JP: Yoshi P should step down, FF14 is a sinking ship, in response to interview

[Zelda206]

He is Director and Producer of the game. It is his job to know what the game and the story is. He is literally supposed to direct it.

I entirely agree, though I think Square Enix has more of a say on the greenlight he gives than he does himself despite him being in that position. The franchise is owned by Square Enix and I'm more inclined to believe that the ones up there are the ones holding him by the collar, and if what he wishes to do goes against what they want to frontier, then he'll ultimately have to do as they say and not the other way around. The situation is similar but not precisely mirrored to Chris Metzen and his relationship with Blizzard Entertainment as it currently stands, hence my willingness to adhere to some level of restriction Yoshi P may have. I don't have all the facts, so I'm approaching it like so.

It hasn't faded from my memory that the president at Square Enix also tried to jump on the whatever-verse Zuckerberg was also putting stock into, so the lack of touch with reality makes me think it's Square Enix and whatever influence they can have over all of their products rather than jumping straight to the people they put in charge of overseeing certain projects. This is why I stand firmly behind the 'strawman' scenario in that Yoshi P is the 'loveable face that the community loves', so they will absolutely do what they can to tarnish him or serve him up on a steaming platter for others to completely obliterate while omitting details of their obvious gambit this time around: cut the content while spreading the message. I won't say more, and once more I do agree with your stance on Yoshi P's position in the industry, but I will leave with this: Businesses do not operate on coincidences, and none of what happened with DT is a coincidence or mishap; it was all deliberate, poor choice-making and direction and it all feels forced.

[SongOfTheWind]

I entirely agree, though I think Square Enix has more of a say on the greenlight he gives than he does himself despite him being in that position. The franchise is owned by Square Enix and I'm more inclined to believe that the ones up there are the ones holding him by the collar, and if what he wishes to do goes against what they want to frontier, then he'll ultimately have to do as they say and not the other way around. The situation is similar but not precisely mirrored to Chris Metzen and his relationship with Blizzard Entertainment as it currently stands, hence my willingness to adhere to some level of restriction Yoshi P may have. I don't have all the facts, so I'm approaching it like so.

We can play this game of shifting responsibility up or down all we want, but I see no evidence it is needed or justified personally.
The only thing I believe might have been forced on the team from above is the whole graphical update. It is so ridiculous in its core idea and implementation that just screams “make shareholders happy” kind of bs to me. But even that is just pure speculation on my side.

[Zaniel]

We can play this game of shifting responsibility up or down all we want, but I see no evidence it is needed or justified personally.
The only thing I believe might have been forced on the team from above is the whole graphical update. It is so ridiculous in its core idea and implementation that just screams “make shareholders happy” kind of bs to me. But even that is just pure speculation on my side.

Yup, this is the same nonsense that people gave to excuse Blizzard's wreckage in managing WoW. Like somehow Bobby Kotick came down personally to write the script for Shadowlands to deliberate make it terrible.

Execs are worried about two things, release date and money. There is no shadowy executive who appears in the writing team's room and says "Look guys you should make the story complete ass and preferably nothing should make sense and be as boring as possible". This is entirely on the people who make the game.

[Catwho]

It hasn't faded from my memory that the president at Square Enix also tried to jump on the whatever-verse Zuckerberg was also putting stock into, so the lack of touch with reality makes me think it's Square Enix and whatever influence they can have over all of their products rather than jumping straight to the people they put in charge of overseeing certain projects.

Haha yeah, forgot the current president of SE is a total tech-bro believer. And that's why he was all gung ho about NFTs for a while there.