What happened to the 8 years of data and market analysis?

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Originally Posted by Abriael

Quite obviously you don't have a clear idea of what a producer does. A producer is not the "head honcho", he's not the "top guy". A producer is simply a link between the development team and the executive level of a company. There are variations from company to company and depending on market, but that's the juice of the issue.
It's for sure a position of responsibility, but a producer has almost zero final decisional power. If he goes to the executives and tells them "the development team isn't ready" and the executive team tells him "them make them ready" he responds "sir, yes, sir!" and walks out of the room.

A producer does not decide release dates, he does not decide external deals that may influence release dates (branding, distribution, printing, marketing and so forth). He's pretty much a supervisor, and a supervisor is not the boss.

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Don't try to fuzz it by saying the "you don't know" line.

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Originally Posted by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_producer

Responsibilities

An internal producer is heavily involved in the development of, usually, a single game. Responsibilities for this position vary from company to company, but in general, the person in this position has the following duties:
Negotiating contracts, including licensing deals
Acting as a liaison between the development staff and the upper stakeholders (publisher or executive staff)
Developing and maintaining schedules and budgets
Overseeing creative (art and design) and technical development (game programming) of the game
Ensuring timely delivery of deliverables (such as milestones)
Scheduling timely quality assurance (testing)
Arranging for beta testing and focus groups, if applicable
Arranging for localization
In short, the internal producer is ultimately responsible for timely delivery and final quality of the game.
For small games, the producer may interact directly with the programming and creative staff. For larger games, the producer will seek the assistance of the lead programmer, art lead, game designer and testing lead. While it is customary for the producer to meet with the entire development staff from time to time, for larger games, they will only meet with the leads on a regular basis to keep updated on the development status.
For most games, the producer does not have a large role but does have some influence on the development of the game design. While not a game designer, the producer has to weave the wishes of the publisher or upper management into the design. They usually seek the assistance of the game designer in this effort. So the final game design is a result the effort of the designer and some influence of the producer.
In general, the producer is not the "boss" of the people on the game development team, but the "boss" of the game. So while a programmer may answer to a programming director, where matters of the game are involved, they answer to the producer. Producers may issue reprimands or issue accolades, but usually the fate of the developer's employment is not in the hands of the producer. So while they may suggest termination or promotions of certain employees, the producer normally cannot fire or promote team members single-handedly.

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Aside from the fact that that article says pretty much word by word the same things that I said, and nowhere it states that the producer has any final decisional power, wikipedia isn't exactly what I'd normally call a source of valid info.

You may have been led astray by the word "responsibility", but again, this is responsibility towards the Executive department, not towards the customers. If something goes wrong during the development (IE: if dates aren't met for instance), the producer is held responsible by the executive department.
This doesn't mean that it's necessarily his fault, as he does not set the goals. He can just do his best to try and get the developers to reach them.
Considering the state of the game at release, it's very difficult to believe that the goals were even reachable with the resources they had.

This is how "responsibility" in basically every company works.
There's no fuzzing to be done. if you think that a producer is a "head honcho", you simply don't know what the position entails, and you didn't understand a word of the article you quoted yourself :D

Also, quite convenient bolding some parts, but forgetting to bold other quite important ones like:

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For most games, the producer does not have a large role but does have some influence on the development of the game design.

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Quite the "head honcho" uh? :D

Producer != Head Honcho != Top dog != Big guy or whatever definition you want to give of someone that calls all the shots and takes final decisions. That's simply not his job.

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While not a game designer, the producer has to weave the wishes of the publisher or upper management into the design.

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I think this is the key point I was trying to make. I don't believe Tanaka called the shots for the game being released. He had people to answer to.

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Originally Posted by BelgianRofl

Having run one of the worlds more successful MMOs for 8 years, I'd like to know why exactly we still need player polls to figure out what people want. I remember several exit-polls and surveys from FFXI. Surely, it isn't outrageous to think that a billion-dollar company like SE would analyze market trends.

Surely with all that data from the 8-years of running FFXI and its exit surveys, Square-Enix had an idea of what drove people away and what people liked. With 20+ years experience making world-class games, 8 years of FFXI, and a huge financial backing, one can only ponder what happened between the FFXIV Tech Demo in 2005 and the creation of the world and systems for the next 5 years.

Perhaps Square-Enix entrusted certain individuals to carry out such analysis and develop a blockbuster hit. I just don't know. It saddens me that after waiting 5 long years for this game, we're back to the drawing board and brainstorming...

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Many of the fundamental concepts of FFXIV are ones which I like, after all, the reason I took to FFXIV in the first place is because of their basic concepts. The implementation of said ideas is where the game falls short.

e.g.,

I liked the idea of the Armory System, the Market Wards, the Crafting System, and the Active Combat System.

The funny thing is, all the things I don't like, such as the Guildleve System and Surplus are things which SE is adamant about maintaining, meanwhile all the good things they are quick to discard.

One reason why I am quitting.

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Originally Posted by BelgianRofl

I'd like to know why exactly we still need player polls to figure out what people want.

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It's because whoever was in charge during development had no idea what an MMO was or what it should be like and tried to reinvent the wheel so to speak.

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Originally Posted by galamantyl

In an article somewhere before FFXIV's release, FFXIV was inspired by newer generation mmorpgs that were already out, such as World of Warcraft, Age of Conan, and Warhammer Online. They did their research, they just didn't expect a large number of players to expect another FFXI.

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So how did they end up making a game that was worse than ff11 in some respects and worse than a game like WoW or AoC even?

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Originally Posted by Zaene

The right people had the wrong ideas at just the right time combined with possible rushed-out systems and outsourcing.

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I'm sorry but after all the time in development and with previous MMO experience as a company, there is no way I'm going to buy the rushed out defense. Not for the type of game FF14 turned out to be. My opinion is that they failed to use any iterative development at all and that the people in charge of designed the game had little to no idea what an MMO was supposed to be like, what the existing trends were, or how to improve on them. A + B means the decisions were made by people who never played their own game first, didn't listen to the people who were making it and testing it, and didn't have enough knowledge of what they were supposed to make.

The time was there, something else was going on that we don't know about, which is why the above is my opinion. I mean how else can you explain what a lot of people are calling a step backwards in most respects?

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Originally Posted by Xeno

The polls are just a PR stunt. SE will always do what SE wants.

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I wouldn't argue with this. Since 12, or 13, I've really begun to question if SE has lost touch with the fan base. With 14, I've now begun to question if SE even knows how to make a decent game anymore or what even should be in a game. I'm sure this would be tough for them to hear (luckily I doubt they are reading all of this), but to me, it seems a fair question.

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Originally Posted by Jibe

This seems so true, especially because alot of the questions in those polls were worded in such a way that you already had an idea that they were wanting to do a certain thing, but were wanting confirmation from the players. No matter the responses to those polls I think that SE will do what they think is best.

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This is why I dislike polls in general and why you need to have professionals doing the polls to have any hope of a good result.

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Originally Posted by Grit

Who's to say FFXIV wouldn't have been great if given another entire year to develop it?


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The game was released in a completely unfinished state.

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Me.

I don't see how this game was designed to be great in any ways. Was there much in the way of innovations or improvements to the genre? The crafting system is pretty generic. The fact that conjurers can heal or nuke is nice, but that isn't too big as Eles in GW2 could heal and in theory nuke. Combat was a rehash of all MMO combat for the most part. The GLs are simply dailies, but they are everyotherdailies. Maybe I'm missing something, but the only things I'm seeing are delusions of adequacy in this game but with nice graphics/sound.

Games are about gameplay and the fact that the gameplay is bad, content is missing, but it looks nice, really makes me wonder if someone decided that something that looks nice is good enough to be an MMO and pay money for every month.

As to the unfinished state thing, I'm not buying it.

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Originally Posted by Abriael

Feedback in beta forums is one of the hardest things to take advantage of for a game developer, mind you, the same goes with feedback in any forum, this one included.

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People saying this game is unfinished should be a huge red flag. People said AO was unfinished. Look where it went. AoC? Same problem. How many other games were released unfinished and had people in the forums trying to tell the devs, hey buddy, you're game isn't done yet, don't release it? FF14 shows you exactly what happens when you don't listen. That should be quickly investigated and a delay of release should be made if the concerns are legitimate (like FF14's were).

Bad releases are huge killers of profit potential. Why more companies don't see that, I don't know. Why Tanaka didn't have these facts on hand and ready to show the people running SE, I don't know. Why SE didn't take 10 minutes and ask themselves if releasing a flop like they did and all the fallout it could entail was a good idea, I don't know. Why someone didn't ask himself "hey, this game requires listening to the fan base and keeping them happy to be successful, are we doing that" I don't know.

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Originally Posted by Winterclaw

I
People saying this game is unfinished should be a huge red flag. People said AO was unfinished. Look where it went. AoC? Same problem. How many other games were released unfinished and had people in the forums trying to tell the devs, hey buddy, you're game isn't done yet, don't release it? FF14 shows you exactly what happens when you don't listen. That should be quickly investigated and a delay of release should be made if the concerns are legitimate (like FF14's were).

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In an ideal world.
The world of game development (like any business) isn't Fantasia.
There are several reasons why developers/publishers can delay games only so much, or not at all. It's never just a matter of snapping fingers and saying "oh, let's delay".
You seem to think that so many developers/publishers (actually most) release ahead of time because they're all morons. While random internet dudes and dudettes know so much better because they're all smart and pros :D

I beg to differ.

Abriael, Square Enix's net worth dropped 25% between Sep 27th, and the quake. FFXIV lost huge amounts of customers, and had to keep the game free to play while keeping the servers up. A lot of investors were betting on this game.

It clearly would have made better financial sense to have delayed the launch than what happened. Also, if SE really had people testing the game, I'm sure at least one of those people would have said, "Gomennasai, but the game just is not fun."

I just wish the Making-of dvd that came with the collectors edition showed what was really going on behind the scenes.

Edit: Some people believe that a higher-up forced Tanaka to release the game prematurely. A more prudent director who had actually checked out his own product would have gone to those higher-ups and said, "to release this incomplete product now would prove to be financially disasterous."

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Originally Posted by BelgianRofl

Abriael, Square Enix's net worth dropped 25% between Sep 27th, and the quake. FFXIV lost huge amounts of customers, and had to keep the game free to play while keeping the servers up. A lot of investors were betting on this game.

It clearly would have made better financial sense to have delayed the launch than what happened. Also, if SE really had people testing the game, I'm sure at least one of those people would have said, "Gomennasai, but the game just is not fun."

I just wish the Making-of dvd that came with the collectors edition showed what was really going on behind the scenes.

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In belgium, do executives get a crystal ball/palantir reading courses between their marketing courses?
I always find it rather funny when people think that so many games have serious trouble because the people behind them are incompetent.

While incompetence in game development and publishing does exist, personal experience tells me that it's more on the side of the rampant youngsters that have risen from the ranks of the gamers, with no marketing or specific education and experience whatsoever (I could make a few names, but I doubt that'd be acceptable), than between people with decades of experience (expecially the ones that proved quite a lot of competence in the past).

There are MANY external factors that influence decisions like release dates and delays. Some I listed quite a few times, some even I don't know. The bottomline is that FOR SURE someone told them "gomennasai, the game isn't ready". It's very, very probable that tanaka himself told the SE executives exactly that.
It's just as probable that he's been given a response on the line of "Gomennasai Tanaka-san, but for this, this and this reason the game has to go on the shelves on september 21st, do what you can".

Personally, I'm quite sure that most of the reasons lie in the third party branding deals done with PC manufacturers in Japan. First and foremost, I can't see a single possibility for SE to delay the game without breaking those deals and causing serious economic damages to basically every PC manufacturer in the archipelago. Also, they had absolutely no qualms in delaying the PS3 release. Because there was no third party branding deal in place for the console market.

It's almost never just a matter of snapping fingers and writing a new release date on a piece of paper.

Okay, how many games released when the fans (and a large number of them) where trying to tell the devs that their game was unfinished and did well because of it? Unless you absolutely have to release an unfinished game in order to stay alive as a business (and I think SE would have been able to survive long enough to fix this game anyways), you don't. It's bad business. I'm sure all too many gamers will never give FF14 another shot after how it released. Others won't even try it after the things they've heard (and if they do, it'll be later and they'll come in lesser numbers).

MMOs survive for only one reason: they know what the fans want and they keep them happy. When the fans are trying to tell you the game is in bad shape and it hasn't released, you need to listen to them. MMOs aren't a new thing. If you were smart as a company, you really should have taken something like this into account to begin with.

How much loss to the SE name brand has happened because of this release?
How much loss of stock value has happened?
How much damage to the FF name (their flagship brand) happened?
How much damage to their reputation did they take as company that makes MMOs?

Getting to beta and realizing you need to delay the release is bad. Getting to release and realizing you needed to delay the release is worse. This is business 101 I'm talking about here (and I have studied business). The further along in the process you get, the worse the damage your company will take in both terms of brand and financially increase as time progresses. If you don't know that, you really shouldn't be in business. If you don't know that you might have to delay release 1-2 weeks before the game comes out because your beta is producing bad results (and where in the world was their focus group testing that should have been telling them their game was bad) you shouldn't be in the MMO business.

Sinking a lot of money into a game and seeing something like this (gamespot link) is a crappy business decision. That 4.0 is not going away any time soon. That fan rating of 4.4 smells something awful and that stink is going to remain. Unless SE was going to go kaputz if they didn't release when they did, I don't see how on Earth this was a good business decision. FF14 is in the state its in now because somewhere in SE, there is a severe lack of even business fundamentals for the business they are trying to be in, much less game development fundamentals.

And making excuses for them doesn't help them and it doesn't help the fans.


BTW, DN:F got delayed forever and it's still releasing. I'd buy the they couldn't delay any longer excuse if they were in worse shape and/or this was an earlier generation. However, I'm inclined to think the reason this game wasn't delayed and why it was in the shape it was in was in no small part to corporate arrogance.


Final Fantasy can still be turned around, but it isn't going to be quick and it isn't going to be easy. But it needs the right people with the right support.

I love how nobody is allowed to a valid opinion except for the armchair expert of all things.