The state of the Game

[MaikoRaines]

I sure can actually. Here's how:

Presenting a list of failures that SE spent all of FF14's revenue on instead of making the game better over the past decade:


- Murdered: Soul Suspect*
- I am Setsuna
- Lost Sphear
- The Quiet Man
- Left Alive
- Babylon's Fall** & *
- Marvel's Avengers**
- Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy**
- Forspoken*
- Foamstars

* Studio divested or closed following release
**Catastrophic financial loss

--It has also been disclosed by SE that they have suffered a 140 million dollar loss due to "content abandonment loss"--
Poof. Gone. Vanished. Nothing to show or present for it, just 9,333,333 months worth of sub revenue tossed into the furnace

So yeah. All that money and none of it went into re-writing the engine, or significant and timely QoL updates, providing more content, or just making the current content in general any better. When's the last time we had a good event with good rewards? (spoiler: Summer 2023). Even the christmas event was lame this time around. Unbelievable how people continue to defend this blatant ripoff

TL;DR - Revenue from XIV, or any successful project, doesn’t get gift-wrapped and handed back to the dev team with a note that says “Go wild.” That money goes into the corporate pool — the same pool used to keep the entire operation from collapsing when a dozen other projects faceplant. It sucks, sure, but it’s how budgets function. If you think CS3 would magically keep all the profit from XIV, then I’ve got some NFTs to sell you.



Not defending anyone or anything here — just offering a reality check.

You do realize that revenue from successful projects like XIV doesn’t automatically go straight back into that specific game's budget, right? That’s not how corporate budgets work. If Creative Studio 3 made bank, that money still gets absorbed into the larger company pool. It doesn’t just stay neatly in one corner of the building.

Failed projects, as frustrating as they are, still cost money. And it's the successful ones that often keep the lights on while the rest of the company burns through investment chasing new ideas — some that flop hard.

Do I agree with how Square Enix handles things? Not entirely.
Do I defend it? Depends — I care about FFXIV and want to see it thrive. I’d love to see every cent of its profit reinvested directly into making the game better, faster. But if the alternative is the company collapsing around it, then yeah, some of that money’s going to get siphoned off.

At the end of the day, this is a business. Businesses are going to do business things — whether we like it or not.

I’m not defending Square Enix — but let’s not pretend this is some unprecedented corporate scandal. This is just how big companies work.

[All_Nonsense]

I should have consulted my own gif

You're conflating my criticism of SE's lack of important and expensive attention being given to FF14 when they HAD the money, time, and player goodwill to do it with me somehow being unfamiliar with how corporations function in a fundamental sense.

Obviously any person who doesn't have a crater in their head knows that when the golden goose is laying eggs, it doesn't get to enjoy all of the eggs. But if you never feed it or maintain its health? Eggs might not be so golden one day. I was showing that instead of literally putting the minimal (or at least medium) effort into advancing their game's technology and gameplay model, they were instead trying to somehow synthesize another golden goose, or were otherwise negligent with their management of FF14 and their income flow, which has now reached a state that it will likely never recover from. SE will probably begin to languish from this point forward in its entirety, not just FF14. Basically they were spending all of their money on the worst ideas ever conceived, and the only people who couldn't understand this were somehow the ones who were cutting the checks.

[MaikoRaines]

You're conflating my criticism of SE's lack of important and expensive attention being given to FF14 when they HAD the money, time, and player goodwill to do it with me somehow being unfamiliar with how corporations function in a fundamental sense.

I get what you're saying—and it’s valid: SE had the money, goodwill, and player trust to fund meaningful improvements to FFXIV, but chose not to.

If my tone came across like I was explaining how corporations work instead of engaging with your point, Let me clarify:

You’re highlighting a straightforward oversight: SE could’ve reinvested into XIV’s engine or QoL, but didn’t—even when they had the means.

My perspective on corporate budgeting mechanics isn’t meant to dismiss that—it’s to explain why profits often get overshadowed by broader company priorities. But context isn’t an excuse.

I’m just as frustrated seeing how little’s changed over the years—especially when players have been practically begging for core improvements since Shadowbringers. SE could’ve used that momentum to overhaul outdated systems, improve backend tools, or finally address long-standing issues like glam limits and housing—not exactly cutting-edge tech, but rather long-overdue maintenance.

I don’t think failed projects like Forspoken or Avengers are the reason XIV didn’t get love—but they do show how misaligned SE’s priorities have been. It’s hard to watch revenue from the company’s strongest title be funnelled into duds while the flagship MMO coasts.

So yeah—we might be looking at it from different angles, but we’re both calling out the same thing in the end: SE had what it needed to do right by XIV players… and it didn’t. So now they need to.

[All_Nonsense]

Fair point

It seems we're both very familiar with ye olde corpa stuff, so I'll skip all the pretense. It seems we both approached the situation from different altitudes despite heading in the same direction. I wanted to highlight the absurdity of SE's capital allocation decisions, as they have quite literally done everything short of intentional self-sabotage. I don't take a lot of things seriously, even when I'm being serious, so that's why I tend to word things in very circular, conceptually abstract ways. However, I am a firm believer in feeding winners to sustain growth as opposed to bleeding them constantly just to make what are, in essence, reckless gambles chasing the comet-tail of old trends. In my original statement I did make the expectation that one would extrapolate the fact that engine upgrades, QoL focus, and better content research and development would have not only have been a much safer investment, but were essentially a necessity for a high lifespan, live service game; and that expectation created an environment for misconception. In a way it was an argument that could have been better communicated, but wasn't done in bad faith.

We've paid a lot of money just to play the game over the years when you consider the full-price expansions, early accesses, and monthly subscription payments. The expectation is that there will be some exercise of the basic principle of "reinforce success" and not cooking their portfolio. I don't attribute those failures as the cause of the trouble SE is in now, I view them as symptomatic of the true problem that's now finally infected FF14 (horrid managerial practice...maybe not even. Poor executive decision making and planning more like). Now that the game has hit a point of stagnation, it's highly unlikely they'll be able to effectively recover without an immense amount of effort and some pain, and in my personal opinion we're not looking at a dev team who is motivated, prepared, nor skilled enough to pull this off any longer. I think that's the core of my grievance.

We both clearly love the game and wish it was better, and I could have been less bastardy with our communication. I apologize for that.

[MaikoRaines]

We both clearly love the game and wish it was better, and I could have been less bastardy with our communication. I apologize for that.

It’s clear you’ve been here for the long haul, and I get where you’re coming from.

You’re right that there’s a lot we don’t know happening behind the curtain. Corporate shifts, internal fatigue, team shuffling—all of it likely plays a role. I don’t think anyone’s pretending it’s easy to run a live service this long without friction. And I’ll fully admit: I’ve enjoyed parts of this expansion too. Echoes of Vana’diel especially hit hard as someone who also spent too many years lost in FFXI.

But here’s where I still dig my heels in a bit: Square Enix had the moment—massive subs, critical goodwill, a surge of new and returning players—and they let it slip. Not because the devs failed, but because someone upstairs decided to divert focus, split attention, or just plain overextend the talent. And that hurts when you know how much better this game could’ve been with sustained reinvestment.

I don’t think DT is a total failure either, but it does feel like a wake-up call. And I agree with you completely: transparency and accountability have to come back. Because if we keep acting like "this is just the cycle," that moment of potential? It’s not coming back. And we’re gonna look around one day wondering how we got another Babylon’s Fall while the golden goose got stale. I doubt we'll ever get to that point but it's still a thought...

Glad we can have this kind of exchange without it getting petty. That’s rare these days, especially in the forums/hellscape.

[All_Nonsense]

snip

We're in agreement then. I don't believe in the concept of total failure outside of physical mechanics and maybe some fringe cases. The moment Dawntrail had a single fan and made some money there was a degree of success. Since the concept of success is widely considered subjective and nuanced, I personally believe that makes it a spectrum. How much success they need to be profitable is a breakpoint, how much to hit player retention is a different, modulating breakpoint at any given time, and how much they need to grow is another. They should have been cognizant of this, so why they never acted on it is a mystery. Obviously the ShB gold rush had to come to an end at some point (I don't believe in infinite growth either), but good god were they so critically unprepared for it that the incredible plummet afterwards is almost comedic by nature. They've fallen off a deep sea shelf here, it's nuts. I oftentimes wonder if they weren't planning on going past EW but felt compelled to due to the ShB explosion. We can't be for certain.

Also thanks for not being insane. I woulda still replied, but for anyone familiar with me on the forums, those kinds of replies tend to go a little different

[AngelCheese77]

A post of bulleted points might have done you better.

I hear Google Docs are all the rage now.

[MayuAmakura]

We had many shills today with: ''I am not defending Square Enix but...", "Can you really blame them?". Nice one

[Mawlzy]

I have played a ton of "real games" over the years...I can't recall even a single one ever issuing surveys at all, let alone "regular" ones...

Check your spam folder.

[MaikoRaines]

thanks for not being insane. I woulda still replied, but for anyone familiar with me on the forums, those kinds of replies tend to go a little different

I get it. My own history is littered with nothing but taking jabs at people who have - lets just say - "differing opinions"