Dear SE - What happened?

[Xatsh]

What happened, they released a game 18 months early >.>.

Now they have to fix it with an extremely unforgiving fanbase. I would hate to have the new dev teams job, atm it seems nothing they can do besides make a brand new mmo in 6 months will please the masses.

[Harle]

What happened, they released a game 18 months early >.>.

Now they have to fix it with an extremely unforgiving fanbase. I would hate to have the new dev teams job, atm it seems nothing they can do besides make a brand new mmo in 6 months will please the masses.

I'd say they released this game in time...

In time enough not to repeat this mistake sometime later this very month. I'm glad that they have a new working attitude toward the game, and I'm glad that they're doing something about it instead of just twiddling their thumbs away until the very last players quit this game.

[SilvertearRen]

There are two problems with Square Enix. The first is the company culture towards the game development process - it doesn't exactly inspire their workers. Read up on articles that have been posted to Kotaku about this - there have even been allegations that Square Enix does not consider much for the welfare of their workers.

The second problem is inextricably linked to the first - because of the company culture towards game development in general, and their "shareholder"-centric focus, it has hamstrung creativity in Square Enix, which is why Tanaka was received very poorly by the community with his attitude and perceptions on what an MMORPG game should be.

If Square Enix had a more flexible and capable culture that took some elements of Western Game Design Theory, it's possible that they would have been able to produce a more complete product with FFXIV than what we had at its initial launch. When XIV has been in development for four years or more, and turns out a lackluster product, it's the result of a bad feedback process that was used late in the development cycle, which is counter to what most western MMO developers do - they have longer closed beta cycles than what we had with XIV.

I'm aware they have problems still with the mentality of the higher ups in Square Enix, but I'm hoping that after the failure of Final Fantasy 13, in terms of how it came off as a product (it feels very empty and soulless, just like XIV), that the company as a whole will improve their ability to create games that are enjoyable.

As it is now, I'm getting the feeling Square Enix has been behaving more like a publisher, than a game developer - that's usually the first sign that indicates that there are misplaced focuses.