FFXIV is not a failure, never was.

[Lissandra]

Failure or not, I like it and play everyday (even in its current state). People can yammer on and on about this is this and that is that, because opinions are simply just that: opinions.

Go ahead and tell me that you're just stating the facts. So what? It's not like it's something I haven't already seen others repeat COUNTLESS times before...

[Abriael]

I hope you are joking right? Branding deals comes up with goals to achieve on their contract. SE gets money if... the game is a success.

You quite obviously lack facts.
The branding operations in Japan were made by PC manufacturers for the game's launch. The numbers of sales at launch were a clear success in Japan, and moved quite a lot of high-end gaming PCs. Continuated popularity of the game has no bearing tho this, since once the PC is sold, it's sold. The manufacturer got his money.

Ergo, the branding operations made in Japan have been a success. And made Se money (and not a little, since there was a level of third party branding basically unprecedented in the market for a game's launch) that's to be counted into FFXIV's balance.

This, of course, without mentioning that success related clauses are very rare in branding operations, and are used only with weak brands. if you think something associated with a Final Fantasy brand in japan had any clause like that, I see a big delusion there.

Anyway, even if branding was successful, global income results would still be far away from SE's expectations. There is no discussion about that, it is a {fact}. When your goal is to make money of subscriptions + branding. You remove subscriptions. What remains? Less income. Not enough to reach goals that were set initially.

A commercial operation is not a "failure" if it brings a profit. And since you have no numbers to corroborate your *opinion* that FFXIV, as an operation, is in the red, you have no arguments other than your own baseless speculaution
As long as FFXIV has already made SE enough money to cover operation until subscription fees are restarted (which is entirely possible), the game isn't a failure. That's all there's to it.

[Lampy]

While I don't disagree that SE made several major blunders with FFXIV, the first paragraph is just catastrophically wrong. An MMO is NEVER fully developed. It's also very, very common for major features to be missing at launch. Examples: City of Heroes was missing the last 10 levels of the game at launch; World of Warcraft had no major raids at launch; Warhammer was missing entire cities and classes.

This is what im trying to get across though, i expected MMOs ten years ago to be released with little content and developments planned. BUT my point is SE were entering a thriving market, where MMOs are very common place now. I used to play Everquest II, i didnt know a single other person who played an MMO, this was when i was 15ish, i played FFXI, outside a few friends, i again didn't know anyone who played an MMO. I have to give credit to WoW as it as opened up the MMO genre to millions of people, ive never been a fan, but what SE should have done was adapt to the market. How could they expect to take on the juggernaut that is WoW by releasing there MMO without content???? WoW as tons of content by comparison. People won't go from being able to have fun, doing end game, PVP or whatever to play a game where the only goal is leveling.

The "Its in the early stages" excuse just doesn't cut it for me. They should have observed and adapted to what the market demands.

[whoopeeragon]

Yawn


http://www.strategyinformer.com/news...1-less-revenue

That article exaggerated...the quote, I can believe is true, but where did they pull the fact that FFXIII was dreadful? If anything, it ranks pretty high among the FF-series games among the various sites around the net. FFXIII was anything BUT a failure...

For now, all we can do is hope it does not degrade even further.

[Ostia]

This is what im trying to get across though, i expected MMOs ten years ago to be released with little content and developments planned. BUT my point is SE were entering a thriving market, where MMOs are very common place now. I used to play Everquest II, i didnt know a single other person who played an MMO, this was when i was 15ish, i played FFXI, outside a few friends, i again didn't know anyone who played an MMO. I have to give credit to WoW as it as opened up the MMO genre to millions of people, ive never been a fan, but what SE should have done was adapt to the market. How could they expect to take on the juggernaut that is WoW by releasing there MMO without content???? WoW as tons of content by comparison. People won't go from being able to have fun, doing end game, PVP or whatever to play a game where the only goal is leveling.

The "Its in the early stages" excuse just doesn't cut it for me. They should have observed and adapted to what the market demands.

Dont bring logic into this thread, dint you get the memo ? World of warcraft does not exist, and FFXI is the greatest MMO to have ever been created, well besides FFXIV, HOW DARE YOU QUESTION SE ?

Dont worry abriael i'll save you the work: HYPERBOLE!!! There lampy you have no argument, now go QQ some MOAR!!!

[Ostia]

That article exaggerated...the quote, I can believe is true, but where did they pull the fact that FFXIII was dreadful? If anything, it ranks pretty high among the FF-series games among the various sites around the net. FFXIII was anything BUT a failure...

For now, all we can do is hope it does not degrade even further.

It was a comercial success, but it was not on par with other FF, you either loved it or hated It!

[AmyRae]

That article exaggerated...the quote, I can believe is true, but where did they pull the fact that FFXIII was dreadful?

I agree. That investor news quote didn't even mention FFXIII and from what I've seen, the 5.5 million copies sold in May 2010 set a franchise record in fastest sales. They certainly wouldn't be doing a XIII-2 if XIII stunk that bad. I sense a little bias crept in.

[Visch]

Why do you people care about how much money SE is making? Do you only judge how good a game is by how much it sells?

That's like saying Domino's or Pizza Hut has the world's best pizza because they make more money than a small family owned pizza shop somewhere.

[Malakhim]

That article exaggerated...the quote, I can believe is true, but where did they pull the fact that FFXIII was dreadful? If anything, it ranks pretty high among the FF-series games among the various sites around the net. FFXIII was anything BUT a failure...

Articles get hits when you make things look terrible.

It's a strategy that's been doing pretty well for places like Kotaku at least.

Unless people consider an 83% on metacritic a failure, in which case, by all means, jump on the failure train.

[Sojiro]

I don't consider the game a failure until SE pulls the servers and stops trying to make the game better. A failed launch I can give you. I personally don't consider FFXIV a failure, but a work in progress. Yes I agree, it should not be a WIP when its released to its customer base, but it is what it is. Until SE pulls the servers and drops all development of the game, its not a failure in my eyes.