Yoshi P's Ominous Statement About the Future of XIV

[CaptainLagbeard]

The gaming market really hasn't evolved, or changed.
Technology has changed and they could make bigger and better looking games, but what people generally want out of the games hasn't changed.

That's why people are going back to playing old games.

[Kelg]

I sure hope he doesn't mean making the game F2P then adding gacha trash to it. That might kill this game for me.

[Jeeqbit]

The gaming market really hasn't evolved, or changed.

So I both agree and disagree at the same time. Let me explain.

As you said, the technology has changed. But what has specifically changed is that we have mobile devices that can play games. So popular are mobile games, that apparently, there are more female gamers than male gamers. Which is insane given how games were a notoriously male thing when I was a kid!

The context is the female gamers are more in the mobile market, or casual games market like Facebook games, Candy Crush, Farmville, or the Sims and Minecraft.

Another way in which it has changed, according to some recent studies, is that younger people are playing one game and identifying with just that game, such as Fortnite. The reason for this is likely due to them either being fun to replay (multiplayer), or due to being a live service game that provides regular updates like MMORPGs do. But I suspect missing from these studies is the widespread belief that newer games just aren't very good and have lost the passion and ambition that made them fun, due to the focus on targets, "modern standards" and "filler" to meet targets.

Yoshi-P believes the market has changed "due to our lives becoming busy", but the reality is our lives are no more busy than before. If anything, they are less busy due to technology taking over our time-consuming tasks. I can order on Amazon so I don't need to go shopping. I can buy a dish washer so I don't need to wash up. I can buy a washing machine so I don't have to wash clothes manually. AI and computers are replacing arduous tasks. Etc.

Where I think Yoshi-P's belief that we are busier comes from is the fact that he is simply busier himself. Like anyone, we all had more time when we were teenagers, because we felt like we had an eternity. Only as we become adults do we realize "oh, we're getting older... gotta get other things done than just games or the opportunity might vanish". And then a lot of people get busy jobs, and get married. So of course Yoshi-P is busier and assumes everyone else is the same, but it's just an age thing.

Where I can maybe agree we might be a little busier is that we have more distractions, such as YouTube videos and a wider selection of video games. If you go back to the Nintendo 64 era, there were not a lot of good games and not much competition at all. That was almost all there was. Now, everyone is making indepedent games and you can find entire libraries of games nobody has ever heard of. I do believe this is a big point of concern for game developers, because they know that they have to work harder to get a consumer's attention and maintain it due to there being far more games about.

I do agree that in the past, MMORPGs were never kind enough to our time. It was terrible. Farm for a year for a 0.001% chance at something? Spend hours forming a group and then take hours in whatever the content where it's difficult to take a break? Pressure on you to not take breaks because of this or that. It was all as bad as lootboxes are now, so to a certain extent, the casualization is good, but only to a point. There needs to be a balance, and some of the efforts have become extreme and made things like dungeons thoroughly boring.

[Garruss]

If Yoshi P tries to pivot this game to more mobile gamers, I fear he's going to lose a lot of us who have been here for years. If I want a moblie game of FF14 ((Which I don't)) I would play the mobile 14 ((Which I won't))

[SkankyRoe]

it's like they WANTED it to fail so they could justify never doing another field operation.

This honestly very much feels like the case with how the new accessories turned out. The players have consistently complained about the lack of sustain and how the focus on damage boosts is pointless given that FT isn't the "carryable" experience that was originally intended. But instead of taking all these months of feedback into consideration they just slapped on more Special Attribute and called it a day.

It does also make me wonder if Chaotic was intentionally an "oops accidentally savage again" for the same reason; in hindsight Yoshi P's statement "we might make more if the players like it" feels like telling on himself.

[PaulH]

If Yoshi P tries to pivot this game to more mobile gamers, I fear he's going to lose a lot of us who have been here for years. If I want a moblie game of FF14 ((Which I don't)) I would play the mobile 14 ((Which I won't))

I think I will do the same if gacha or making it feel more mobile style game comes about then I would tap out. I would run MSQ every 6 months or so as i do enjoy it. I will wait and give 8.0 a go and see what happens I haven’t broken my subscription since 2.0 launch but nothing is forever.

[TBerry]

Private Equity is apparently involved now with SE...
So yeah let's keep expectations low

[NegativeS]

reflecting the demands of an evolving market, as well as the ways you live and play

We are so unbelievably fried.

This has "mobile game but we don't want to say mobile game too early because we know the vast majority of our existing audience despises mobile gaming and we still need to keep the lights on for the time being ha ha *empties magazine into foot*" that I've seen a billion times written all over it.

In fact, I think I heard something similar from Blizzard before they dropped Diablo Immortal, and we all know how much of an atom bomb that whole ordeal was.

[SKAshe]

Private Equity is apparently involved now with SE...
So yeah let's keep expectations low

3D investments group, I believe?

If anyone from 3D investments is seeing this, It is a horrible financial mistake to meddle in this game we love by adding things that the community overwhelmingly doesn't want. Much more of us, myself included, will leave the game if you do. The wisest decision for CBU3 to take is to listen and directly engage with their community. If you allow CBU3 to do this without interference. It is certain that it will financially pay well and enrich you and your fellow shareholders.

According to the luckybancho census, in the globally sold version of the game roughly 56.2% and 32.5% speak English and Japanese respectively. They should be the primary people to listen to. There is already a mobile version of the game. Keep the mobile mechanics in the mobile version and do not under any circumstances add gatcha, battlepass, daily login features specific to mobile, Korean, or Chinese versions to the Japanese / North American / European version of the game. Such feature are overwhelmingly unpopular among players of the Japanese / North American / Eurpean version of the game and there are many comments throughout the playerbase, as well as a large amount of dead PC games due to getting too greedy with their micro-transactions that prove it. The MMO space gives a nice, steady and consistent revenue to Square Enix that should not be taken for granted. This saved the company with the release of A Realm Reborn. Please do not squander what goodwill remains among the community. I still want to enjoy and play this game alongside many of my fellow players. We will not if you turn it into a mobile cash-grab, and more players will leave. If Square Enix listens and engages in dialogue with the community, it will help a lot and the game will prosper.

[NaoSen]

I'll quit if he's referring to more investment into the mobile game.

I'm not here to play mobile.

It's not even the same company developing the mobile game, its made by Lightspeed who fall under Tencent, SE just supervises.