A while ago, I started a thread regarding Final Fantasy XIV and its presence at E3, and now with E3 only a few days away the question remains will FFXIV show up, or be a no show?
That can be debated but with E3 so close, the answer is upon us… So then the though came to mind, what would FFXIV have to gain from showing up at E3? What could it [FFXIV] stand to lose by missing the show?

We will each have our own answers to those questions, so being that I’m in a positive mood, I’ll focus on the positive aspect of FFXIV showing up at E3 and also some ideas on the Welcome back campaign which could tie into E3 if Square-Enix plays their cards right.

Final Fantasy has a new director leading a new team, and this past six months has been very exciting, changes that were needed were made, while bigger changes have been in the works, and those updates are almost upon us… With that in mind, it could be a good time for Yoshi-P to make himself known to the rest of the world who stopped following FFXIV, and a good time to do that is next week. With the past two weeks being very quiet on the lodestone, it could be very exciting to see updates from the development team in line with any information that comes out of E3.

Yoshi-P and crew could show off video (a trailer of cut scenes and new content) of Final Fantasy XIV while having PS3’s setup to play a build of the new battle system, and show off some of the other new features that have been in development for a while but aren’t live in the game. This will give the press as well as other gamers a look at the changes that are almost upon us, as well as talk about the PS3 development and use that as a “re-launching” point for the game. Now, this could also be a time to show off new keyboard and mouse interfaces (if they are still in the works… hopefully) as well. In fact, it’s a chance to get a game back in the public eye, and in their hands.

Now, besides all the gamers who are following E3 this year, the other big focus of E3 is to get retailers behind the games, and this leads me to my second point and the topic of this tread, the welcome back campaign. Yoshi-P talked about having something planned for the one year anniversary of the game, which will be September 30th, and (assuming) that they want to start charging and the game is ready this might be a good time to do it, but you have to do it right.

The first sign of things to come is the simple fact that current inventory price has been slashed to $15 for the regular version of the game and $25 for the collector’s edition. Now, I’m speculating here, but this is a good move for several reasons:
  1. It lowers the entry cost for people still on the fence about jumping into the game
  2. It clears out inventory in the stores to make room for a re-launch of the game
  3. It gets more people with accounts trying out all the new changes that have been made since launch.

There might be even more that I’m not thinking about, but the real focus is that it clears out current inventory.

Now, thinking about this as a re-launch of the game, for both PS3 and PC (no word yet, on when PS3 might be, but my thinking is this would be around the same time) some things would need to change. First you would want to include all the new updates on a disk so that new players wouldn’t need to download all the large updates once getting the game itself, so new disks would need to be created. This isn’t something new for MMOs, and this has happened many times with Final Fantasy XI. Along this line, the box art might be re-designed to include new info on all the new features of the game. It’s also possible that marketing might want to put a name to, let’s call it, patch 1.20/1.21 as a software expansion. Providing this expansion as a free download to current users and coming packed in the box for new users… Doing this alongside the PS3 release would serve to speak to a lot of players that now the game is ready to be played, and have a subscription charged. It would also give the feeling of an expansion without having to have existing players go out and buy one.

So with the assumption of a re-launch of the game, the next move to co-inside with having players take another look would be the welcome back campaign. The campaign itself would offer some rewards, as incentive for re-activating an account, as well as reward players who still have active accounts. If this is tied into a one year celebration then the balance of rewards for returning players verses that of current players might work out better than expected. So the real question is what kind of rewards would you like to see be a part of a welcome back campaign? What rewards should be a part of the one year celebration?

Off the top of my head, offering users who come back to the game 15-30 days of subscription free game play would be a good move. For those players who felt jaded, they would be able to come back into the game without having to subscribe to the game. In addition, some fun items would be a nice touch, like a unique hat/helmet. And even some buffs that last for seven to ten days. Maybe a slight sp buff etc…
For the one year, it would be exciting to see if some kind of bazaar started up, or some other kind of event that allows players to earn points to bid on exciting and cool gear being auctioned off each day.
There are many things that Square and Yoshi-P can do for these things, what are your thoughts, what can they do for both a welcome home campaign and the one year celebration?