We are actually getting a Mobile FF14 ? WHAT!?

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

Is this where our sub money has gone? To remake the game on mobile starting from ARR again?

Maybe they've realised they've ran out of road with how garbage Dawntrail is and they just want to try and milk the original decade all over again. I'm joking but... Also... Am I?

SE itself isn't developing it, Lightspeed is, none of our money is realistically going into this version.
Speaking from experience working in the industry, more than likely Lightspeed sees opportunity to get some major $$$ off a mobile version of FF14, they approached Square for licensing deal, Square approved it, now Square either got paid a handsome sum for the deal, or they'll collect some royalties the mobile port makes. Or both. Either way, Square is/just made a ton of money for doing basically zero work. From the time I worked at Ubisoft, we had plenty of mobile game studios pitching mobile game ideas that involved some of Ubisoft's bigger IPs for licensing deals.

Either way, this is effectively entirely disconnected from actual FF14 in any development sense. If anything, it might even benefit FF14's development, if Lightspeed adds features/QoL that become extremely popular that could be translated to the main game, putting pressure on the main devs to implement them.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

[...]Either way, this is effectively entirely disconnected from actual FF14 in any development sense. If anything, it might even benefit FF14's development, if Lightspeed adds features/QoL that become extremely popular that could be translated to the main game, putting pressure on the main devs to implement them.

I pray you are correct about that.