The Letter is up

[Cutriss]

I empathize with that statement, but the business side of me says it would be hard to rationalize the appointment of MORE resources to a game that is making NO money.

As is said..."You've got to spend money to make money."

[DurtiMonkeyToe]

As is said..."You've got to spend money to make money."

For an Entrepreneur, yes. For an established corporation, no not really. Especially in our current economic climate, most businesses are trying to do MORE with LESS. And considering the huge loss that SE recently wrote off in response to the natural disaster in Japan, we are frankly lucky that they continue to develop this game at all.

[Airlea]

People need to relax and let them do their thing. This game wasn't ready, but the suits upstairs decided that the deadline still had to be meet and they pushed it out. That's what got us into this mess.

Yoshi and this team have set the deadlines as being when the quality is right. I infinitely prefer that over simply pushing crap out to meet a specific date.

[DurtiMonkeyToe]

People need to relax and let them do their thing. This game wasn't ready, but the suits upstairs decided that the deadline still had to be meet and they pushed it out. That's what got us into this mess.

Yoshi and this team have set the deadlines as being when the quality is right. I infinitely prefer that over simply pushing crap out to meet a specific date.

QFT

/liked

[Lerris]

People need to relax and let them do their thing. This game wasn't ready, but the suits upstairs decided that the deadline still had to be meet and they pushed it out. That's what got us into this mess.

Yoshi and this team have set the deadlines as being when the quality is right. I infinitely prefer that over simply pushing crap out to meet a specific date.

And this is the example set by id Software and Blizzard. A game isn't ready until it's ready. Most software developers haven't caught onto this fact. Hopefully, SE learns its lesson from this situation, as it's the path to releasing consistently high quality games.

[Cutriss]

For an Entrepreneur, yes. For an established corporation, no not really. Especially in our current economic climate, most businesses are trying to do MORE with LESS.

Sorry, your soundbite-laden post doesn't really negate the fact that you do indeed have to spend money to make money. SE cannot simply will this product into existence. They have to pay someone to make it. If they stop spending money on it, then they are closing the door on it and they will never profit from it. It's a gamble.

And considering the huge loss that SE recently wrote off in response to the natural disaster in Japan, we are frankly lucky that they continue to develop this game at all.

First off, they didn't write off any loss due to the disaster. The earthquake isn't even three months old and the long-tail effects of it haven't fully manifested in SE's ongoing sales. They didn't lose any major assets such as an office building. The biggest external factor affecting their profits right now is the market valuation of the yen, which is still doing better than the dollar right now, and again, earthquake was three months ago.

SE's current financial woes are of their own making. It's up to them if they want to take the gamble, but you can't gamble without putting money down.

[Evangela]

I don't know why Yoshi-P making Auto-Attack a highest priority in this letter....

If people just need to spam normal attack, that's mean the game's core battle mechanic and strategy is FAIL

[Gramul]

If people just need to spam normal attack, that's mean the game's core battle mechanic and strategy is FAIL

...That's why they're changing it.

[DurtiMonkeyToe]

Sorry, your soundbite-laden post doesn't really negate the fact that you do indeed have to spend money to make money. SE cannot simply will this product into existence. They have to pay someone to make it. If they stop spending money on it, then they are closing the door on it and they will never profit from it. It's a gamble.

First off, they didn't write off any loss due to the disaster. The earthquake isn't even three months old and the long-tail effects of it haven't fully manifested in SE's ongoing sales. They didn't lose any major assets such as an office building. The biggest external factor affecting their profits right now is the market valuation of the yen, which is still doing better than the dollar right now, and again, earthquake was three months ago.

SE's current financial woes are of their own making. It's up to them if they want to take the gamble, but you can't gamble without putting money down.

First of all, stop taking stuff so personally. I never said that you "don't have to spend money to make money." My argument originally was that SE can't or won't assign more resources to a game that is not making profit when they can be used on resources that can and will make money. This is basic business. If the gamble on FFXIV gets TOO big, believe me they will shut it down in an instant.

Secondly, There was an article on these very boards that SE lowered there financial forecast due to the recent earthquake. They either have already written it off, which is common practice for a company that KNOWS its taking a huge loss, or have PLANNED to write it off.

[Lerris]

I don't know why Yoshi-P making Auto-Attack a highest priority in this letter....

If people just need to spam normal attack, that's mean the game's core battle mechanic and strategy is FAIL

When Yoshi first announced auto-attack, he clearly stated that relying on it would not be enough to win.
It's in there to facilitate group communication and to save you from wearing out your "1" key.