Ochiai: This might be a weird question to ask but since you have put so much passion and effort into creating this game, when it comes to management, how do you approach on the sales aspect here (read: translate it into profits and sales)? In terms of timing and your target audience and so on.
YoshiP: So when it comes to product, when I first submit my proposal, it's a given that I would attached together with the budget documentation, like this will be the platform where the game will be released, development wise it'll take a grand total of this amount, when the game will be released, the cost for marketing and PR will take this much, and the projected profit will be around this much...these will of course be included into the documentation...
but I can tell you that I wouldn't want to look at the first week sales for FFXVI (laughs).
Ochiai: (laughs) But still, I take that the board of directors came together and approved the budget you're issuing during the meeting I assume
YoshiP: Yes that was indeed the case, but when it comes to FF, there are places where you can't turn back once you get into it. but I'm being quite drastic here, and precisely because I'm a creator here, I have to be particular about the business aspect, and if I'm just creating this game out of self-satisfaction, it will definitely not connect to the next.
So even though if I get told that it was a fun game, but if this doesn't translate to sales then we won't be able to create the next game. So our policy at Creative Business Unit 3 here is that at the very least, create a game where you yourself think it's interesting, and make the game earn in black numbers (※A Japanese word meaning "profit", loss of profit is "red numbers"), even if it's just a little.
By doing so, we will still get money and we'll be able to work on the games we like or things that we think are interesting so I think this time.......well......well if I think this wouldn't work out, I'd actually go destroy those projects myself, like, "I'm sorry this is impossible" and then work on other projects to supplement it, and yeah I would tell them to cancel this project. I mean, I've already done this numerous times throughout my career but still, yeah since I can't turn back this time when it comes to creating this game and I told them that we'll try to sell it all out so allow me to put this amount of budget I need for this game. The answer I got from them was "Yeah, do your best"...so...yeah. But then I've been generating profits from FFXIV anyway, and manage to contribute a lot to the company and it was thanks to the Warriors of Light that made it happen, so it was hard for the company to say "no" to what I've proposed I assume (laughs).
Ochiai: Since I do not have any experience in game sales here, but you previously mentioned that if you go with the selling out pattern, then you can somewhat see the how the next implementation will be, and sometimes there are cases where this isn't what's the approach taken when it comes to sales pattern so my question is how, or at which timing would you be able to grasp on how the sales of the game will end up when it comes to today's context?
YoshiP: By the way, the system of lump-sum payment is applicable only in Japan※1 but when it comes to overseas, basically if you can just "break in" if you want to. This can be weird, but they basically just go "just purchase a shelf". What this means is that, let's take a street-level store for example: when release date approaches there will be other games released along with your game, yes? You can brush all of them aside and say you want to place one huge portion of the segment to sell, say, FF16, then you can ask them how much do you need to pay them to do so, and they'll do so.
They would also tell you that you can ship them as many copies as you want to and they'll return the extra copies that they couldn't sell. Therefore to see how sales would fare will be starting from...the amount of pre-orders...but when it comes to pre-orders, anyone can pre-order whenever they want to these days and not many would do so....so sales wise we'll look at the first week, to see how many have purchased the game digitally as well as from wholesale dealers, so the sell out starts there, and the rest will be predictions: How much the game has reached the hands of gamers, so predictions will be made. So we'll use those detailed data in advance and create a simulation. The reason is because we'll have proof at hand on how much the copies have reached the players. For example, for FFVII Remake, we calculate based on what we can see how many user base do we have and calculate from there, so judging from the content we have this time, we can estimate that there are certain generation base that hasn't played a single Final Fantasy game purchased this game but since we are making it a full real time action, we can calculate once on how much it has dropped in percentage for certain player base who would prefer turn based Final Fantasy games and create a simulation based on that, but ultimately the results cannot be certain until we open the lid (read: release the game) so it can be hard to tell.
※1 - YoshiP's original Japanese sentence was "ちなみに買取なのは日本だけなので”. 買取 in Japanese can be different depending on the subject discussion on hand, and the standard meaning for this word is buyback, as in trading in used goods to get back some amount of money. But considering that's definitely NOT what it means... See here for more info
Ochiai: Like for example when it comes to movies, as movies run a duration of usually 2 hours when it comes to content, so in a way we can easily see how it performs, but when it comes to games, it takes time to complete them from start to finish so it's tougher to grasp how the behavior would change. So this is my personal thoughts on the matter but how do you approach the post-release sales period like for example, to see if there's a change in certain behavior, or see if your game makes it to the ranking, and by looking at these, what kind of marketing strategy would you take after the game is released?
YoshiP: When it comes to sales extension, well, this can slightly different from country to country, but when it comes to Japan, I can bring up one good example which is Slam Dunk (which is recently aired in theaters).
For the generations who are fans of the show, they would be extremely interested about it, but there was a commotion when it comes to the promotion prior to its release and this caused everyone to have doubts. But once the fans watched the movie, they'd go "You better watch this movie!", or they'd go recommend those who haven't watch the movie but expressed interest in it and nothing beats that kind of attraction when it comes to what PR can do even today. Though as for me, I'd go back to my roots, and convey properly on how the game has been made and released properly, and if people find the game interesting, streamers from all around the world who will be streaming this game will convey their comments and the louder those voices are, then it might encourage others who hasn't buy the game yet to give it a try, purchase a PS5 along. Another thing I've realized that younger generations don't tend to be particular about the release date, and tend to based their purchase on what's popular within their community circles, and what everyone is playing. In fact this is what happened when it comes to Apex, Fortnite, and this is definitely what the trend is heading towards today, so what I did is to make estimations on budget, lay out the plan saying "FFXVI is coming out", and made simple approach to try getting the shop to convince gamers to get FFXVI together with their PS5 purchase. Therefore this time, I've laid out a plan on sales that would last about 18 months.※2 Even when looking at the ownership ratio for PS5, there's no mistake that there will a drop in absolute ratio rather than looking at the games that are released for both PS4 and PS5.
Ochiai: Yeah, that's right.
YoshiP: I mean, yeah, it would be idiotic for anyone to not make these calculations beforehand, which is why it's important to consider the sales in a long term and extend them for as long as it can be, and then from the sales that have accumulated through these long months, we can see up to which extend people have played the game, and since we can see data in the achievements people obtain in game, we can tell how much people are stuck at certain aspects, and so on. From there we may make adjustments so that it'll be easier for people to obtain them, and we wouldn't need it to be an online game to do so.
Therefore, I'm not looking at the short term sales at all.
※2 - In Japan, this method is called じわ売れ (Jiwa Ure), an internet lingo literally translates to "Gradual Selling".
Originally Posted by ManaKing
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