Ben-DutkaSquare Enix outlined these steps when they revealed their terrible $134 million fiscal year loss, but now they're going into a little more detail.
The publisher's senior executive managing director Yosuke Matsuda presented at the company's financial briefing session , and he spent a fair amount of time addressing future business strategy.
Matsuda believes the issues aren't "simply financial" and that they intend to make some big changes. First and foremost is "making customers wait for years" before they're given any concrete information concerning a project:
"Making customers wait for years with little to no information is being dishonest to them. We need to shift to a business model where we frequently interact with our customers for our products that are in‐development and/or prior to being sold, have our customers understand games under development, and finally make sure we develop games that meet their expectations."
Matsuda cited crowd-funding website Kickstarter and Steam's Greenlight as examples of developers interacting with customers during the design process. As for bettering worldwide sales, Matsuda says they need to focus specifically on the demands of each region. He admitted that it can be difficult to progress "on the assumption that many products can cover the tastes of the entire world, and sell across the entire world." No way…really?
I'm sorry, but couldn't just about any hardcore gamer have told them all this? Don't spend years teasing us about a game with basically zero details ('cough' Final Fantasy Versus XIII 'cough'), and stop trying to make games that satisfy the entire world…? Didn't we already know this? Well, at least Square Enix has identified the problem and maybe now they'll fix it. Maybe.
We can dream, maybe with the problems identified we might hear something at E3 about FFvsXIII. MAYBE! I'll keep faith in that they will deliver it, but if it goes 1 full year after PS4 is out then I will let it go. Gotta dream big right?
and im glad to be back after being away so for long.
Lots of home problems, ending my engagement, getting my life back on track and jumping full into my job. Missed all of you! (even tho i dont know many of you ; ) )
Sorry you had trouble stabs, I've been there myself. Feels great to get life moving in the right direction and to make progress. Welcome back and remember to do your best to make up for lost time!
Last edited by WorldEndsWithMe on 5/28/2013 2:16:38 PM
If they try and make ffvs13 a kickstarter im going to flip out.
I am all for waiting if it delivers a valuable product, but S-E has stalled the development of Versus many times replacing the time with the FFXIII sequels.
My problem is that I bought a PS3 for this game and I will feel just as cheated as I did when Final Fantasy XIII went Multiplaform should Versus move to the PS4 which is becoming a strong possibility now. Should I really buy a Playstation 4 in hope for a title I wanted for the previous gen when I had a PS2?
Sony have a 5% share in square enix and i have a feeling a small part of the profit from the XIII sequels are funding FFXIII vs along with a steady stream of cash from Sony for a PS3 swansong in 2014-15,hopefully alongside The Last Guardian.
problem is that SE has "identified the problem" many times, claiming to now "listen to the fans" but on every occasion have turned around and released another disappointing piece of news or lackluster game.
I'll believe it's fixed when I see another SE game that I actually love.
Is Mitt Romney in charge of this place now? How can anybody be so out of touch? Really how can a huge successful JRPG engine just lose the script for a whole generation?
Hey asshats, if you want to make money you have to make the same kind of games that you used to make! Even keeping us up to date on your 7 year old games isn't going to get customers back on your side.
They've acknowledged the problem, so what do they plan to ACTUALLY DO about it?
More research
IMO FFvsXIII is encroaching on Duke Nukem Forever territory. If the game ever does come out, it would not be the awful pile of poo Duke Nukem was, but it would be VERY hard for it to live up to it's billing.
Last edited by broox9 on 5/28/2013 7:06:10 PM
Sorry but they've screwed up so catastrophically that their talk will forever be cheap until action is actually taken and we see results placing them in their former glory .
Tire of watching their mouths move . DO SOMETHING.
Well, it is a very good thing that they have finally acknowledged the problem. It's good that they acknowledged the exact things that gamers have been saying for years, which means they have listened, at least lately, even if it was only slightly.
EDIT: Maybe they plan to make up for all this at E3?
Last edited by Akuma_ on 5/29/2013 12:54:33 AM
its a hard balance when to announce a game.
are you better off announcing it and showing it off too early, or waiting till its well into its strides before you say anything?
i personally prefer the former, at least we know who is doing what, instead of having to wait for so long before they announce it.
gives the game more time in the spotlight and gives devs more time to get feedback on it.
though you do have the unfortunate risk of ending up like bioshock infinite, revealed so early and shown off quite a bit, to then suddenly disappear off the map so drastically.
come to think of it developers are probably better off just showing off what they have, i mean imagine the world of difference it would of made if $E actually just did a QA for versus 13?
dont show off any trailers, any footage or gameplay, all you have to do is give your vision for the game!
even thats better than just silence.
Actually announcing too early is a mistake. I can't really see any way that it is a good idea. If you have nothing to show, then your basically just making promises for the future.
If a developer doesn't mention anything about a game until it's ready to be shown, then gamers will have no idea about it, and have no reason to complain.
Squeenix's mistake with FFvsXIII isn't really that they showed it off too early, the gameplay footage we recently seen showed a game that was well into development. I expected a release withing the next 12 months after seeing that. Their internal struggles and continuing to divert resources to other projects is what stuffed them up. Plus I am thinking that vsXIII has suffered from several changes of direction.
"Making customers wait for years with little to no information is being dishonest to them." – RIGHT ON!