Gambit2483
Member
They have most likely already started moving 75% of their projects towards Switch 2 development, including FF7R and Dragon Quest 12
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Former Square Enix exec on why Final Fantasy sales don’t meet expectations and chances of recouping insane AAA budgets
- Thread starter adamsapple
- Start date
ArtHands
Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
Or maybe they can target Switch 1 hardware with an enhanced version for Switch 2 and other platforms.
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OuterLimits
Member
It is largely later year Gen X(1975-1980) and Millennials born in the 1980s/early 90s keeping FF alive at this point. Things are going to get really bad for Square in a decade or so if they don't have an influx of younger players. Eventually we truly will get a "Final Fantasy" if this trend continues.
Last Hearth
Member
So design the game around parameters that would allow them to run on the Switch. This isn’t rocket science, just basic business common sense they abandoned chasing? What exactly, gaming street cred?
proandrad
Member
This isn’t as simple as just go multi platform. Cost of making game have exploded. If FF7 rebirth was made in the same size of FF7 remake it probably would have been extremely profitable. Devs need to start making games within boundaries again. Take the metal gear series for example the hardware limitations of ps1/ps2 caused Kojima to build a smaller game that worked well within that system. These smaller games sold great for their cost and were profitable. Then we get mgs5, free of most technical limitations, had insane cost of development and yielded a lesser game.
OuterLimits
Member
The federal minimum wage should definitely go up a bit( to $9 or $10 dollars) because it hasn't done so in 15 years I believe. However, going from $7.25 to $20 would create disaster in a number of states. I believe even the most generous states are usually in the $15 to $17 range while most are in the $7.25 to $12 range.
Bernardougf
Gold Member
The first thought was making and selling great games... now they are all chasing that single one cash cow that the mindless gaas zombies can consume forever.. and stay in the maximum profit minimum effort zone.
hybrid_birth
Gold Member
They already raised it to $20 for all California fast food workers. Aside from upset mcdonalds managers. I don't see a disaster.
If they won't do that then lower apartment rent to affordable prices.
What is a disaster is people not being afford a place to live and food to eat. Something already being done at current wages. Starvation and homelessness is at an all time high.
Millions of pharmacists get $75+ an hour. Where is the disasters?
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/17/how-many-hours-minimum-wage-earners-need-to-work-to-afford-rent.html
Amazon raised warehouse wages to $15 an hour 5 years ago. Today, half of workers surveyed told researchers they struggle to afford food or rent
Amazon has long been criticized for its treatment of employees, especially those who pack and ship boxes in its warehouses.
Millions of families live paycheck to paycheck and can't afford basic necessities like housing and health care
Can't Afford the Basics? The High Cost of Living Is About Way More Than Inflation
Everything is expensive. Experts tell us why.
www.cnet.com
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cartman414
Member
OuterLimits
Member
They already raised it to $20 for all California fast food workers. Aside from upset mcdonalds managers. I don't see a disaster.
If they won't do that then lower apartment rent to affordable prices.
What is a disaster is people not being afford a place to live and food to eat. Something already being done at current wages. Starvation and homelessness is at an all time high.
Millions of pharmacists get $75+ an hour. Where is the disasters?
Amazon raised warehouse wages to $15 an hour 5 years ago. Today, half of workers surveyed told researchers they struggle to afford food or rent
Amazon has long been criticized for its treatment of employees, especially those who pack and ship boxes in its warehouses.fortune.com
Millions of families live paycheck to paycheck and can't afford basic necessities like housing and health care
Can't Afford the Basics? The High Cost of Living Is About Way More Than Inflation
Everything is expensive. Experts tell us why.
Not sure why pharmacists are being brought up here. They went to school to acquire a skill that those giving you a burger at a drive-thru don't have.
Yes, sudden massive increase from 7.25 to $20 in minimum wage for what are supposed to be entry level jobs would create disasters in many states. (Particularly poorer ones). Many small retail businesses would either have to jack up prices at an insane level or reduce staff significantly. Would greatly hasten AI doing those entry level jobs at fast food places I assume though.
hybrid_birth
Gold Member
So what is your solution to the millions of Americans who can't afford basic necessities ?
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asdasdasdbb
Member
Oh for sure. The thing is that up to now, the PS5 has sold very well. The install base should not be a problem.
Part 1 sold poorly on PC and Part 2 won't even do anywhere close to Part 1 if they bother. Getting it to work on PS4 would be a lot of work, so really the only other viable platform is Switch 2.
I don't think Part 3 will end up being cancelled, but only because of the asset reuse.
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mayham2199
Member
Did he ever talk about the money Sony is paying for the game to be exclusive? I would assume that helps lower the overall development cost as well?
Gambit2483
Member
Something tells me Nintendo has already made sure it will be powerful enough to run some games that are releasing on PS5 (albeit with compromises of course). Especially Japanese based games that aren't exactly pushing the graphical boundaries like ATLUS games.
BigBeauford
Gold Member
The answer for FF's woes is simple (IMO):
post FFVIII, the series lost a huge chunk of its audience because all of the games became far too anime replete with annoying writing and tropes. There is simply a large contingent of gamers who aren't going to play anything anime period.
post FFVIII, the series lost a huge chunk of its audience because all of the games became far too anime replete with annoying writing and tropes. There is simply a large contingent of gamers who aren't going to play anything anime period.
Dundar
Member
That's not it. Persona, Tales of, anime-like aesthetics do sell. The fact is that FF is an hybrid of high fidelity ($$$$) with anime aesthetics, pleasing fans but not really enlarging it user base. It's selling marginally better than a Tales of while costing 3-4 times as much. Square thought VII was the evergreen and it is, but it is 30 years too late and even marketing was totally pandering OG fans ("look! the 3d brawler from the coliseum!"). The idea for a 3 part remake is a dream for fans (and even then....) but a logistic nightmare for a development-marketing pov. Too many bets are not paying off in the end. Part 3 will be developed and they're probably hoping to have the trilogy be a long seller but that's pretty much it for FF Remakes imho.
And XVII..... wooo boy, wouldn't want to be in the producer shoes this time. Basically the lifeline for SP Final Fantasies it depending on it.
The people who "aren't going to play anything anime period" were likely never playing FF to begin with because it was definitely seen as an "anime game". They were playing wRPGs.
Angry_Megalodon
Gold Member
Quite the opposite. And it's the same mistake made by Square execs.
Genshin Impact players spent $5 billion on the game in record-breaking time - Dexerto
Genshin Impact players have spent $5 billion on in-game purchases and waifus in record-breaking amount of time.
www.dexerto.com
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
This is my NUMBER ONE issue with his thesis. Why the hell does a game need to outperform the stock market in order to get funding and be seen as a success? The stock market's potential between now and 2029 is unknowable. What if there's a global crash in the markets over the next 5 years? Will games only need to make an annualized 5% ROI per year?
If this is how they are determining if something is worth making or not VIDEO GAMES ARE DOOMED!!!!
Higher risk.
So is any given game's performance, yet any investment decision captures this by projecting future cash flows and applying discount rates to them.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Which is silly to me and why so many young people under 30 are starting to turn on "capitalism". Is this what late-stage capitalism means? Because it sure is super stupid. Applying this logic to a billionaire group buying a sports team would be equally STUPID! So freaking dumb that maybe we humans need to nuke ourselves to death and have a start over period.
What billionaire or group of investors would want to buy a sports franchise and then immediately say it needs to make 14.5% annualized profits a year or it was a failure?
Sports teams have outsized returns and thus people invest in them. Just like people will invest in video games if they outperform other asset classes on a risk-adjusted basis.
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Setsuna Mudou
Member
I'll help you out SE and any other big publisher:
1- Build internal teams, full time resources, pay them a fair wage and give bonus tied to game performance. No or very minimal outside contractors. Don't organize your team literally on the most expensive cities in the world. If you must have the core management there, fine, but hire people in different locations where 1/3 of a current San Francisco salary is a pretty damn good one.
2- Investing half your budget on advertisement is a fucking trap. Cut that shit to 1/3 absolutely tops. Target enthusiast websites and forums. Word of mouth will do the rest. No billboards, ever. No tv, no half-time commercials, none of that shit.
3- Price the digital copies cheaper than physical. If you want to keep $70, do that for physical, make digital at least a good 15/20% cheaper
4- Build with sequels in mind. If your game does well, you want to re-use as many of the assets as possible, just expand on the story and add some elements. If original game takes 4 years to make, a sequel should take half that time and half the number of people.
5- Use non-proprietary engines. Thankfully a lesson more and more publishers are learning nowadays. You need to have an engine that is easily supportable and you can find talent to hire easily in any location.
6- Invest in your people managers. Shit managers should be replaced. When you wanna know if a manager is shit, just ask his/ her team. With good management people will be happy to go above and beyond and not clock out as soon as it hits 5pm.
Take this for free Square, if you want more hit me up on linkedin
1- Build internal teams, full time resources, pay them a fair wage and give bonus tied to game performance. No or very minimal outside contractors. Don't organize your team literally on the most expensive cities in the world. If you must have the core management there, fine, but hire people in different locations where 1/3 of a current San Francisco salary is a pretty damn good one.
2- Investing half your budget on advertisement is a fucking trap. Cut that shit to 1/3 absolutely tops. Target enthusiast websites and forums. Word of mouth will do the rest. No billboards, ever. No tv, no half-time commercials, none of that shit.
3- Price the digital copies cheaper than physical. If you want to keep $70, do that for physical, make digital at least a good 15/20% cheaper
4- Build with sequels in mind. If your game does well, you want to re-use as many of the assets as possible, just expand on the story and add some elements. If original game takes 4 years to make, a sequel should take half that time and half the number of people.
5- Use non-proprietary engines. Thankfully a lesson more and more publishers are learning nowadays. You need to have an engine that is easily supportable and you can find talent to hire easily in any location.
6- Invest in your people managers. Shit managers should be replaced. When you wanna know if a manager is shit, just ask his/ her team. With good management people will be happy to go above and beyond and not clock out as soon as it hits 5pm.
Take this for free Square, if you want more hit me up on linkedin
Novak: "...platforms will generally get a recoup on any funds spent on exclusivity meaning until they are paid back, they will keep that cash..."
An interesting point that Novak brings up and what I think many people don't know is that moneyhats ARE recouped. They're not just free money for Square Enix on top of whatever the game earns.
Say Sony offers Square Enix $200m to keep FF7 exclusive to Playstation. Sony then takes 100% of all revenue generated from FF7's game's sales UNTIL Sony gets back their initial $200m. After which, earnings are distributed as normal.
Another example was Epic's lauded publishing deal. See one of the terms, which reads : "...Once costs are recouped, developers earn at least 50% of all profits."
Lastly, I'll add my own experience as an indie developer. I took a minimum guarantee up front of from my publisher and agreed to a 50/50 split of the proceeds. I didn't realize minimum guarantee would be recouped (since it was my first release). It sucked balls learning that I'd get nothing from game sales for a while. In my case, the publisher recouped 2x the minimum guarantee amount - their logic was that our split was 50/50. So since I had received $X, they started at -$X. Therefore, they had to earn $2X before earnings could be distributed. Felt like double-dipping to me.
Recoupment is standard industry practice. So, another way to look at them is that they're "money that you'd have earned anyway, but you get it a bit earlier". In that lens, there's absolutely no motivation to take an exclusivity deal - going multiplatform earns you MUCH more money. The only reason you'd take it is if you think the game is going to bomb, and you'd have more money from the money hat.
An interesting point that Novak brings up and what I think many people don't know is that moneyhats ARE recouped. They're not just free money for Square Enix on top of whatever the game earns.
Say Sony offers Square Enix $200m to keep FF7 exclusive to Playstation. Sony then takes 100% of all revenue generated from FF7's game's sales UNTIL Sony gets back their initial $200m. After which, earnings are distributed as normal.
Another example was Epic's lauded publishing deal. See one of the terms, which reads : "...Once costs are recouped, developers earn at least 50% of all profits."
Lastly, I'll add my own experience as an indie developer. I took a minimum guarantee up front of from my publisher and agreed to a 50/50 split of the proceeds. I didn't realize minimum guarantee would be recouped (since it was my first release). It sucked balls learning that I'd get nothing from game sales for a while. In my case, the publisher recouped 2x the minimum guarantee amount - their logic was that our split was 50/50. So since I had received $X, they started at -$X. Therefore, they had to earn $2X before earnings could be distributed. Felt like double-dipping to me.
Recoupment is standard industry practice. So, another way to look at them is that they're "money that you'd have earned anyway, but you get it a bit earlier". In that lens, there's absolutely no motivation to take an exclusivity deal - going multiplatform earns you MUCH more money. The only reason you'd take it is if you think the game is going to bomb, and you'd have more money from the money hat.
asdasdasdbb
Member
They should be able to make both Rebirth and FF16 work on Switch 2 albeit at 1080p30 most likely.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Sports teams have outsized returns and thus people invest in them. Just like people will invest in video games if they outperform other asset classes on a risk-adjusted basis.
Take a look at your chart again. The NHL, NFL, NBA, and MLB did not outperform the S&P 500 from 1991 - 2000. Those 10 years were a BUST! So what happens if they had packed it up and quit investing in 1998?
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Yeah I never knew this in my life. So glad to read that for good understanding of the industry. Moneyhat feels alot different to me now. I thought it was free cash for the 3rd party dev. I guess a 3rd party would do a exclusive deal if they couldn't secure the funding for their game though. Plus marketing money that will be tossed in too.
Gambit2483
Member
They might try to get developers to take advantage of DLSS technology to help improve framerates
mayham2199
Member
I thought that's what I read but I wasn't sure cause it doesn't make sense. I don't see why companies would want to do an exclusive deal at all now unless it's a situation like Capcom and SF where the game wont be made at all unless someone invest in the making of it.
Crayon
Member
I know they got off a lot of 15. What's the verdict on 16, though? 15 was a long time ago and I think responsible for muddying the name a bit.
DonkeyPunchJr
World’s Biggest Weeb
16 is like a Rorschach test. Everyone blames its poor sales on different things depending on their own biases. If you loved 16, then the poor sales were because 15 ruined the series’ reputation. If you’re the type who thinks every post-PS2 FF is a disappointment, then the poor sales were because 16 abandoned the series identity.
As someone who started with FF1 but really got into the series with FF6, honestly I was 100% onboard with the shift to character action combat and a mature GoT style story. The problem is that 16 just sucks as an action game and as a JRPG. The boss fights were amazing but most of the game is just painfully boring.
For all 15’s flaws, it was still a fun game that made me want to jump in and explore and kept me playing to the end. I’d gladly play another FF that built upon and improved 15’s formula. 16 just bored me to tears and literally put me to sleep multiple times until I gave up around the 70% mark.
Angry_Megalodon
Gold Member
FF16 is a Final Fantasy game only by name. It's all about identity loss.
Square turned their most iconic game into a whole saga only because they have lost their way with the franchise, unlike Nintendo with Zelda.
Now Nier is becoming popular (bordering mainstream) but they haven't figured out what to do with that one, too. Yoko Taro sounded frustrated in the joint interview with Shift Up's CEO. Square's management sucks.
Square turned their most iconic game into a whole saga only because they have lost their way with the franchise, unlike Nintendo with Zelda.
Now Nier is becoming popular (bordering mainstream) but they haven't figured out what to do with that one, too. Yoko Taro sounded frustrated in the joint interview with Shift Up's CEO. Square's management sucks.
Gambit2483
Member
Agreed, Nier is just outside of Mainstream. That's what makes me think their next game will indeed be Nier. I mean, they made an actual anime of Nier Automata...
Dr. Claus
Vincit qui se vincit
I don't think you understand Final Fantasy in general if you think 16 is FF only in name.
You are correct that the issue is Management. Pushing 5-10 AAA games all at once, many of them terrible ideas and made by shitty western devs is not smart. Not doing proper advertising on your smaller games is not smart (I saw almost zero ads for Harvestella, Dungeon Encounters, Voice of Cards, etc). Focusing on trying to chase GAAS trends and NFTs is not smart.
Management is the issue. The silly perception from a handful of bitter fans who still haven't gotten over the change from Turn-based nearly two decades prior is not.
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