Are the developers of XIV out of touch?

[Elamys]

literally the dumbest reply Ive ever seen. Especially since SE is a multibillion company. Lol at your salt

It's a very common joke.

SE has tons of money but acts as though they only have the money of a small indie dev.

As far as this question of "why did they answer THOSE ONES" I guess what I'd have to say is that when asked what they would have thought the better questions to ask would have been, it's almost always stuff that you can't really answer in the Live Letter. What are the plans for upcoming classes, what are forthcoming changes in balance between jobs, discussion about possible exploits or botting, etc.

I don't think the devs are out of touch at all, in fact, I believe they're very in touch. Many of the features and things we have asked for make it into the game. Sometimes not in the way we envisioned, but they are definitely listening. But I think this game gets limited a lot by legacy code and the fact that SE seems to be reluctant to put the money the game makes back into it.

[Skivvy]

It's a very common joke.

SE has tons of money but acts as though they only have the money of a small indie dev.

To be fair, Square Enix was in a very bad spot financially prior to ARR. They've had ~4 years of success with this game, but that doesn't mean they're suddenly going to start tossing crazy money at every project or game.

[Enla]

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To be fair on that end, you really can't blame anyone else but SE for putting themselves in that situation though. Part of the reason they were in financial difficulties was because of project mismanagement and the sheer bloat they forced into their games that made them almost impossible to recoup costs on. There is a reason the first Tomb Raider reboot was considered a financial bomb in spite of the fact that it sold /very/ well by industry standards. (4 million copies as of the time they released the statement that it didn't meet sales expectations, which were nothing to sneeze at, at the time) That's not even getting into FFXV's hardships that would have ended the franchise, and the money lost after years of work were scrapped, or their justification for putting out Hitman so piecemeal. Their games have always been well received with a few exceptions. They just have a bad habit of throwing too much money at them whilst bungling the development in the process.

[Elamys]

To be fair, Square Enix was in a very bad spot financially prior to ARR. They've had ~4 years of success with this game, but that doesn't mean they're suddenly going to start tossing crazy money at every project or game.

I don't think anyone's asking them to "toss crazy money" at FFXIV but from the way they talk in response to some of the questions, you'd think this game made like $100 a year. This MMO struggles to do basic things any other MMO on the market can do with ease.

They're certainly not struggling now, though. If you're interested in digging into the numbers a little, here's their recent earnings report. http://www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/ne...q4earnings.pdf

There's also this article from last year: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/sq.../1100-6454795/

The publisher also called out Final Fantasy XIV as a top performer during the period, with the new expansion, Stormblood, helping to boost subscribers and revenue.

In short, for that year at least, FFXIV was a major income generator for SE but seems to be floundering in being adequately funded. Like Enla said they seem to struggle with balancing the quality of their content vs. the pocketbook.