any questions?

[captainpicard]

You people are morons who don't know anything about Japanese or Chinese language and believe everything you read on some guy's blog. A guy who purposefully uses the language barrier to make his BS seem credible.

Actually I just believe their investor relations information.

Asia Holdings
----------
SQUARE ENIX (China) CO., LTD. January 2005 Digital entertainment in China and Asia
HUANG LONG CO., LTD. August 2005 Sale and management of online games in Asia

http://www.square-enix.com/eng/ir/li...0corporate.pdf

Final Fantasy XIV, previously codenamed Rapture (ラプチャー) was first mentioned in August 2005. Notice the establishment date of SE China, and the acquisition date of HUANG LONG CO.

I think they said this sucker was in development for what 5 years.. I dunno do the math.

[Tsukino]

Actually I just believe their investor relations information.

Asia Holdings
----------
SQUARE ENIX (China) CO., LTD. January 2005 Digital entertainment in China and Asia
HUANG LONG CO., LTD. August 2005 Sale and management of online games in Asia

http://www.square-enix.com/eng/ir/li...0corporate.pdf

Final Fantasy XIV, previously codenamed Rapture (ラプチャー) was first mentioned in August 2005. Notice the establishment date of SE China, and the acquisition date of HUANG LONG CO.

That's because they were going to release the game in China, in Chinese, to expand into that market. Those holdings would be responsible for adapting the game for China, and the former is responsible for publishing their games there in general. They didn't and do not develop anything for Final Fantasy XIV or any other title in the series.

There is no "Chinese" in the game, nor was there ever. That misconception comes entirely from a crappy blog post on a certain triangular site that shall remain nameless that was widely circulated as legitimate journalism for some reason. Anyone who knows either Japanese (like I do) or Chinese would know that it was all complete BS. The things people said were "Chinese" were just some weird and tiny examples of poetic license gone out of hand - roughly the equivalent of making up pseudo-Latin words in English.

[captainpicard]

That's because they were going to release the game in China, in Chinese, to expand into that market. Those holdings would be responsible for adapting the game for China. They didn't and do not develop anything for Final Fantasy XIV or any other title in the series.

There is no "Chinese" in the game, nor was there ever. That misconception comes entirely from a crappy blog post on a certain triangular site that shall remain nameless that was widely circulated as legitimate journalism for some reason. Anyone who knows either Japanese (like I do) or Chinese would know that it was all complete BS. The things people said were "Chinese" were just some weird and tiny examples of poetic license gone out of hand - roughly the equivalent of making up pseudo-Latin words in English.

Actually that was going to be Shanda Games. It sounds like you are the one who is misinformed.

http://ffxiv.zam.com/story.html?story=23284

Per the Shanda Press Release:

"Our in-house game development team is well-qualified to assist in the localization of FINAL FANTASY XIV to the China market, while our strong sales and marketing capabilities and extensive game operation platform can provide access to the broad audience of Chinese gamers. Since its debut in 1987, the FINAL FANTASY franchise has attracted many devoted fans worldwide and, based on our experience and expertise in the China market, we are confident in the success of FINAL FANTASY XIV as well as other future collaborations with Square Enix. We believe our strategic partnership with Square Enix represents an alliance between leading game companies in Japan and China, and we look forward to broadening our business through this partnership."

Develop the game in China for low cost. Outsource localization and administration to a company that is familiar with doing that type of business within the country. Makes total sense.

Reading through their investor relations docs, they identify "weakness in the development team and project management" as the root cause for this games failure. When you are first working with offshored staff, this is an inevitability.

It would also explain why its taken such great lengths of time to make minor changes to the game code, as perhaps onshore staff has been having to learn the code.

[Tsukino]

Actually that was going to be Shanda Games. It sounds like you are the one who is misinformed.

http://ffxiv.zam.com/story.html?story=23284

Per the Shanda Press Release:

"Our in-house game development team is well-qualified to assist in the localization of FINAL FANTASY XIV to the China market, while our strong sales and marketing capabilities and extensive game operation platform can provide access to the broad audience of Chinese gamers. Since its debut in 1987, the FINAL FANTASY franchise has attracted many devoted fans worldwide and, based on our experience and expertise in the China market, we are confident in the success of FINAL FANTASY XIV as well as other future collaborations with Square Enix. We believe our strategic partnership with Square Enix represents an alliance between leading game companies in Japan and China, and we look forward to broadening our business through this partnership."

Develop the game in China for low cost. Outsource localization and administration to a company that is familiar with doing that type of business within the country. Makes total sense.

Reading through their investor relations docs, they identify "weakness in the development team and project management" as the root cause for this games failure. When you are first working with offshored staff, this is an inevitability.

It would also explain why its taken such great lengths of time to make minor changes to the game code, as perhaps onshore staff has been having to learn the code.

That's the company that would run the servers and help adapt the game to fit governmental regulations and such. The actual SE holdings are for publishing games still in Japanese (this happens in China more often than actual localization) and interfacing with that company and others for Chinese releases. They do not develop Final Fantasy games. They did not contribute writing, planning, art, or anything to FFXIV or any other game.

It's irrelevant to my point anyway though. There is no Chinese in the game and there never has been. It's a bunch of conspiracy theory BS that came from ONE blog post. You don't know either language and have no facts whatsoever that it has any Chinese in it except "someone said so on the Internet."

You also seem to be looking for excuses why the game is bad, and the answers are simpler than some covered-up outsourcing. The entire project was just mismanaged and rushed, and that's it.

[captainpicard]

You don't know either language and have no facts whatsoever that it has any Chinese in it except "someone said so on the Internet."

You also seem to be looking for excuses why the game is bad, and the answers are simpler than some covered-up outsourcing. The entire project was just mismanaged and rushed, and that's it.

I am not sure how you would have any inkling of what languages I know, or anything else I may know, other than just your ignorant assumptions, such as the one you made earlier in the thread regarding HUANG LONG. I am not really sure why you're so upset over this particular topic. They could have developed the game in your arm pit, it doesn't really change things does it? bad game is bad.

Are you one of those American's who wishes they were Japanese, or just a fan boy/girl with an axe to grind against those of us who aren't honoring this game with reverence?

[Tsukino]

I am not sure how you would have any inkling of what languages I know, or anything else I may know, other than just your ignorant assumptions, such as the one you made earlier in the thread regarding HUANG LONG. I am not really sure why you're so upset over this particular topic. They could have developed the game in your arm pit, it doesn't really change things does it? bad game is bad.

Are you one of those American's who wishes they were Japanese, or just a fan boy/girl with an axe to grind against those of us who aren't honoring this game with reverence?

No, I already said the game was bad. I say it's bad a lot actually. It bothers me because one jackass on the Internet has used the power of a language barrier to convince ignorant people like yourself that there's some conspiracy to outsource development to China and then cover it up.

It's obvious you don't know either language because someone who knew one or the other wouldn't say "as illustrated from the use of Chinese in the game."

As an example, take the infamous "horsebird" thing. It wasn't used in place of the word "chocobo" in the game, it was just on one item. FFXI had many such oddly-named-with-Chinese-characters items for enemies that were still called Japanese names. The development team, or someone on it, seems to love to make up words using Chinese characters (like I said, this is similar to making up Latin terms in English). People in Japan did complain about it because it was excessive, but hardly anyone thought it was some kind of conspiracy; they just wanted to keep classic names like "chocobo feather" and thought the overuse of Chinese characters was stupid/humorous/whatever. The actual Chinese term for "chocobo" isn't 鳥馬 (horse-bird, like in the item name) but 陸行鳥 (earthbound bird), and several people who speak Chinese noted that the horsebird term sounds just as stupid to them.