Forced to like it?

[The Witch]

OK, this game gives me very confused feelings. For the longest time I "liked" it without Square Enix offering any real news on it. Until the last year or so, it's been pretty much just pretty CGI. Now we're finally getting the game (which I can't wait to play) but they're also making so many spin-offs and stuff for it before people even tell them that they really even enjoy the game, story, or characters.

I know this and the VII remake are their money makers currently, but it feels like they're just assuming we'll like it and of course we're going to buy the movie, the anime, the side-quest games, and all the merchandise.... all before we even get a chance to experience the game. It feels irresponsible or arrogant for Square to put all this extra time, money, and effort in FFXV's spin-offs and stuff when they don't even know if people like it. It's this kind of behavior that I think is killing Square Enix. They're counting their chickens before the eggs hatch.

I read the other day that they're going to have to sell 10 million units to break even. ofc tabata said this wasn't about financial stuff, but he said this for a reason. It took two decades for Final Fantasy VII to make over 10 million... and this game was and still is their safest-bet cash cow. I just don't get how they think they can assume it will be well received and give it all of this "cash cow" treatment without it actually earning it?

Does anyone know how much money they're spending on development and marketing? It's gotta be crazy high. It's got an anime, a movie, mobile game and probably more that I'm missing. And they're giving the game this special treatment way before they even know if the game will sell or be liked.

It feels like they're forcing us to like this game by smothering us with all of it. "You WILL like it! You WILL like it"... that kind of thing.

The game will probably do slightly better than 13, but... does square know that? they're really willing to bet so much on a possibility? It seems like a make or break thing for the company and I think they know that. and that's what makes me slightly resentful towards this game. i'm worried that they're obsession with it is going to take away money/time/effort from the overall series and possibly kill off the company or the franchise. even if i'm interested in the game as of now from all that i know about it, i could purchase the game and end up hating it. we all could. i'm not sure if people will be able to admit that if it happens because everyone's been "loving" it for so many years without having any reason to, but what if we all end up loathing the gameplay, the characters, etc? square enix will not make their budget and who knows what that means for the entire series.

i guess what i'm saying is, square enix needs to let us experience the game and let us see if we enjoy it before slamming a second course and desert down our throats. because what if we don't want it.

please don't take this as ffxv bashing. i'm hopeful for this game and want to love it, too. but wanting to love it, and actually loving it are two different things. i want to love the vii remake, but it could turn out like shit and im really hesitant about it.

 

[Shaissa]

I am not going talk about the spinoff stuff for now cause I already stated my feelings on that already in previous posts. I think when people are making games, they are making them in anticipation that people will like it and have to keep that "overly positive vibe" or whatever you want to call it. It might make it seem like they are trying to force you to like it... but I really can't think of a time when a game was being released a company went "meh this is ok" or "you might like it." Every company has to...overhype the game or else why would you even attempt to buy a game of a creator went "this game will be ok for fans."

 

[The Witch]

There's being confident, and then there's overshooting yourself, though. I mean, why not do this for FFXII? Why not put this much money and effort in every FF title? FFXV is special for some reason and its worrisome. If you need countless spin-offs and cash-cow treatment, before its earned the "cash cow" title, to make people excited for the game... odds are it's not as good of a game as you're making it out to be.

It's financially irresponsible of them to do all of this before they get the sales and reviews for the game. I mean, VII got a film because it was hugely successful. It didn't get a movie straight before its release. You think Square Enix would have green-lighted a VII movie before they got any feedback/revenue from the actual game? Of course not. So why would they pull these kind of stunts when their company is already facing a lot of problems?

Yeah, it takes money to make money. But Square shouldn't have to give us all of this extra stuff just to make us interested. Advent Children wasn't created to make us love VII more, it was created as a gift to the fans because so many people loved the original game. XV hasn't earned any of this treatment yet. Fans can hope they like it, they can want to like it, but this hype is unearned and I wish Square Enix would have remembered that just because they want this game to be their new cash cow doesn't mean it actually will be.

TBH When they announced the film, that was when I started to worry about the game's quality. It gives me the impression that the game itself lacks depth for the characters or story and so they needed to add more to it in order to make it fulfilling. And what tells me their budget is through the roof is the fact that they originally planned for the movie actors to do the game but it was too expensive so they had to hire third-rate anime actors, who, let's be real, can't sell a scene at all (which was a MAJOR problem for XIII).

They're putting literally everything they have into this game selling and as a FF fan, I hope the game sells 10 million because I don't want the series to end.

And fans have been convincing themselves that this game is worth all of this effort and money for years, long before we had anything of substance at all.

 

[ZaXo Ken'Ichi]

OK, this game gives me very confused feelings. For the longest time I "liked" it without Square Enix offering any real news on it. Until the last year or so, it's been pretty much just pretty CGI. Now we're finally getting the game (which I can't wait to play) but they're also making so many spin-offs and stuff for it before people even tell them that they really even enjoy the game, story, or characters.

I know this and the VII remake are their money makers currently, but it feels like they're just assuming we'll like it and of course we're going to buy the movie, the anime, the side-quest games, and all the merchandise.... all before we even get a chance to experience the game. It feels irresponsible or arrogant for Square to put all this extra time, money, and effort in FFXV's spin-offs and stuff when they don't even know if people like it. It's this kind of behavior that I think is killing Square Enix. They're counting their chickens before the eggs hatch.

I read the other day that they're going to have to sell 10 million units to break even. ofc tabata said this wasn't about financial stuff, but he said this for a reason. It took two decades for Final Fantasy VII to make over 10 million... and this game was and still is their safest-bet cash cow. I just don't get how they think they can assume it will be well received and give it all of this "cash cow" treatment without it actually earning it?

Does anyone know how much money they're spending on development and marketing? It's gotta be crazy high. It's got an anime, a movie, mobile game and probably more that I'm missing. And they're giving the game this special treatment way before they even know if the game will sell or be liked.

It feels like they're forcing us to like this game by smothering us with all of it. "You WILL like it! You WILL like it"... that kind of thing.

The game will probably do slightly better than 13, but... does square know that? they're really willing to bet so much on a possibility? It seems like a make or break thing for the company and I think they know that. and that's what makes me slightly resentful towards this game. i'm worried that they're obsession with it is going to take away money/time/effort from the overall series and possibly kill off the company or the franchise. even if i'm interested in the game as of now from all that i know about it, i could purchase the game and end up hating it. we all could. i'm not sure if people will be able to admit that if it happens because everyone's been "loving" it for so many years without having any reason to, but what if we all end up loathing the gameplay, the characters, etc? square enix will not make their budget and who knows what that means for the entire series.

i guess what i'm saying is, square enix needs to let us experience the game and let us see if we enjoy it before slamming a second course and desert down our throats. because what if we don't want it.

please don't take this as ffxv bashing. i'm hopeful for this game and want to love it, too. but wanting to love it, and actually loving it are two different things. i want to love the vii remake, but it could turn out like shit and im really hesitant about it.

Well first thing's first, it didn't take two decades for VII to reach ten million units. It reached that before the end of the PS1 lifespan. That's what made it such an astonishing success, because J-RPGs -and even games in general- were even lucky if they reached two or three million units at that time. Keep in mind, there are no universal companies that keep track of digital sales, like there is for physical sales. So sales for VII could have tripled at this point, and we have no reliable way of knowing. Any stats on that are to be taken with a grain of salt.

While I can understand where you're coming from, that's marketing man. They're not pushing this stuff under the assumption that we'll like it. They're pushing it because every publisher pushes their biggest investments as much as possible. Where Activision will spend $100+ million on nothing but banners, posters, commercials, and trailers with marketing blurbs in them, at least Square is using their marketing money to make companion pieces that are relevant to the game. Don't get it confused... all of this companion stuff is marketing. They're trying to build and maintain hype for the release, so that they have to spend less on commercials and the like. All marketing is designed to get us to support a product before we know whether we'll like it. But at least this is consumable marketing, and not just lies on a poster with a release date slapped on the bottom.

Beyond that, doing slightly better than XIII wouldn't actually be that bad. Most J-RPGs still don't break around 3 million units. XIII by itself (as far as we know) is at nearly 5.5 million without accounting for the Steam release, the cheap to produce sequels, and it was that successful in a gaming market that was significantly smaller than it is now (and with a game concept that doesn't sell near as well as XV's "open world action RPG" design). XIII is actually the third or fourth highest selling game in the series, only behind VII, VIII, and maybe X (X's sales are strange, because they're often lumped in with X-2 now, making consistent numbers difficult to come across). But VII and VIII were very much an anomaly, because they capitalized on their cinematic prowess. Expectations for sales in the series should never be compared to those directly, because it wasn't the games that sold themselves; it was their pretty cutscenes. I see XV selling at least 10 million units, and that doesn't include the money that is being made from YouTube advertisements placed on the anime episodes, collectors editions sales, other merchandise, and Kingsglaive.

I also wouldn't say that it's a make or break situation for Square, since FFXIV is by far their biggest money maker ever, and is still going extraordinarily strong. That game alone could probably support them through two, maybe three games the size of FFXV that bomb (over time... not all at once). That's also not taking into account their mobile presence, and other smaller games that end up successful, like Bravely Default (seriously, that alone probably had next to no budget, and topped 2 million units if I recall). Even if the game is terrible, and word spreads through the community of hardcore fans, that won't do much to effect the regular consumer. They'll buy it just because it looks cool. And even if it isn't terribly well made, most of them won't be discerning enough to care. Otherwise games like Destiny would've fallen off after a few weeks.

In other words, this isn't as bleak, nor as manipulative as it might seem

Also, I'd like to note that -if you purchase the game, and end up hating it-... Square's bottom line doesn't care; they already have your money. If anything, I'd say we should be thankful that they're as passionate about sharing this game as more than a product, by marketing it through creative companion pieces. They could just lie to us using a bunch of PR stuff instead. It doesn't feel like they're trying to trick us out of money. It feels like they're trying to earn it by proving they care just as much about XV as they hope we will. It shows confidence in their work.

 

[FinalxxSin]

.....

TLDR - No you are not forced to like FFXV, nor any product in general.

What is aggravating to me is that there is a lot of information out on FFXV, and yet many still choose to be mis-informed. Kingsglaive and Brotherhood are not spin-off projects. This gets explained in the video down below:

The success of FFXIV is irrelevant to FFXV. These titles exist on different realms entirely. I don’t know how many units FFXV needs to sell in order to be viewed as a success. The development team have a personal goal of 10 million units.

The reasons for the hard marketing push are not limited to:
- Far as the single player experience is concerned, the FFXIII trilogy is the most recent thing in regards to the numbered series. Since it rubbed a good number of people the wrong way, some people will be skeptical with FFXV.

- The game has been in development hell off and on for a decade.

- The game is the first ARPG in the mainline series, which that alone will create a lot of controversy with fans that are mainly content playing turn based titles.

- It is not simply enough to make a good game. There have been many fantastic games that have come out in the past that did not perform at the level they should have sales wise due to the lack of marketing alone.

- At least Tabata is in the mindset that the title is make or break for Japan. He also has acknowledged that FF as a series is no longer a champion, but rather a challenger. He also expresses why so much is being poured into FFXV through the vids below.

 

[AuronX]

I actually understand where you're coming from Costello--I've off and on gotten the same feeling. But I attribute that more to Square doing a poor job of advertising the game until very recently. Now that we have Brotherhood and Kingsglaive introducing us to the characters and world it feels like there really is depth there, but for the past few years practically all we've seen is Episode Duscae, and I'm afraid that has given a very false impression to the game as a whole. Putting the demo out was a good thing as it showed fans they were serious about getting down to business and it gave them a chance to receive feedback which has been absolutely critical to getting the combat system in a workable state, not to mention lots of other little details.

But it was also a double-edged sword.

Putting out a demo that took place in that particular region of the game world made everyone think "Oh, so this is FF Skyrim" or "Oh, it's a big empty world". The only characters in that world were the four main heroes and Cindy, and none of them had more than a stereotypical personality with no backstory to speak of. It was all set up in such a way that just made it hard to care. And that in itself wouldn't have been a problem if SE had demonstrated very clearly that there was much, much more to care about beyond the demo, but they didn't. The demo was their marketing campaign for far too long, and in the meantime fans couldn't be sure that anything related to Versus XIII/XV shown beforehand any longer applied. And now that they have come out and shown that yes, a LOT of Versus XIII is still there, and yes, XV has a LOT of backstory, that feeling still lingers. The feeling left from Episode Duscae was "why should I care?" Now SE has to say "This is why! And this! And that!" and it just comes across wrong. But every time they give us a taste of the real thing, suddenly it starts making sense. At this point, that's what I'm holding out for.

 

[Harlequin]

I think SE have come to the realisation that if they're to expand on any FF there's going to be a market for it. The FFVII and X spinoffs seemed to be in reaction to the popularity of the originals and demand for more, whereas now they seem to be lot more proactive when it comes to taking advantage of that demand. They did it with FFXIII when they released that trilogy barely anyone wanted. It's a smart business move I suppose, you don't have to create a new universe and can recycle old assets, but I think you risk making the game an incomplete experience for those FF fans who like to get it all in one game (like the old FFs) and don't want to have to shell out on multiple products.

 

[rowe]

Without getting too opinionated, I will say this: SE definitely wants us to like it.

Their marketing reflects this. They're spending a bunch of time and money in this area alone, and while I (personally) think it's fine how they're doing it, I can understand how others might feel it's a bit much. Understandably, it's the 15th main entry, and a highly anticipated game that's been in development for over a decade. (We thought it was vaporware for a while!) You better believe they're going to "shove it down our throats".

At the end of the day, it's business, and in the gaming industry today, you better have great marketing for your products. There's much more competition today, versus 10+ years ago, so the necessary time, money, and energy is needed to "show your stuff".