Future direction of FFXIV

[KizuyaKatogami]

Sorry for cherry-picking but while those statements are true those events are much more recent than the event that settled the budget for EW and likely a good chunk of 7.0 work. Now that Yoshi-P is on the board XIV stands a much better chance of retaining a better portion of the revenue it generated.

Even if the funding problem has been solved that doesn't directly translate into content. XIV has long struggled with hiring enough talent to create that content. I have no idea how Square treats their developers but the wider gamesdev industry is looking much more like a career stain than a dream job. On top of that it's a workers' market with employers going to great lengths to attract talent.

The playerbase and income has been at a steady rise since HW. Why is it that SB, the middle expansion was able to give us much more content, yet ShB somehow couldn’t despite having peak ratings and income. Let’s say for a moment that those earnings didn’t go towards shb, i’d at least expect them to be put towards EW, yet still, we are seeing cut things and nothing changing and more reused assets.

[GeminiReed]

The playerbase and income has been at a steady rise since HW. Why is it that SB, the middle expansion was able to give us much more content, yet ShB somehow couldn’t despite having peak ratings and income. Let’s say for a moment that those earnings didn’t go towards shb, i’d at least expect them to be put towards EW, yet still, we are seeing cut things and nothing changing and more reused assets.

20/20 hindsight is a hell of a drug.

Stormblood wasn't nearly as well received as Heavensward. SE did SE things and diverted funds to other projects they felt would have made more money (oops). IIRC Yoshi-P wasn't added to the board until around the time Shadowbringers released. Endwalker had its own challenges with the COVID lockdowns and the WoWpocalypse.

With Yoshida on the board and EW doing well enough hopefully that should insulate XIV from the funding shenanigans they've had to put up with. My fervent hope is that they take a good solid look at XIV and deal with the things that make it unapproachable and unengaging for newer players. And I don't mean it needs more dumbing down, quite the opposite.