JP: Yoshi P should step down, FF14 is a sinking ship, in response to interview

[Hallarem]

Seems a little blown out of proportion, but I AM glad the Japanese side of the fanbase is continuing to talk about their dissatisfaction with Dawntrail at least.

Who knows. Its the JP players complaining loudly, they might actually fix something.

[Mondschnee]

Seems a little blown out of proportion, but I AM glad the Japanese side of the fanbase is continuing to talk about their dissatisfaction with Dawntrail at least.

I'm just glad the japanese playerbase isn't bringing any culture wars into the discussion because the moment the focus shifts away from the story and it's quality (or the lack there of), it starts being hard to take seriously.

[Vensaval]

I'm just glad the japanese playerbase isn't bringing any culture wars into the discussion because the moment the focus shifts away from the story and it's quality (or the lack there of), it starts being hard to take seriously.

Entertainment is doomed if the culture war ever hits Japan, as well as South Korea and China, the same way it has in Western countries. It does exist sporadically in those countries. Typically gets quelled, but it's something to remain wary of.

[Mondschnee]

Entertainment is doomed if the culture war ever hits Japan, as well as South Korea and China, the same way it has in Western countries. It does exist sporadically in those countries. Typically gets quelled, but it's something to remain wary of.

You yourself have contributed to these culture war discussions. My argument is aimed at both sides of the discussion.
And that's honestly all I'm going to say to that topic.

My focus is and will remain the story that I care very much about.

[Raven2014]

Entertainment is doomed if the culture war ever hits Japan, as well as South Korea and China, the same way it has in Western countries. It does exist sporadically in those countries. Typically gets quelled, but it's something to remain wary of.

Japan ... maybe. Certain publishers have been trying to "reach" the wider western audience by diluting their original appear. Remember Sony Entertainment moved their HQ to California in 2016 specifically to pursuit of this goal. Others like Bamco and Square-Enix is definitely following the same trend. You still have a few hold-out like Capcom and Nintendo though. Specifically recently Nintendo had put in a request with the bank of Japan to prevent certain Western investment group (read ESG money) from ever getting a large enough share to be able to become a decision maker within the company. Also there is another story that I don't think quite known in the mainstream but in the last 2 years there have been an attempt of "we can fix Japan" from Master Card and Visa as well. Basically these companies tries to censors contents they deem offensive by forcing website like DMM, DLsite, Niconico, Getchu to comply or risk losing their ability to process payments from oversea customer. At first the Japanese companies relent and complied, but each time Visa and Mastercard escalate their demand even more. That lasted until 2 months ago when the Japanese basically said "screw you" and announce they're dropping visa and mastercard themselves. This prompt 2 senators from the Japanese Diet (their parliament) to summon Visa's bosses and tell them that this is breaking Japanese law. In the last update, Visa and Mastercard said this was not an official policy but rather action from a small group of people within the company, the attempt of censorship has now been stopped and thing went back to normal. Thanks to Ubisoft's shenanigan the issue has become a hot button topic in Japan for now and there is a call to watch out for Western infrigement on Japan culture, so it's an on going battle.


Korea companies are a little safer. Unlike Japan where the market has reached a stagnant point and for some companies they make more money from oversea than locally (thus explain the pandering). Most Korean company still mainly serve the local residents and Korean gamers don't take kindly to a certain trend that Western developers have been obsessed with lately.




China is actually the safest bet simply because it has a huge population. It will be a LONG LONG LONG LONG time before oversea money can outcompete with the local Chinese market. And as far as taste is concern, Chinese gamers is similar in taste with Korean gamers. Meaning any kind of Western pandering is pretty much a guarantee DOA. You can look at the various attempt to cancel Mihoyo and more recently Game Science by Western influence that not only fail, but straight up face the kind of rebuttal that Korean and Japanese companies had never dare to make. For example: when "several" of the Genshin Impact VA kicked up a fuss on social media like a certain VA we all know and love in DT, unlike Yoshi who would gave them a pat in the back ... Mihoyo just straight up fire and replace them in very short order. As long as Chinese companies are making games with Chinese as the main audience, we don't really have to worry about the kind of nonsense we see almost everywhere else.

[Mapleine]

I dunno about stepping down, sounds pretty excessive and no one is privvy to internal culture but it is very fair to say XIV feels like it's lacking in both direction and passion lately all around. I've never really seen a game put rugs over holes in the floor the way FFXIV does. This game does everything possible to not budge an inch.

For now, I just hope the patch cycle is better this time. Endwalker was genuinely awful in terms of content if you, like 99% of the player base, have no interest in spending months playing with Ultimates. Especially considering how much cheating and money changing hands goes on in that razor thin fragment.

[Zelda206]

My rose-tinted glasses may have been smacked off by Dawntrail's failure at quality story-telling, but honestly I think Yoshi's being served up as a Christmas goose in order to give the journalists something, like a PR scarecrow ("strawman"). The ones who hold the responsibility are the ones that tried their hand at telling the main story, who have done bit-parts on the side, and greenlit the biggest failure in character development for FF that I can think of: Wuk Lamat and the expenses taken for her character while completely decimating any development for the other new arrivals (or failure to give Krile the screentime she needed; she had some but not enough). JP and EN didn't like her collectively, and this was a risk they took and are bearing the consequences for. I don't think it can be helped if Wuk Lamat shows up preaching the same bloody thing again in future content, but it's possible that the team may have been receptive enough not to include her as aggressively in the future. We've had minor characters with far more endearing traits and far less screen-time in the game thus far.

I don't think Yoshi's got the amount of free reign that he may seem to have, and if I was in his shoes, I too would let the new writing personnel fall flat on their faces after greenlighting all of that. Even Ishikawa probably saw it and went "Alright, if you're sure" and she's supposed to be in an advisory setting with a hand in the proceedings. Despite the fact I can't stomach Wuk Lamat as much as I can't stomach Taylor Swift, I want to see where this goes. You can't go back on a mistake, so let's see where this goes in the future; the fall in numbers may even coax them to comb more carefully and seek advice more thoroughly before their next move. I welcome the complaints and I welcome the input and the potential for growth, but absolutely silencing opposition won't fix a single thing. So I hope this post endures for quality assurance.

[Syln]

You know, even though i like to meme about him, i still have that nostalgic feeling when i see his face and overall have a positive opinion about Mr Naoki Yoshida.

That being said, the last 3 years showed me that i shouldn't trust in his judgement anymore, he is obviously overworked, overseeing too many project and ff14 has been suffering from this for years now.

Do I think he should step down though ? No and not because I hope he'll go back and focus on ff14 once again, it's probably not going to happen, but because this industry is filled with mediocre, spineless and clueless "professional" that are absolutely terrible at making long term business decision.

Obviously some peoples at Squeenix have a similar opinion seeing how they are stretching thin that man on different projects, i mean you wouldn't overworked one of your most valuable asset if you had decent alternative would you ? That would be very short sighted from them .... "just remembered they sold a few valuable western IP for almost nothing and reinvest the money in NFT"... ho ... hmm ...

[SongOfTheWind]

I think Yoshi's being served up as a Christmas goose in order to give the journalists something, like a PR scarecrow ("strawman"). The ones who hold the responsibility are the ones that tried their hand at telling the main story, who have done bit-parts on the side, and greenlit the biggest failure in character development for FF.

He is Director and Producer of the game. It is his job to know what the game and the story is. He is literally supposed to direct it.

[Archeron]

He isn't directing anything. This is the same man who delayed Endwalker over the final lines of dialogue in Ultima Thule, who is somehow satisfied with how Dawntrail came out.

Did he even read the script? Did he even play the story before it came out? Did he think we'd enjoy having Wuk Lamat shoved down our throat for the entirety of the MSQ? It seems to me like he's just absent from the development of XIV at this point, and the out of touch, laughable interviews he's been having only serves to highlight this. If he's overworked with 3 games at once, he needs to learn to say "No". When you put your name on your work, your reputation is on the line. I'd rather focus on one high quality product then push out 3 low quality cash grabs personally.