Thread: Is 1.18 the final straw?

Originally Posted by Uzziah

I believe that they released the game about 75% through completion to recover some cash flow. They knew that they weren't going to release the game to PS3 yet. They put the PS3 release off (as planned) and told the PC community that they wouldn't be charged any monthly fees (again, as planned) until the game was worthy of paying for. They are using us as their true beta testers when the time period they called beta testing was really alpha testing.

Uhh, highly unlikely.

http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/201...ada_on_losses/

Speaking at an investor's briefing on the 13th (via Nikkei), Wada explained that of the 12 billion loss, about 4.5 billion came from such things as Final Fantasy XIV's reworking and the cancelation of multiple titles. Most of the 4.5 billion was related to domestic development, he said.

Originally Posted by Lilith

I agree that releasing the game has brought them some nice cashflow.

Yeah, a negative 4.5 billion yen cash flow is pretty nice, sure.

Originally Posted by Rentahamster

Uhh, highly unlikely.

http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/201...ada_on_losses/





Yeah, a negative 4.5 billion yen cash flow is pretty nice, sure.

I still don't get how SE manages to lose money. All they make and remake sells pretty well. Is it that their sweet CG just costs too much?

Originally Posted by Majidah

I still don't get how SE manages to lose money. All they make and remake sells pretty well. Is it that their sweet CG just costs too much?

It's the general economy. Everyone is losing money in the general sense of things. Square isn't countering production costs on a lot of titles because XI was the main cash flow and that's settling down/slowly getting to its end point. Even though the economy is bad, production costs are still as high as ever.

Originally Posted by Lilith

The sale of the game (physically) didn't give them a negative 4.5 Billion. It's the cost to make the game. The release didn't compensate all of the costs thus a negative.
I don't know about the costs of keeping servers up and such, hard to make a balance.

Having a botched launch like Final Fantasy 14 cost them dearly. Part of their earnings forecast was anticipating the extra revenue that FF14 would bring in, when that didn't materialize, they had to drop their earnings forecast back in December last year.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/...6BF11H20101216

(Reuters) - Japanese video game maker Square Enix on Thursday slashed its full-year net profit forecast by more than 90 percent to far below the market consensus and said it will postpone the launch of two key game titles.
Square Enix said in a statement it is delaying the rollout of the latest installment in its "Deus Ex" game series until the financial year starting in April. It had initially planned the launch for the January-March quarter.
The company is also postponing the launch of "Final Fantasy 14" for Sony's PlayStation3 game console for an unknown period. The game was originally slated to hit store shelves in March in Japan.


Square Enix, known for its blockbuster "Dragon Quest" franchise, cut its net profit forecast to 1 billion yen ($11.9 million) for the year ending March 31 from 12 billion yen previously. That is far below the average forecast for an 11.3 billion yen net profit in a poll of 20 analysts by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
It chopped its operating profit forecast to 8 billion yen, from 20 billion yen previously and below market expectations for 20.4 billion yen.

There's no way they're going to knowingly release an unfinished game to try to recoup sales. The damage to their reputation has been tremendous. Instead of getting the revenue from player subs, they have to make the game free to play, plus pump more resources back into development.


THEN, we have the big news in May that, oh wait a sec, instead of the 1 billion yen profit we thought we were gonna get, we're actually gonna have a 12 billion loss.

http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/201...ings_revision/

Square Enix announced revised earnings expectations today. The company says that it will incur a net loss of 12,000 million yen for the previous fiscal year. Its previous forecast from February 3 listed a modest net profit of 1,000 million yen.
The revision is due to extraordinary losses, in part from a "tightened selection standard" for games. This will result in 4.5 billion yen in losses related to development cancellations. A press release announcing the revision did not share specifics beyond this.

That totally invalidates that other person's theory that they released it on purpose to generate cash flow. If they had just delayed the game, they wouldn't have lost so much money.

Square Enix announced revised earnings expectations today. The company says that it will incur a net loss of 12,000 million yen for the previous fiscal year. Its previous forecast from February 3 listed a modest net profit of 1,000 million yen.
The revision is due to extraordinary losses, in part from a "tightened selection standard" for games. This will result in 4.5 billion yen in losses related to development cancellations. A press release announcing the revision did not share specifics beyond this.

I'm pretty sure though that this was due to extraordinary losses and has nothing to do with a video game.

Originally Posted by Uzziah

I don't really know when the final staw will be for me. I'm 45 and disabled (medically retired) because of an accident, so I don't have a lot else to do with my time since I'm stuck at home.

However, I'm not sure what to think of SE. They're either really damn smart or really damn stupid. If SE were your company, would you release a game like FFXIV in the condition it was in? Seriously, after developing, marketing and selling a blockbuster like FFXI, you must know the difference between a good MMO and a crap MMO.

After giving it a lot of thought, I believe that FFXIV was intentionally released in a ... shall we say "BETA" condition? It was a bit beyond alpha but sure as hell was not ready to be called worthy of the Final Fantasy name. I was a business application developer/consultant for over 20 years before I became disabled so I know a bit about the industry. Yes, gaming is a long way from business apps, but I have friends that work in the gaming side of things too.

If anyone knew what they were doing by releasing FFXIV in such a state, SE would. I believe for many reasons, which I won't state because SE would probably delete this post, that releasing FFXIV in the condition it was in, was totally intentional. They knew that if any company could survive the bashing and the attack on their reputation, it would be SE. They have the money and the talent to make world class MMOs. I believe that they released the game about 75% through completion to recover some cash flow. They knew that they weren't going to release the game to PS3 yet. They put the PS3 release off (as planned) and told the PC community that they wouldn't be charged any monthly fees (again, as planned) until the game was worthy of paying for. They are using us as their true beta testers when the time period they called beta testing was really alpha testing.

Have you noticed all of the progress limiting manipulation that they have in place in the game? Fatigue is the biggest one. Now come on, who in thier right mind would pay a monthly fee for a game with a fatigue system in it? (yea, i know there are a few who would but those people are a discussion for a different forum, lol) For crafting, you ever notice that you rarely get leves that are beneficial to you after you pass rank 30? Have you noticed that even linking battle leves is only beneficial to 3 links? Have you not noticed that you must kills enemys that have their name in red, before engaging other enemies or you get crap SP for them (even if they are attacking you)? All of these are to limit your progress. Oh there are more that many people aren't even aware of and I won't even talk about them as I'm sure SE wouldn't appreciate it.

All of this isn't to bash SE. If anything they are to be praised because they know exactly what they are doing. It's a brilliant plan from a business stand point, which is all they are interested in. They've actually recouped a ton of money from releasing the game when they did. As soon as they complete it, it will have loads of content, they will have removed fatigue and all the other progress limiting algorithms (it has already been announced that fatigue will be removed), they will have stabelized the economy and everyone will flock back to what will turn out to be a fabulous MMO.

For now, we the guni pigs will suffer as we wait patiently for the game to be completed. However, if you are one who has been faithfull from the beginning and continued to play through all of this time, you will be rewarded if you use your time wisely. Now is the time to rank up, especially your DoH and DoL classes. Now is the time to prepare for the future. Build your wealth, rank up all your classes. It will be worth it. Everyone else who starts later will be way behind you.

This game will go on to be a blockbuster, mark my words. SE knows exactly what they're doing. Wait it out if you have the patience and reap the rewards.

Well, this is my take. Maybe I'm crazy, maybe I'm not. I'm sure you all will tell me what you think, lol. Regardless of what any of us think, SE knows the real deal. Think they will tell us? I doubt it. They will put more of their talent into the XIV development team soon and the game will take off. One think I know for sure. SE has put millions of dollars/pounds/yen/what ever into this game. There is no way in hell they are going to let it fail.

Enjoy!

I love how 6 people liked your post, it proves that you're not the only one who is crazy around here :P JK and I hope you're right but from a business standpoint, no move that loses you customers is a good move unless SE's main target from the start was PS3 owners and they just gave PC owners the big middle finger by selling them an unfinished product so they can inject more equity into it. This would just tell me that SE is far from smart because in order for them to do this they would have to be in some cash trouble to begin with...but what do I know, I only play video games I don't make 'em.