Are the developers of XIV out of touch?

[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.