Square Enix Loses Nearly $2 Billion in Value Since Final Fantasy 16

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Originally Posted by ZephyrMenodora

I think PS5 FF16 benefited from releasing before BG3. A lot of PC RPG players will probably be playing that or will have that to compare FF16 to when they get around to it, and regrettably FF16 just doesn't really hold up in comparison. Any hype for 16 pretty rapidly diminished - I don't think it's really getting any 9 or 10 out of 10 word of mouth any more.

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Can confirm. I'm a PC only player and have had a blast with BG3. After seeing what people are saying about FF16s combat and the like... nah I don't think I will bother.

damn, they had "the man" on the project and still couldn't bring Final Fantasy back from the brink of death, prety sure the advertising was dog, and all yoshida kept saying was "go spread the word" and to just buy a ps5 to play it, i'm almost 100% on seeing that in one of the LL's and they have 2 DLC's taking more time from EndSlop stagnation, yipee!

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Originally Posted by Rolder50

Can confirm. I'm a PC only player and have had a blast with BG3. After seeing what people are saying about FF16s combat and the like... nah I don't think I will bother.

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FFXVI is the kind of game I see myself buying as a complete edition for like $8 three years from now on a key reseller.

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Originally Posted by Lieri

Sorry but stocks value go up and down all the time. What matters is their actual finances and sales.

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This. Some influencer on twitter(I mean x) could post a tweet with 5 words and suddenly stock prices will go up or down for something.

It's such a bad measurement.

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Originally Posted by Wyssahtyn

isn't the guy a huge nft shill too? better brace for those as well lol.

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Didn't the CEO change again already? I don't think the NFT shill and the current guy are the same person.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

Didn't the CEO change again already? I don't think the NFT shill and the current guy are the same person.

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They replaced one NFT shill with another, so it's like the last guy never left.

good. they need serious crashes to wake them from their complacency coma.

If it goes down just a little bit more I can pull an Elon Musk and buy SE and make it a private company like he did with Twitter... Though I'd actually want to make the company better instead of doing a bunch of asinine things to get ppl to talk about me constantly in the news and social media...

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

Didn't the CEO change again already? I don't think the NFT shill and the current guy are the same person.

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The new CEO is supposed to also be very interested in NFTs. I can't imagine why.

Also, the fall of the stock price for SE seems to coincide with when he became CEO (I'd need to find dates). That wouldn't be out of the ordinary for a company that has made a few questionable decisions with products and has changed to a new CEO.

Not being an investor, it doesn't really matter to me. I'm interested in FFXIV, not in SE as a public corporation.

I'm really hoping they take this loss as an eye opener and go back to their base fans from what they was with Squaresoft.

I know Enix has pulled out some shelters like the pixel remaster and FF7R (I enjoyed FF7R.. I like FF7 IN general so a new spin on an old classic is fun for me)

Things like Avengers, Horizon etc to cater to other demographics are what is losing them money imo. (No, forums trolls, I'm not providing links or data so go away)

They try new things with everything other than FF14 which is bizarre. Yoshis is my Lord and saviour but omfg.. like what is he doing let FF14 stagnate!

I hope they learn from this downward trend and refocus on FF - hopefully FF14 with new ideas etc. Copium I suppose. We will see.

FFXVI sold a lot more than SE predicted (which is weird, because it is never enough for them). The SE loss is because Forspoken and the amount of low buget games they released. The impact of FFXVI would be know on the next fiscal year. You get any excuse to bash CB3, I guess.

On the other hand, SE needs to aim for more big buget games well done, and no mid or low budget games. I hate they waste too much stuff on things like Haverstella or Octopath traveler, and then do not give enough attention to some of their sagas such Star Ocean or Valkyrie profile, making very basic games last year which are not that great.

In my opinion, they have way too much games in development to make quick cash. The big ones takes ages to release (who knows when Kh4 will be done). FFXIV seems to make enough money to sustain this, but they need big buget games and less filler games.

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Originally Posted by Xlantaa

FFXVI sold a lot more than SE predicted (which is weird, because it is never enough for them). The SE loss is because Forspoken and the amount of low buget games they released. The impact of FFXVI would be know on the next fiscal year. You get any excuse to bash CB3, I guess.

On the other hand, SE needs to aim for more big buget games well done, and no mid or low budget games. I hate they waste too much stuff on things like Haverstella or Octopath traveler, and then do not give enough attention to some of their sagas such Star Ocean or Valkyrie profile, making very basic games last year which are not that great.

In my opinion, they have way too much games in development to make quick cash. The big ones takes ages to release (who knows when Kh4 will be done). FFXIV seems to make enough money to sustain this, but they need big buget games and less filler games.

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Octopath is a fantastic game well worth what they invested in.

Imo, FF16 simply failed to deliver on actually making the combat system more interesting by introducing more RPG elements in a brand so heavily steeped in a RPG game... It's the same problem plaguing FF14 lately. More and more of the RPG elements that players can decide on are removed in favor for a more streamlined and long dance battle. There's no real variance in your gameplay other than "do more damage" and "dodge attacks". They literally had a good story, great cinematics, good music, and a decent design on making it easier in action combat for their players, but ... that was it. There wasn't much replay value. Not much to explore, gearing doesn't have real choice and feels nonexistent, etc. Basically, they played it too safe like FF14 (and most of the complaints I've seen on the forums are literally because they're removing meaningful gameplay choices). The game feeling incomplete to some and expecting DLC also doesn't do it too many favors. It's not a bad game, but it's non-innovative compared to the existing games out there because the formula has already been done by other games.

In other words, BG3 is looking real good right now compared to its competitors.

I wouldn't put the 2 billion in loss on ff16. It most likely has to do with lots of flops and various other issues that have been building up for years. Selling various studios at a loss making horrible games like forspoken and continuing to invest in the failed nft market is what's causing there losses.

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Originally Posted by Nebelheim

I wouldn't put the 2 billion in loss on ff16. It most likely has to do with lots of flops and various other issues that have been building up for years. Selling various studios at a loss making horrible games like forspoken and continuing to invest in the failed nft market is what's causing there losses.

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That's the issue, FFXVI didn't fail as a standalone title, it failed to compensate for SE's other failed projects.

Put this into perspective: FFXVI has sold less copies in Japan than Pikmin 4, a semi obscure title without the name power the FF brand had. Pikmin 4's numbers are considered surprisingly high for a niche title, and although XVI's numbers are still good in paper, they couldn't compete with a game that gave Nintendo the equivalent of cash for a nice meal for a company their size.

SE can't come out and outright say FF didn't live up to what they needed, I bet investors are already with a rises eyebrow when their supposed big contender lost to a bunch of funny plant dudes and failed to help the company recover from the game of the snarky New Yorker that caused the closure of a studio and the failed FF Battle Royale tie-in, and SE must be sweating cold because they're already spending big cash in VII-2 which if Nomura taught me something is that it might leave some players dissatisfied with the direction he's taking the franchise to, and remember they're gonna launch yet another tie in game that will either close next year or become a deserted whale farm like BE.

This spells nothing but bad news for us, as I really doubt the measures taken to recover players will be aimed towards improving, but attracting new blood and creating a base that can be farmed for profit on cash shop items, make players feel like you're in a second life, create attachment, and keep that smaller playerbase invested enough to cover for the rest.

Did no one read the article?
The "Losses" are from a dip in stock value. No, SE didn't lose any money, their stock is worth less for now because investors sold off.

Why? The article says 'The root of the problem, sources told Bloomberg, is that producers were given “full reign” over the scope and direction of projects, whose goals can shift “without warning”. The upshot of this is volatility in the quality of the final product.'
The investors think developers, and in particular Yoshi-p who falls under "Producers", have too much say in the direction of the product. They want more stable, highly monetized games that are the stable minimum viable product, which they think SE is less likely to give them now.
That's the opposite of what gamers want. Acting like this should be a lesson learned for SE you should be aware what they're would take from this, that they need to make more bland live service games with heavy microtransactions to keep investors happy.

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Originally Posted by Aldath

That's the issue, FFXVI didn't fail as a standalone title, it failed to compensate for SE's other failed projects.

Put this into perspective: FFXVI has sold less copies in Japan than Pikmin 4, a semi obscure title without the name power the FF brand had. Pikmin 4's numbers are considered surprisingly high for a niche title, and although XVI's numbers are still good in paper, they couldn't compete with a game that gave Nintendo the equivalent of cash for a nice meal for a company their size.

SE can't come out and outright say FF didn't live up to what they needed, I bet investors are already with a rises eyebrow when their supposed big contender lost to a bunch of funny plant dudes and failed to help the company recover from the game of the snarky New Yorker that caused the closure of a studio and the failed FF Battle Royale tie-in, and SE must be sweating cold because they're already spending big cash in VII-2 which if Nomura taught me something is that it might leave some players dissatisfied with the direction he's taking the franchise to, and remember they're gonna launch yet another tie in game that will either close next year or become a deserted whale farm like BE.

This spells nothing but bad news for us, as I really doubt the measures taken to recover players will be aimed towards improving, but attracting new blood and creating a base that can be farmed for profit on cash shop items, make players feel like you're in a second life, create attachment, and keep that smaller playerbase invested enough to cover for the rest.

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That's one problem square enix has is they expect ff14 and the various final fantasy spin offs and mainline single player games to get high numbers to compensate for all there other failures. Then they set super high unobtainable sales figures for each game hoping they recover all there losses from games like forspoken. Then they get quiet when a game doesn't meet expectations or consider a game a failure when it doesn't meet there obscenely high expectations because they hope there next game will recoup losses from other failures.

They coping hard on X and reddit.....

....It was a dud, get over it.......

Picking out Forspoken, XVI and Avengers is like trying to figure out which deadweight caused a shelf to collapse....
https://media.tenor.com/ti6LP1txZ88A...e-kornacki.gif

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Originally Posted by LittleImp

You didn't even read the article.

The internal perception of FFXVI's success was reliant on its ability to make up for the losses incurred from other failed projects. FFXVI did not meet those expectations, and failed to abate the companies value from tumbling.



Are you upset? Do you feel a deep sense of injustice because someone said something negative about your favorite corporation?

Get a grip.

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16 factually was a success though. SE was just stupid for assuming it'd cover the cost of many failed ventures before it. (Not new for SE to overshoot their estimations).
And ofc the "corporate shield" angle...
I'll never understand hating a corporation, crapping on anyone who says something remotely positive about said corp...but then lining up every month to pay said corp...

I mean... I already knew we're pretty much keeping SE alive... but damn, we really are keeping SE alive. At this point, we're the real investors of this company.

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Originally Posted by DiaDeem

I mean... I already knew we're pretty much keeping SE alive... but damn, we really are keeping SE alive. At this point, we're the real investors of this company.

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It seems at this point the only thing keeping square enix afloat is ff14 and the only thing able to offset any failure the company releases.

tech market caps are overvalued anyways. non news event, let me know when they file BK

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Originally Posted by DiaDeem

At this point, we're the real investors of this company.

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lol, dont kid yourself, we are consumers of their product. we have no real skin in the game.

the only people making money off this are the RMT people, "content creators" and the actual investors.

yes it used to mean you were hugging someone back in the IRC days

how the times change...

SE continues to shoot itself in the foot and then acts surprised when shit goes south.
I gotta find that list of all of SE's Flops to Successes list. The amount of Flops is...staggering.

GMs are really just gonna leave that up huh?

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Originally Posted by Nebelheim

It seems at this point the only thing keeping square enix afloat is ff14 and the only thing able to offset any failure the company releases.

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Porsfoken

https://cdn.betterttv.net/emote/5803...e35267/1x.webp

Well that was an interesting read.
Gotta love the Internet XD

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Originally Posted by DiaDeem

At this point, we're the real investors of this company.

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TBH, Im not investing in SE.
Im Investing in FFXIV: Specifically.

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Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

GMs are really just gonna leave that up huh?

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And ? You want to censor financial news now ?

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Originally Posted by FenyxRising

And ? You want to censor financial news now ?

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Probably because the financials don't look good and shows only the mmo and mobile divisions is making profits. Which doesn't look good for the rest of the divisions and company as a whole when only 1 division out of all of them is making profits.

It's weird that the forum mods not only deleted the offending post; They also deleted any post overtly referencing it, even if it wasn't quoting it.

There is no war in ba sing se I guess.

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Originally Posted by LittleImp

It's weird that the forum mods not only deleted the offending post; They also deleted any post overtly referencing it, even if it wasn't quoting it.

There is no war in ba sing se I guess.

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I noticed that too. Thanks for pointing out the why, I knew there was emphases on the point they were making but didn’t realize the actual meaning of it.

That was wildly unexpected from that poster.

I think they really should remake FF VI and FF V with modern graphics and not time travel plot bullcrap ( I wanted too buy the 7 remake later down the line and didn’t wanna spoil myself but one of my friends just said time travel is involved and i was getting mega furious because I didn’t think Nomura would make 7 remake another shitty kingdom hearts game story wise but here we are.) and I didn’t had a ps 5 for ff 16 so I wanted to wait for a pc release because I like the gritty setting and devil may cry like fighting style and I also think that p5 exclusivity really hurt the entire situation for the game ( like exclusive too a console that was notorious hard to get for a long time)

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Originally Posted by DiaDeem

I mean... I already knew we're pretty much keeping SE alive... but damn, we really are keeping SE alive. At this point, we're the real investors of this company.

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Despite this, FF14 will never get the money and staffing it deserves and its players who keep the game afloat during its 4 month maintenance-mode periods won't even be given a 10% off coupon for the next SE blunder of the year.

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Originally Posted by Nebelheim

It seems at this point the only thing keeping square enix afloat is ff14 and the only thing able to offset any failure the company releases.

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Nah, I'd say one of the other main things keeping them afloat are their lower budget titles that are hitting the mark as well like Octopath Traveler, Bravely Default, Tactics Ogre, etc... Stuff not being pushed like their AAA entries have been hitting the market and getting very well received by fans due to the solid quality of the titles while also often having a slightly smaller price tag.

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Originally Posted by RitsukoSonoda

Nah, I'd say one of the other main things keeping them afloat are their lower budget titles that are hitting the mark as well like Octopath Traveler, Bravely Default, Tactics Ogre, etc... Stuff not being pushed like their AAA entries have been hitting the market and getting very well received by fans due to the solid quality of the titles while also often having a slightly smaller price tag.

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Those games seem to make decent profits also with smaller budgets and making more then there money back.

Keep in mind Sonic 06 was deemed a failure, and sold 2.69 million units.

It is not about units sold, as much as expectations of a sales target. Sonic, Final Fantasy, Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Mario etc all have high expectations.......new IP like Redfall or Forspoken are akin to throwing darts, you kind see what you get but hope for the best. Neither are established IP. FF is established. They expected Tears of the Kingdom numbers (Which is a console exclusive) but got Sonic 06 numbers instead.

That Zelda game sold nearly 20 million units, if Sonic 06 and FFXVI sold like that.....we are not having this discussion.......Elden Ring sold 20 million in a year also.

The MMO are what has been keeping SE lights on, not XVI. I have heard Forspoken, XIV, and even Starfield get blame for this report.....Everything but the game that just came out, and soon after, the report was released? That is like hearing a store alarm go off, and go after the people behind the guy who just walked out when the alarm's went off........The alarms went off, XVI wasn't it....for now....

They need to move up Dawntrail imo. SE has this habit of abandoning profitable project's for failures.

They did it with XI and XIV 1.0, now they did it when XIV was at its' peak for XVI.......

I'm not a fan of FFXVI at all, but I have to laugh at the idea that it's the cause of these financial woes of SE.

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A new report from Bloomberg painted a bleak picture of Square Enix, which reported a sharp profit decline in August. Analysts told the publication that Final Fantasy 16 failed to make up for the poor performance of previous Square Enix flops, such as Marvel’s Avengers and Forspoken, and mobile games that were shut down soon after launch.

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so we have
- forspoken
- marvel avengers
- x amount of mobile game flops

Let's not put this on FFXVI, it's just SE being SE. FFXVI simply wasn't a seller enough to make up for their other failures.

"FFXVI wasn't a failure. It just failed to meet the expectations it was set to meet."
"FFXIV carries the company"

The Yoshi-P cult is real. Holy shit.

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Originally Posted by CNitsah

Now that the reception is out and opinion on the game are divided, I'm not sure the sales on PC will be as high as they would have if it was a simultaneous or a one month separated release.

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Absolutely. I don't have a PS5 and my FOMO was high enough that I almost considered buying one just to play FFXVI. I didn't because once I took a bit to think on it, it was a terrible return on investment decision during a time where money doesn't go as far as it used to.

If it had been on PC? I would have bought it without a moment's thought. I'm sure I'm far from alone there.