Yoshi-P: FF14 is “my life work”

In a recent interview, Yoshi-P said:
“I consider Final Fantasy 14 as my life work. So, I would like to continue developing 14 until I retire. And I would like to arrange it so that even after I retire, 14 will continue.”

Source:
https://www.si.com/videogames/features/final-fantasy-14-naoki-yoshida-interview

As a FF14 player since 1.0 (minus a ~2.5 year break), I of course have massive respect for Yoshi-P for successfully turning the game around into what it is today.

But I’m not sure how I feel about him continuing to direct FF14 until he retires. The whole “life work” talk sounds nice at first, but the problem with being so emotionally invested in something is that people tend to resist changing it too much because it becomes part of you.

Though FF14 players may disagree on how the game should change, I think most would agree that change is needed.

So as great as the past 10 years have been, and with all due respect to Yoshi-P, I feel like a new generation of leadership with fresher ideas may be needed if FF14 is going to succeed for another 10 years.

Just my 2 gil. What do you think?

If I remember correctly, the JP retirement age is 60. That's essentially referencing his ten year plan and the three expansions (including Dawntrail) that he has planned to put out before then. I'm hoping one of those ends up being Corvos.

Whatever criticisms you may have around Yoshi-p's split focus away from FFXIV between other projects and targeting new markets, I think that anyone following up on his role will be significantly worse, in part because of the lack of an existing strong 'successor' within the team. If they bring in someone external to helm it, they won't have any attachments to it, because FFXIV wasn't career defining for them like it was for the original team. We'll probably see some very aggressive monetization come in after that as they try to forcibly extract every last bit of gold from the golden goose. I don't think the game will continue for long past that, before settling into maintenance.

I remember people demanding changes to the writing over how the Amaurot storyline ended. We got a new main writer. It wasn't better. It was much, much worse.

I don't necessarily want him off leading the game, but i do agree massively that the game needs some change. it's stagnated without any surprises these days

I don't think Yoshi P understands how flop current system are, so out of touch

The world needs more people like Yoshi-P.

As disappointed as I am in the game and his interviews right now I don’t know if someone else would be better or just worse.
Honestly I just would love to ask Yoshida if this right now is how he wanted FF14 to be and what he thinks he should have handled different.

I really believe that he wants to continue and all but to me it seems that he is just tired at this point and doesn’t even notice how little he cares for this game anymore.
Tge whole studio makes a tired impression on me tbh be it from working too long on the same game or being held down by decisions from the bosses.

In all likelihood FFXIV will be done once Yoshi P is. Servers might still be going for well beyond that, just no more big updates.

I think once he retires, if he s still involved with the game it could be better for the game.

if he retires, he would no longer be management and no longer have to do PR speak in interviews. also, he has said he doesnt enjoy the position he was promoted in to. I dont know, I just think he has to wear too many hats to try and keep up with anything, let alone playing his mmo enough to know whats fully going on. Executive Officer, Producer.. Director.... seems like a lot of work

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Originally Posted by Kes13a

I think once he retires, if he s still involved with the game it could be better for the game.

if he retires, he would no longer be management and no longer have to do PR speak in interviews. also, he has said he doesnt enjoy the position he was promoted in to. I dont know, I just think he has to wear too many hats to try and keep up with anything, let alone playing his mmo enough to know whats fully going on. Executive Officer, Producer.. Director.... seems like a lot of work

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As let down as I feel regarding the game right now, I feel bad for how thinly Yoshi-P is being spread. Straight up saying he hates the producing side of his job in interviews with no ambiguity.

Then he should start demanding higher standards for the people on his team.

They seemingly have gotten very lax lately.

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Originally Posted by ZephyrMenodora

Then he should start demanding higher standards for the people on his team.

They seemingly have gotten very lax lately.

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Some the OG team have been moved onto other projects, Yoshi P has been pushing to get new folks into SE while giving current employees a chance at leadership roles, seems hes more or less using FFXIVs team as a spring board for it.

I am not sure that subscribing to the "great men" theory is totally adequate and while the man may be in charge, this doesn't mean that he's the only one working on it. One thing as an ex dev I do genuinely appreciate and that I haven't seen done by many others in any company whatsoever is that he constantly strives to bring to the spotlight some of his team members for panels, interviews, lives, and not just self glorifies himself like a lot of creative director divas like to do usually, posing as THE sole creator of THEIR game.

We could do much, much worse than having him as a director.

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Originally Posted by Hanayumi

Some the OG team have been moved onto other projects, Yoshi P has been pushing to get new folks into SE while giving current employees a chance at leadership roles, seems hes more or less using FFXIVs team as a spring board for it.

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Which is fine - employees that have no growth may just outright leave. So it's probably better to let them grow and do new things than have them just outright quit the company entirely.

But I feel XIV should keep enough of the budget it generates to hire top talent to replace those people - or at least new "leaders" with proven performance equivalent to the prestige XIV once had.

Trusting the MSQ for a product this important to the company to people who have only written a couple sidequests is very odd to me.

It's not new. He has been saying it's his "life's work" for several years now.

But there's a reason he says that. A lot of people were worried he would retire and constantly discussed how the game might be doomed if Yoshi-P moved on, because often when someone else takes over, a game goes downhill (like how WoW had lots of issues after its original leaders left) or like how many companies get bought out then go downhill (everyone abandons them).

This concern about Yoshi-P not running it forever was increased with him discussing a desire for other games and projects.

So in order to alleviate people's concerns about how long he would be run it for, he accepted the truth - that he's here forever, and started telling us as much. He saved the game and there's no guarantee another leader would do better, given how many MMORPGs fail (including 1.0).

It's not easy to say "I'll do this for life". Many of us want to do other things with our life than just 1 thing. But he got himself into this position so at a certain point he had to accept he has to do it for life.

He has also used the terminology "for as long as Square Enix wants me to" in the past. Which left open the off chance Square Enix changed their mind. But given how much respect they have for him and how he's on the board of directors now, I don't really see them losing confidence. He may have actually saved the company after 1.0, after all.

People are going to whine about the same things no matter who is in charge, and changing the person at the top isn't a magic bullet to getting you what you want. For all you know the new person could take over and make the game worse than ever for the next ten years.

I have my own list of frustrations with the game but overall Yoship and the dev team do a great job with the game and listening to the community. Yes they make mistakes, sometimes huge ones, but that's always going to happen with a game created by human beings and not Skynet.

I like Yoshi and I know what he did with bringing into ARR but there are things they changed that I did not like but they did give me an amazing story to follow over the years and kept me playing for so long.

I do believe he genuinely loves the game like I do but I feel maybe he has of late taken on so many other projects and the staff have moved around etc and also there are people who are above him who he will have to answer to. I do not like the direction of XIV, I did not enjoy DT as much as the other old expacs but I feel they will be listening to feedback and taking note.

I do think replacing him would not be a good thing as he knows the game loves the game and the community. I hope they can change course and fix what needs to be fixed. I have a lot of respect for the dev's my Daughter is a lead artist in a games company she recently was promoted and now she oversees all the other artists work and her art is not in the game as much and I feel this happened with the story and its a shame because we really need the story to be epic again and lead us to the end of XIV.

I will still play and find things to do.

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Originally Posted by kiotsukete

So as great as the past 10 years have been, and with all due respect to Yoshi-P, I feel like a new generation of leadership with fresher ideas may be needed if FF14 is going to succeed for another 10 years.

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YoshiP was mostly hands off the development of Dawntrail, leaving leadership to others that had been working under him in previous expansions including the final reviews of content.

What do you think?

I also doubt he's resistant to change even on his own work. He's a gamer himself and pays attention to what's going on in other games. Unfortunately he's now accountable to a lot of different groups (company, investors, players) for different projects. He no longer gets to make FFXIV his life's work as much as he would like to. The best he can do is stick a finger in the pot to taste what's happening then be the face to take the heat when players don't like the final result.

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Originally Posted by Luluna

I do believe he genuinely loves the game like I do but I feel maybe he has of late taken on so many other projects and the staff have moved around etc and also there are people who are above him who he will have to answer to. I do not like the direction of XIV, I did not enjoy DT as much as the other old expacs but I feel they will be listening to feedback and taking note.

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Considering he tried to step down from the Board of Directors and they wouldn't let him, I think it's less that he's taking on the other projects and more that they're being dropped in his lap.

It's not the FFXIV team that needs new talent as such. It's SE management that does so they can let YoshiP focus his time on FFXIV again.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

Considering he tried to step down from the Board of Directors and they wouldn't let him, I think it's less that he's taking on the other projects and more that they're being dropped in his lap.

It's not the FFXIV team that needs new talent as such. It's SE management that does so they can let YoshiP focus his time on FFXIV again.

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Mao didn't know that. Now is put things into perspectives. Mao thanks Jojoya for infos!

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

Considering he tried to step down from the Board of Directors and they wouldn't let him, I think it's less that he's taking on the other projects and more that they're being dropped in his lap.

It's not the FFXIV team that needs new talent as such. It's SE management that does so they can let YoshiP focus his time on FFXIV again.

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As much as I agree with not replacing him and such here I disagree.
Yoshida is no saint nor is he stupid.
He has the influence and the respect in the company and Japanese culture blabla if he wanted he could leave the board of directors.
He is not a prisoner of square enix who sits with chains in his office and fears every moment a higher up comes into and tells him what to do.
He decides how FF14 goes and what happens with his workers and where they work. The high boss of SE won’t come down and say “I want this person on this game!” no that’s decided by Yoshida.

It doesn’t matter who sits in SE itself. He decides how this game is developed and money or not the team has probably more resources than when the game was in ARR or HW times or even in Shb.

Yoshida is absolutely not innocent in how DT turned out and said himself that he is the one who gives the final go.
He also has the responsibility of a boss to make sure not all talent leaves his team or to replace them.

I don’t think he should be replaced or such but let’s not give him the status of the pope here who is absolutely innocent and just a pure victim of SE.
He accepted the job on the board of directors and he decides to not leave it.

Edit:
I know you don’t mean it to such an extreme with your wording but I have seen far too much Yoshida fanboying everywhere to a fanatic degree.

Some of you guys remind me of those people that call in Customer support to yell at the representative cause the company sucks. As long as there is no full transparency and how much Yoshi-P voice weights vs SE and how limited he is by SE, seeing people asking him to retire is just plain awful.

Nobody is infallible and surely the game could use a lot of revamping but what goes on behind the scenes is anyone's guess.

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Originally Posted by Kohashi

Some of you guys remind me of those people that call in Customer support to yell at the representative cause the company sucks. As long as there is no full transparency and how much Yoshi-P voice weights vs SE and how limited he is by SE, seeing people asking him to retire is just plain awful.

Nobody is infallible and surely the game could use a lot of revamping but what goes on behind the scenes is anyone's guess.

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If someone in manage can't fix it who can fix it? My grandma?

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Originally Posted by BabyYoda

If someone in manage can't fix it who can fix it? My grandma?

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I'm not sure if you are naive or plain ignorant to understand how decisions are made in a company or perhaps a combination of both.

They are doing exactly what they said they will never do in the documentary. "Relax". I dont think they have the drive to innovate anymore and the japanese system doesnt exactly promote innovation either. "Nails that stick out get hammered in"

I want Yoshi-P to stay on the team. I wish he could go back to actually being a game director again. It feels like the more and more he's been drifting into other roles, the more the game suffers for it. I don't think he's the end all be all of the game or anything, but I wouldn't trust some new person to come in and do his job, so I'm glad he's committed to the game. He has definitely become more of a corpo over time though, and that's been a disappointment. He's always bemoaning these days how he barely has time to play FFXIV, let alone other video games or have any hobbies outside of work. I think a lot of the conditions in his life and job that allowed him to reboot and save XIV in the early days don't exist anymore. It's kind of sad.