants of their customer base are always changing.

To you it might make total sense to keep throwing money at something forever and ever and ever, but there is diminishing returns on continued investment. Even WoW isn't completely immune to this. SE is a publicly traded business and such businessess need to please investors. Investors want to see a company constantly innovating and making new things to drive sales and thus increase company value and therefore the return on their investments. So that's what SE does.

[Sirmarki]

Smany stick with XI or plain out quit to go play GTA, god of war, Elden ring or Sonic the Hedgehog.... or something.

Maybe because they actually like playing it still, just maybe?

[Pixela]

The "new producer letter" was one of the most idiotic and demoralizing things I've read for a while, it was so bad and so disrespectful I wonder if that was the intent.

They aren't even promoting the content they have been working on for years that still has to come out to keep peoples morale up.

Players like Pixela understandably put their hopes and dreams of continuing XI for as long as possible on others, but that is wrong to do. I can continue, but I think the point was made.

I know how this goes, because I've been involved in these things for other games I cared about in the past. A lot of people don't understand the issues that await.

First of all the people running them have very limited ability to fix problems and add new things, they are vastly inferior to a proper experience at a core level because they are effectively a frankenstein monster. I know the "new car smell" can carry these issues short term, they start to grate long term.

Secondly a lot of the outside infrastructure is reliant on the proper service running, once the proper service stops you will see video card drivers no longer need to support many of the features it needs and fps and crash issues will run rampant, windows updates no longer need to support many features these 10-20 year old games need to run and the game that worked fine this morning will no longer start at all following a forced microsoft update. For tech heads this is less of a problem because they can block updates on drivers and windows but most people aren't tech heads. I could go on but you get the idea.

[Sp1cyryan]

The "new producer letter" was one of the most idiotic and demoralizing things I've read for a while, it was so bad and so disrespectful I wonder if that was the intent.

They aren't even promoting the content they have been working on for years that still has to come out to keep peoples morale up.



I know how this goes, because I've been involved in these things for other games I cared about in the past. A lot of people don't understand the issues that await.

First of all the people running them have very limited ability to fix problems and add new things, they are vastly inferior to a proper experience at a core level because they are effectively a frankenstein monster. I know the "new car smell" can carry these issues short term, they start to grate long term.

Secondly a lot of the outside infrastructure is reliant on the proper service running, once the proper service stops you will see video card drivers no longer need to support many of the features it needs and fps and crash issues will run rampant, windows updates no longer need to support many features these 10-20 year old games need to run and the game that worked fine this morning will no longer start at all following a forced microsoft update. For tech heads this is less of a problem because they can block updates on drivers and windows but most people aren't tech heads. I could go on but you get the idea.

The only idea I have gotten, and feel I am not alone in. Is that you don't actually "know how this goes." As is extremely evident in this and other posts and threads.

[Pixela]

Lets use South Park as an analogy to make a point

They created the show in 1997 and it's still putting out shows today and still making good money, they updated the creation tools but it still looks the same and is pretty much the same thing but new stories. If the animators working on it are bored or want to go make the terminator, they replace them with new staff that do want to work on it.

If South Park was owned by Square Enix, they would of canceled it and replaced with with a hyper realstic CGI series cause the "animators" (in reality it's managerial) were bored of the old style and are excited about CGI. It would cost 30 million dollars an episode, take 6 months per episode, everyone would hate it, each flower pot in the background would have 100 billion polygons, they would cancel it in a year after burning 120 million dollars while 10 people watched and then make a new CGI series that cost 40 million an episode and that would fail again.

This is how Square Enix operate, they are so fixated with novelty, new tech and new audiences that they don't understand you should always nurture success and audiences you already have.

FFXI is 20 years old ps2 game, guess what? The players aren't going anywhere anytime soon, new players are still joining (who like grind / long term / old school - hi2u runescape / aesthetic) and it has plenty of profit growth potential with expansions and merch. A lot of people would come back for 5-6 months for an expansion too, so it's not even just the expansion box price that would make money but the sub price from booster player numbers after too.

With investment FFXI could carry on another 20-30 years easily and be updated all that time, and make good money doing it.

All they need to do is invest money into dev tools so people can keep making content etc, it's not even comparatively expensive to do compared to everything else they throw money at. As long as they just try to re-create what they NEED.

It does not matter if it's 20 year old tech if people like it and will pay to play it, also the devs want to keep working on it because they are XI fans and have stated they only got into game dev becasue they loved XI and wanted to work on it.

The entire problem is management.

They have burned money on countless games over the past few years that quickly died, and damaged their brand in the process as completely chaotic company. If they spent a fraction of that on XI dev tools it would of been guaranteed profits for the next 20+ years and it would be amazing PR to rebuild faith and love in the company.

-

Again the same thing is going to (and actually already is) happening with XIV where they are getting itchy feet and want to work on the newest AAA single player devil may cry clone.

The only reason they are still in business at all is because they have a loyal fanbase that keep bailing them out of every hole they jump into, but that are slowly getting sick and tired of their antics.

Everyone I know that used to be a Square Enix fan is now a fan of a specific thing they run, and hate the company. That is not good.

Most companies understand the value of a loyal fanbase and niche products, Square Enix understand nothing but chasing pretty butterflies.

They are running XI into the ground.
They are doing the same thing with XIV.
They ruined FF7 R in so many ways.
FF16 looks like a complete mess of mashed together ideas that will end up appealing to barely anyone.

I mean really.

TLDR: If people still like Chess, make more Chess boards and don't try make super intergalatic blackhole 4d chOss'.

[Immortal]

Lets use South Park as an analogy to make a point

They created the show in 1997 and it's still putting out shows today and still making good money, they updated the creation tools but it still looks the same and is pretty much the same thing but new stories. If the animators working on it are bored or want to go make the terminator, they replace them with new staff that do want to work on it.

If South Park was owned by Square Enix, they would of canceled it and replaced with with a hyper realstic CGI series cause the "animators" (in reality it's managerial) were bored of the old style and are excited about CGI. It would cost 30 million dollars an episode, take 6 months per episode, everyone would hate it, each flower pot in the background would have 100 billion polygons, they would cancel it in a year after burning 120 million dollars while 10 people watched and then make a new CGI series that cost 40 million an episode and that would fail again.

This is how Square Enix operate, they are so fixated with novelty, new tech and new audiences that they don't understand you should always nurture success and audiences you already have.

FFXI is 20 years old ps2 game, guess what? The players aren't going anywhere anytime soon, new players are still joining (who like grind / long term / old school - hi2u runescape / aesthetic) and it has plenty of profit growth potential with expansions and merch. A lot of people would come back for 5-6 months for an expansion too, so it's not even just the expansion box price that would make money but the sub price from booster player numbers after too.

With investment FFXI could carry on another 20-30 years easily and be updated all that time, and make good money doing it.

All they need to do is invest money into dev tools so people can keep making content etc, it's not even comparatively expensive to do compared to everything else they throw money at. As long as they just try to re-create what they NEED.

It does not matter if it's 20 year old tech if people like it and will pay to play it, also the devs want to keep working on it because they are XI fans and have stated they only got into game dev becasue they loved XI and wanted to work on it.

The entire problem is management.

They have burned money on countless games over the past few years that quickly died, and damaged their brand in the process as completely chaotic company. If they spent a fraction of that on XI dev tools it would of been guaranteed profits for the next 20+ years and it would be amazing PR to rebuild faith and love in the company.

-

Again the same thing is going to (and actually already is) happening with XIV where they are getting itchy feet and want to work on the newest AAA single player devil may cry clone.

The only reason they are still in business at all is because they have a loyal fanbase that keep bailing them out of every hole they jump into, but that are slowly getting sick and tired of their antics.

Everyone I know that used to be a Square Enix fan is now a fan of a specific thing they run, and hate the company. That is not good.

Most companies understand the value of a loyal fanbase and niche products, Square Enix understand nothing but chasing pretty butterflies.

They are running XI into the ground.
They are doing the same thing with XIV.
They ruined FF7 R in so many ways.
FF16 looks like a complete mess of mashed together ideas that will end up appealing to barely anyone.

I mean really.

TLDR: If people still like Chess, make more Chess boards and don't try make super intergalatic blackhole 4d chOss'.

This is so true, this company is just terrible. They used to ban like crazy back then I remember, so many people got smacked for the dumbest things. I always am shocked that Anelheim is still here for that reason.

[Voidstorm]

I mean really.

TLDR: If people still like Chess, make more Chess boards and don't try make super intergalatic blackhole 4d chOss'.

sorry, saw the meme, reminded me of the post. Had to do it.

[Zehira]

sorry, saw the meme, reminded me of the post. Had to do it.

I assumed Pixela visited HorizonXI's website to see my linkshell name. I joined few months ago anyway.

On retail, all we see is complain, complain, research, research, complain, complain...

On a private server, we just play, chat, share sweet memories, laugh at bugged things, and have fun. Not bad for free.

If developers from SE got tired of this game and want to move on to something new then I can understand but why can't some players just quit this game...? Mithra-fever?

[Catmato]

On retail, all we see is complain, complain, research, research, complain, complain...

Sounds like you need to surround yourself with better people. Also, I've heard many complaints about private servers, including the one you referenced.

[Zehira]

Sounds like you need to surround yourself with better people. Also, I've heard many complaints about private servers, including the one you referenced.

Private servers are far far far far from perfection, you know what, they don't care. They will do anything to destroy SE's oldest/outdated game, FF11... (for not having their desires met). I am not sure what complaints you have heard about them... It's just free to play.

What I understood, HorizonXI is trying something different than what Eden and Wings failed to do.