PL Woes

[Lux_Rayna]

I have a question, how well are all the WoW clones doing?.... They must be stealing all of WoW's subscribers right? Copying WoW must be the secret to success..... HINT: It isn't. I do agree with the timing of WoW being the cause for its popularity, but the "casuals" who fell in love with WoW and its mechanics are still playing it. They are not dumping their millions of subs into games like XIV, The few that do leave WoW to come over here, or to other easy-play games, are drops in the bucket and end up going back to it anyway.

I dont disagree but...

Games that try to emulate WoW are going to fail just as hard as games that target the niche crowd. The main problem lies in the fact that while trying to cater to casuals, and failing to steal enough subs from the giant, you're going to alienate the people who want the other style of game. Bad business? Failing to steal customers while alienating your franchise die-hards. I can't think of a worse business model.

Quite frankly this is not what investors believe. And investors keep SE's business running. We can argue game logic all day long but all the investor cares about is how SE is going to make as much money as possible. The only possible answer SE can have, that will satisfy an investor, is "We are going to take control of the casual market". That is it. No other options. The timing isn't right to start going against the grain. We are in a period right now where its all about the casual market. Investors don't give two craps about logic, only what they saw work. Has the niche system generated millions of subscribers? Never. Has the casual system? WoW's did.

Now as an investor what are you gonna do? Invest in some company thats gonna take some "radical new approach" that won't target the market? Or are you gonna look for games that take a similar approach to WoW, but have the potential to do it better? Its a no-brainer lol.

Niche system: 0
WoW system: 1

In terms of probability, an investor will go for the WoW system every time. Its been proven. The niche system has yet to prove itself as a cash cow. Of course as you pointed out, beating WoW is *not* easy. But businesses run in this cycle all the time. You get a leading competitor, bunch of copycats that fail trying to beat the competitor, then all of a sudden a company rises up with somethin brand new and pwns everyone.

Apple did it to Microsoft
WoW did it to Everquest
Microsoft did it to Sony (with the Xbox)
Nintendo did it Microsoft AND Sony (Wii says hi)
insert more examples here

All in all you can't blame SE for doing what their investors want. At the end o the day, for any business, you do what makes your investors happy. Investors want success like WoW, so thats what you have to try to give them.

[Peptaru]

Maat wasn't hard! The RDM was a dick, but he wasn't that bad with preparation. Yayaya I know "q.q i had to fight him 30 times, the hell he isn't hard!" He wasn't. lol.

[Davorok]

Maat wasn't hard! The RDM was a dick, but he wasn't that bad with preparation. Yayaya I know "q.q i had to fight him 30 times, the hell he isn't hard!" He wasn't. lol.

It was the execution of said preparation that doomed me. Have you ever seen a Galka do the Taru /panic dance?

[indira]

they need a level limit quest that test you as a player, to be able to level the next 5 levels.

[Zaaku]

This doesn't sit right with me though Lux. If this is investor orientated why is it still active? Any other game that failed as hard as FFXIV did would have its funding cut and labeled a loss. Yet here wer are nearly a year later after months up months of free trial.

It seems to me that SE cannot let a flagship title go down so hard which is why they are pumping money into a dead horse. In this case wouldn't going back to basic to recoup their previous fans satisfy the reviewers so FF can keep its luster and still be obtainable? I understand investors are likely balding old men who think computers are communist machines and wonder why the secretary hasn't fetched them another drink yet but it stands to reason.

If FFXI had X number of subscribers for Y years. They tried something different with FFXIV and it failed horribly. Wouldn't they shelter under the comfort and safety of a previous success?

[Lux_Rayna]

This doesn't sit right with me though Lux. If this is investor orientated why is it still active? Any other game that failed as hard as FFXIV did would have its funding cut and labeled a loss. Yet here wer are nearly a year later after months up months of free trial.

It seems to me that SE cannot let a flagship title go down so hard which is why they are pumping money into a dead horse. In this case wouldn't going back to basic to recoup their previous fans satisfy the reviewers so FF can keep its luster and still be obtainable? I understand investors are likely balding old men who think computers are communist machines and wonder why the secretary hasn't fetched them another drink yet but it stands to reason.

If FFXI had X number of subscribers for Y years. They tried something different with FFXIV and it failed horribly. Wouldn't they shelter under the comfort and safety of a previous success?

Well investors invest in a company, not a game. Games are supposed to improve a company's revenue, so an investor may be lured to either

1) hold his shares
2) buy more shares

based on the projected success of that game, and how much of SE's total revenue that game will generate. In the case of FFXIV, I highly doubt it was ever projected to account for more than a measly few percent of SE's revenue. I'm not shareholder though, so I honestly have no idea what the projections were. I'm only guessing based on the fact that SE has a LOOOOT of products, and were planning to keep pushing new products. So who knows. Point being, its likely not a pivotal point of company success.

Still, success is success and failure is failure to an investor. It is very likely that SE lost quite a few shareholders/shares when FFXIV flopped as hard as it did. I don't keep up with the stock market in Japan, but im willing to bet it was an ugly quarter for SE. The game is still running because apparently Yoshida thinks, rather believes, that FFXIV can be a massive success. For whatever reason, he's convinced that it is the definitive title of the next generation of mmo's. Needless to say, he has investors to convince. When you promise something, and it flops, you can't let it burn in flames when you suckered in a bunch of investors. There's a certain obligation to fulfill that promise, or you lose investor confidence, even potential investor confidence. If that happens your company starts going weeee south.

So really this game is afloat for two reasons: Yoshida thinks its the hottest thing since sliced bread, and SE has to prove that FFXIV is really what they said it was, and that its failure was due to a poor employee. This is also why Tanaka got fired: SE had to prove to its investors that it wasn't the fault of the project, but of some schmuck that sabotaged it. If SE let the game die, they would be admitting that they were wrong about their project and they wasted investors' money on something that wasn't what they said it would be. Not a place you wanna be in lol.

[Kiroh]

They tried something different with FFXIV and it failed horribly. Wouldn't they shelter under the comfort and safety of a previous success?

1.) The "previous success" is still a live, running project.

2.) Comfort and safety are no different to a game developer than stagnation and death.

[darkstarpoet1]

This doesn't sit right with me though Lux. If this is investor orientated why is it still active? Any other game that failed as hard as FFXIV did would have its funding cut and labeled a loss. Yet here wer are nearly a year later after months up months of free trial.

It seems to me that SE cannot let a flagship title go down so hard which is why they are pumping money into a dead horse. In this case wouldn't going back to basic to recoup their previous fans satisfy the reviewers so FF can keep its luster and still be obtainable? I understand investors are likely balding old men who think computers are communist machines and wonder why the secretary hasn't fetched them another drink yet but it stands to reason.

If FFXI had X number of subscribers for Y years. They tried something different with FFXIV and it failed horribly. Wouldn't they shelter under the comfort and safety of a previous success?

i can tell you why this doesn't sit right.

does anyone remember why yoshi stated they were going to be working towards 2.0 and not focusing on this game?

he stated it was because ffxiv was not supported by investors and was completely paid for by se itself. that was why they had to start charging was to try and recoup some funds while working towards a new release. the only investor ffxiv has is se and not a group of outside third party investors.

[Lux_Rayna]

he stated it was because ffxiv was not supported by investors and was completely paid for by se itself. that was why they had to start charging was to try and recoup some funds while working towards a new release. the only investor ffxiv has is se and not a group of outside third party investors.

That just means that they did not specifically use revenue generated from stock sales to fund the game. That does not mean that SE still doesn't have to show the maximum amount of profit to investors at all times. They were just prudent and decided not to use investor money towards this specific project. If they had, you better believe more ppl would have been fired by the board of directors. Regardless, what affects the company affects the investor. If SE loses money, their investors lose money, and investors dont like losing money. And Square Enix is a publicly traded company on the Japanese stock exchange.

SE had to recoup their losses because of just that. A loss for the company is a loss for the investors. Gains for the company are gains for the investors. If a project fails, especially one that enticed ppl to buy more shares of the company, it would be suicide to not do what you can to fix the mistake. Again that is why Tanaka was fired. It is also why there will be a 2.0. I never bothered to track SE's price history on the Japanese stock exchange, but I bet FFXIV's hype, release, and failure are all reflected in SE's stock charts. Investors are fickle ppl, the slightest news or bad news could have them jumping on the wagon or jumping ship.

[viion]

I got 50 before Esuna, and I barely use it now, just not used to using it.

OP your statement fails on so many levels, think the topics proven that tho lol