The problem with cutting the budget for FFXI

[radar]

I think a lot of companies fail to understand the implications of annoying a base of users that consume a product and have been loyal to it for a long time.

The budget for XI was cut and so the amount of staff was lowered and reassigned, this was obviously done to save money. The calculation was obviously done that most of us would stay anyway because we have played it so long, so why not cut the budget on what you give us for our subscription fee to make more profits.

The problem with this is we do not just consume FFXI, you are effectively annoying tens of thousands of people who are fans of FF and fans of your company.

Personally speaking, I spend far less on XI now than I did before and I also don't like buying your companies other AAA products anymore either. I have been successfully soured to Square Enix products by the way it treats a game I've paid you to play for 20+ years.

You may make more profits from XI by making us pay the same and giving us barely any new content, but I guarantee you that this is going to lose you far more money in an unseen way by burning fans this way.

This kind of anti fan penny pinching is what made Blizzard into one of the most hated gaming companies, when they used to be loved.

[Sp1cyryan]

Fans fail to understand how things work and oversimplify it.

[Beastorizer]

Blizard fans actually did something about it though; by joining a lesser MMO which temporarily surpassed WoW. Then, Blizzard announced an expansion which brough them back.

SE knows the ppl who are here, will stay here. I am guilty, sometimes........Also have taken year/years long breaks. So, I am not part of the loyalist community perse. I dip in every now and then. SE's forum algorithm allows you to hang around for a bit after the fact, so long as you are logged

I just want to see more BST jugs..........BST has less than 50% of the bestiary as pets. I don't think that is too much to ask for, considering BST is a pet class......but I am certain many want more pressing things such as content which benefits the playerbase as a whole.

The loyalist have to speak with their wallets, or nothing will change. It is up to the loyalist really......because if they leave, XI won't have a playerbase. Thus, SE will be forced to act (Could lead to a shutdown however lol). The "WoW -esque" folks who are fed up are already gone playing Horizon or some $hit.

[Alhanelem]

There is more than just one problem here. But really it's a chicken and egg situation. It's hard to justify spending money on a game with not that many players and a low likelyhood of obtaining more players. Thus players leave, then it's harder to justify spending money, more players leave, repeat.

But even if they decided today they wanted to spend more money on the game, I don't think it would have the desired result.

Seekers of Audolin actually had content cut because it underperformed. So I don't think SE has seen any reason to consider making something on that scale again since. I don't think anything less dramatic than a full remaster with new content would bring people back.

SE's forum algorithm allows you to hang around for a bit after the fact, so long as you are logged

This isn't really anything on SE's part. They use a generic (and once popular) forum software called vBulletin; and by itself it simply keeps you logged in until your login cookie expires. I suppose SE could have set the cookie lifespan shorter to boot people faster but really I don't think this fact was any specific decision on their part.

[Immortal]

Stop cutting the budget, give this game what it deserves. You are killing it faster, not preserving it. Doing the absolute bare minimum is going to hurt the game, I am sure they already see the sub numbers dipping on their end.

[radar]

I don't expect them to make expansions, I do expect them to keep the level of staff assigned to the game at an acceptable level.

[Alhanelem]

I don't expect them to make expansions, I do expect them to keep the level of staff assigned to the game at an acceptable level.

Aside from the producers, no one really knows exactly who is assigned to / involved with FFXI, so no one is really in a position to commment on staffing levels, whether actual or what is needed.

Ultimately though, in response to "giving it what it deserves," SE is a business and businesses do what is in their best interest for profit / survival (at least, theoretically, with some of the really questionable things SE's done lately). Unless they do some cost benefit study that tells them "if we do this, we will get a lot of subscribers," it simply won't happen. Frankly I actually do think that the producer is trying to get whatever he can manage to pull from SE for the game, it's just that difficult to do, like pulling teeth or having root canals.

[Jordache]

I think a lot of companies fail to understand the implications of annoying a base of users that consume a product and have been loyal to it for a long time.

The budget for XI was cut and so the amount of staff was lowered and reassigned, this was obviously done to save money. The calculation was obviously done that most of us would stay anyway because we have played it so long, so why not cut the budget on what you give us for our subscription fee to make more profits.

The problem with this is we do not just consume FFXI, you are effectively annoying tens of thousands of people who are fans of FF and fans of your company.

Personally speaking, I spend far less on XI now than I did before and I also don't like buying your companies other AAA products anymore either. I have been successfully soured to Square Enix products by the way it treats a game I've paid you to play for 20+ years.

You may make more profits from XI by making us pay the same and giving us barely any new content, but I guarantee you that this is going to lose you far more money in an unseen way by burning fans this way.

This kind of anti fan penny pinching is what made Blizzard into one of the most hated gaming companies, when they used to be loved.

See the problem with htis is that nobody cares at a corproarte level that makes any decisions because they're operating at about 75 different franchisses and ongoing projects and company promotion metrics that the actualuser base doesn't matter if and when the corproation does eventually lose money - they dont' really lose money they just get less of it over a given period of time - like harvesting an orchard, just wait until next year, the point is that the orchard exists.

Without an orchard you get nothing.

Yeah but besides money what ahve you given SE to work with? you pay like 100/mo for 5 toons that have no spirit or personality or emotion that you didn't actuially give htem a voice or character or personality in your macros and your advnetures that the SE chat-reading algorithms have literally nothing to work with besides a bunch've: doll hits <mob> for 2354 dmg. macro lines. THAT SHIT ISN'T PROFITABLE.

Your macro lines are a part of *YOUR* character's personality, like the trusts. The trusts have 4 lines of party chat and more personality than you do! You're the one failing SE not the other way around. Think on that: thousands of peopel with characters all hoooked up to a digital chat logging mainframe wiht chat reading artificial intelligence all interacting with the game environment itself - having fun adventuring interacting, but NOT A SINGLE PLAYER HAS EVER TRIED TO DISPLAY THEIR PERSONAILTY/SPIRIT IN GAME.

Here's a macro for you:
/ja "Weapon Bash: <t>
/wait 1
/p /ja "Knife" <face>

You're the problem because you dont' ha ve a soul.

[Rinuko]

Seekers of Audolin actually had content cut because it underperformed. So I don't think SE has seen any reason to consider making something on that scale again since. I don't think anything less dramatic than a full remaster with new content would bring people back.

underperformed or was cut due to time constraints, get some quick sales funds to continue funding ARR development?

[Alhanelem]

underperformed or was cut due to time constraints, get some quick sales funds to continue funding ARR development?

the decision was made after the release, not before. Thus it was due to the performance, not a cause of it.