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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Square-Enix is doomed. Here's why.

oniyide on 15 May 2011

i think it was a good thing that SE bought Eidos, there have  been some good games to come out since, IMHO they need to stop trying to westernize their games. Let the Eidos section worry about that, wasnt that the whole point of buying them, and speaking of  buying something, someone buy SNK, not you SE you got enough on your plate



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ShadowSoldier on 15 May 2011
Stefan.De.Machtige said:
ShadowSoldier said:

Sony...time to takeover

I'm not sure SE would be a good buy after an objectif cost/profit analyse of the company.

Besides i read somewhere that Sony (more or less) bailed them out after the 'final fantasy' movie debacle.

I think it would be a really good move. It would secure the Japanese market for them and a large part of the Western Market as well.



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Troll_Whisperer on 15 May 2011
RolStoppable said:
Troll_Whisperer said:

For people who blame SE's merge for their demise, I'm only going to say this: FF X-2 was developed before said merge.

It was the last good game they made. It featured the most evolved version of the ATB system combined with the job system found in games like Final Fantasy III or V. It also had some really funky music and all of the female cast were actual females.

The gameplay was good, but the cast and story sucked ass IMO. I didn't find them to be actual females, they were like a weird hentai lesbian trio. Common, remember the hot spring scene? Yuna a pop singer? Meh.

I think that what brought Square down was the FF movie. After their massive losses they really needed to recoup some money and hence X-2 and subsequent shitty games.



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oniyide on 15 May 2011

id go so far as the say the last great thing to come out of the SE camp is Full Metal Alchemist series, and im not talking the games



MaxwellGT2000 on 16 May 2011
twesterm said:
MaxwellGT2000 said:
A203D said:

FF14 could recover with the PS3 release, if they correct all the problems. but i dont play MMOs so i dont understand how SE could have the immensily successful online FF11 and then have a disaster like FF14, how can an MMO be so bad when the team already created a successful one??


Mostly cause the team released FF11 as an alright MMO and new teams came behind them and constantly updated FF11 into what it is today, the team that made it went onto 14, my friends that played 11 said it wasn't that great when it released but with the updates it became enjoyable, the problem with 14 is that it's bland, interface is terrible, is sorta buggy, and not optimized one bit it seems as my friends rig seems to chug when playing it and me and him both can play Crysis on max... sooo not only does the game exclude 90% of the MMO base on requirements alone... those 10% are those that buy a computer FOR gaming thus a bit more on the really knowledgable side so bugs and crappy interface don't fly.


FFXI wasn't perfect when it released but it was far from a bad game.  The ideas were solid and it was fun to play.  FFXIV is none of that.  People keep mentioning how bad FFXI was at launch but I think people just assume that it was as bad as XIV is and it wasn't.  Like most MMO's it had a rough start but it at least worked and was fun. FFXI didn't have to fix entire systems, it really needed balances, tweaks, and small fixes.  Everything in FFXIV is broken.

It relelased completely unfinished in a barely alpha state and it did everything wrong.  It had some decent ideas with their class system but Rift is already doing it better now.  Beyond that, they really just failed on everything.


Oh no I wasn't saying FFXI was as bad as FFXIV, not by a long shot, see when they released FFXI they released something people could play and it was decent even if it was punishing for the average MMO player.  FFXIV is just 



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zarx on 16 May 2011
Teo said:
Albion said:
Teo said:

FF13-2 will be an instant success on release.

FF11 is their most profitable game up to date.

FF14 will eventually pay off its huge loses within 3 years and turn profit.

Dragon Quests and Final Fantasy ports/remakes on DS/3DS and PSP/NGP will sell better than most games on their respective market.

Even if FFv13 sells 5mil copies it might still be a loss for SE but I'm sure a game like that will get a sequel.

There is still a tiny chance we will see FF15 this generation, that will be an instant hit.

SE would be crazy to not join the social network and the smart phone game market, future gamers are lurking there by the millions, if they want to bring the next generation into the home console and handeld market then this is key for their survivability.

Yawn. SE doom thread #7632542

Not if FF14 flops after one year of patching.

I'v looked at the game, and it's not gowing anywhere.

They are not doomed but as long as they have FF14 the will lose money.

FF14 has 18 servers right now with 2,500 to 3000 people playing on each server.

When they start charging:

$12 monthly fee x 2,500 players (at least) = $30,000 in revenue for one month on 1 server.

$30,000 x 18 servers = (at least) $540,000 in revenue per month in total.

$540,000 x 12 months = (at least) 6,480,000 in revenue for the first year of payment.

 

It's just good business.


You are assuming that all those people will continue playing after they start charging, the player base will likely half once they start charging and servers aren't cheap nether is the full development team currently working on the game to get it to the point where they can start charging for it add in the already massive development budget for it's over 5 year development cycle the game probably won't turn a profit for another 3 years and that is assuming they actually manage to launch the PS3 version.



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twesterm on 16 May 2011
Teo said:
Albion said:
Teo said:

FF13-2 will be an instant success on release.

FF11 is their most profitable game up to date.

FF14 will eventually pay off its huge loses within 3 years and turn profit.

Dragon Quests and Final Fantasy ports/remakes on DS/3DS and PSP/NGP will sell better than most games on their respective market.

Even if FFv13 sells 5mil copies it might still be a loss for SE but I'm sure a game like that will get a sequel.

There is still a tiny chance we will see FF15 this generation, that will be an instant hit.

SE would be crazy to not join the social network and the smart phone game market, future gamers are lurking there by the millions, if they want to bring the next generation into the home console and handeld market then this is key for their survivability.

Yawn. SE doom thread #7632542

Not if FF14 flops after one year of patching.

I'v looked at the game, and it's not gowing anywhere.

They are not doomed but as long as they have FF14 the will lose money.

FF14 has 18 servers right now with 2,500 to 3000 people playing on each server.

When they start charging:

$12 monthly fee x 2,500 players (at least) = $30,000 in revenue for one month on 1 server.

$30,000 x 18 servers = (at least) $540,000 in revenue per month in total.

$540,000 x 12 months = (at least) 6,480,000 in revenue for the first year of payment.

 

It's just good business.


No, not really.  18 servers for 45k players is really bad.

You're assuming that the 6 million number is profit when it probably costs around $20,000 a month just to run a single server.  Then you have to pay people to actually maintain the game so it costs more than $540,000 a month to maintain the game. 

SE is losing an insane amount of money each month on this game and have been since last September.  FFXIV is a massive money pit and I'm surprised on many different levels they actually released it.

Now, on to the next part -- 2,500-3,000 players per server.

If FFXIV were some free indie MMO that 45k people playing would be an impressive number but that is not what FFXIV is.  It's supposed to be a major top tier MMO and that 45k people is embarrassing.  The fact it's a Final Fantasy game adds onto the embarrassment.  The fact that it's still free makes it an even bigger embarrassment.

And how many of those 45,000 people do you think will actually play the game once it's pay-to-play?  Even if the problems were fixed it's still a bad game and not worth the monthly fee.

So, no, FFXIV is not good business at all.  I honestly don't know why they still have the servers up but I would be willing to bet they'll be down by the end of the year and we'll never see a PS3 version.



 

Troll_Whisperer on 16 May 2011
RolStoppable said:
Troll_Whisperer said:

The gameplay was good, but the cast and story sucked ass IMO. I didn't find them to be actual females, they were like a weird hentai lesbian trio. Common, remember the hot spring scene? Yuna a pop singer? Meh.

I think that what brought Square down was the FF movie. After their massive losses they really needed to recoup some money and hence X-2 and subsequent shitty games.

I think of lesbians as actual females, especially of those who don't dress up like men.

You missed the weird hentai part...



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Teo on 16 May 2011
twesterm said:
Teo said:
Albion said:
Teo said:

FF13-2 will be an instant success on release.

FF11 is their most profitable game up to date.

FF14 will eventually pay off its huge loses within 3 years and turn profit.

Dragon Quests and Final Fantasy ports/remakes on DS/3DS and PSP/NGP will sell better than most games on their respective market.

Even if FFv13 sells 5mil copies it might still be a loss for SE but I'm sure a game like that will get a sequel.

There is still a tiny chance we will see FF15 this generation, that will be an instant hit.

SE would be crazy to not join the social network and the smart phone game market, future gamers are lurking there by the millions, if they want to bring the next generation into the home console and handeld market then this is key for their survivability.

Yawn. SE doom thread #7632542

Not if FF14 flops after one year of patching.

I'v looked at the game, and it's not gowing anywhere.

They are not doomed but as long as they have FF14 the will lose money.

FF14 has 18 servers right now with 2,500 to 3000 people playing on each server.

When they start charging:

$12 monthly fee x 2,500 players (at least) = $30,000 in revenue for one month on 1 server.

$30,000 x 18 servers = (at least) $540,000 in revenue per month in total.

$540,000 x 12 months = (at least) 6,480,000 in revenue for the first year of payment.

 

It's just good business.


No, not really.  18 servers for 45k players is really bad.

You're assuming that the 6 million number is profit when it probably costs around $20,000 a month just to run a single server.  Then you have to pay people to actually maintain the game so it costs more than $540,000 a month to maintain the game. 

SE is losing an insane amount of money each month on this game and have been since last September.  FFXIV is a massive money pit and I'm surprised on many different levels they actually released it.

Now, on to the next part -- 2,500-3,000 players per server.

If FFXIV were some free indie MMO that 45k people playing would be an impressive number but that is not what FFXIV is.  It's supposed to be a major top tier MMO and that 45k people is embarrassing.  The fact it's a Final Fantasy game adds onto the embarrassment.  The fact that it's still free makes it an even bigger embarrassment.

And how many of those 45,000 people do you think will actually play the game once it's pay-to-play?  Even if the problems were fixed it's still a bad game and not worth the monthly fee.

So, no, FFXIV is not good business at all.  I honestly don't know why they still have the servers up but I would be willing to bet they'll be down by the end of the year and we'll never see a PS3 version.

Wrong, there are 2.5-3k players currently playing on any point of the day, which means a lot more would be charged. Secondly, I used the 2.5k as the lowest point in players that would be charged after those who do not want to be charge quit. The fact is, each server will charge about 3k players on each server after all is said and done.



twesterm on 16 May 2011
Teo said:
twesterm said:
Teo said:
Albion said:
Teo said:

FF13-2 will be an instant success on release.

FF11 is their most profitable game up to date.

FF14 will eventually pay off its huge loses within 3 years and turn profit.

Dragon Quests and Final Fantasy ports/remakes on DS/3DS and PSP/NGP will sell better than most games on their respective market.

Even if FFv13 sells 5mil copies it might still be a loss for SE but I'm sure a game like that will get a sequel.

There is still a tiny chance we will see FF15 this generation, that will be an instant hit.

SE would be crazy to not join the social network and the smart phone game market, future gamers are lurking there by the millions, if they want to bring the next generation into the home console and handeld market then this is key for their survivability.

Yawn. SE doom thread #7632542

Not if FF14 flops after one year of patching.

I'v looked at the game, and it's not gowing anywhere.

They are not doomed but as long as they have FF14 the will lose money.

FF14 has 18 servers right now with 2,500 to 3000 people playing on each server.

When they start charging:

$12 monthly fee x 2,500 players (at least) = $30,000 in revenue for one month on 1 server.

$30,000 x 18 servers = (at least) $540,000 in revenue per month in total.

$540,000 x 12 months = (at least) 6,480,000 in revenue for the first year of payment.

 

It's just good business.


No, not really.  18 servers for 45k players is really bad.

You're assuming that the 6 million number is profit when it probably costs around $20,000 a month just to run a single server.  Then you have to pay people to actually maintain the game so it costs more than $540,000 a month to maintain the game. 

SE is losing an insane amount of money each month on this game and have been since last September.  FFXIV is a massive money pit and I'm surprised on many different levels they actually released it.

Now, on to the next part -- 2,500-3,000 players per server.

If FFXIV were some free indie MMO that 45k people playing would be an impressive number but that is not what FFXIV is.  It's supposed to be a major top tier MMO and that 45k people is embarrassing.  The fact it's a Final Fantasy game adds onto the embarrassment.  The fact that it's still free makes it an even bigger embarrassment.

And how many of those 45,000 people do you think will actually play the game once it's pay-to-play?  Even if the problems were fixed it's still a bad game and not worth the monthly fee.

So, no, FFXIV is not good business at all.  I honestly don't know why they still have the servers up but I would be willing to bet they'll be down by the end of the year and we'll never see a PS3 version.

Wrong, there are 2.5-3k players currently playing on any point of the day, which means a lot more would be charged. Secondly, I used the 2.5k as the lowest point in players that would be charged after those who do not want to be charge quit. The fact is, each server will charge about 3k players on each server after all is said and done.


Just for grins and giggles I decided to look up some stats on FFXIV.  First off, I don't believe for a second there are 2,500-3,000 people at any given time on every server.  It's possible it might get that high during peak hours on heavily populated servers, but that probably isn't the norm.

The game was destroyed by pretty much every reviewer out there (and with good reason) and it only shipped about 600,000 copies.    Two days after release the game only had 50,000 characters.  By the end of October there were only about 350,000 active characters.  With the state that game released in I really doubt it went up by a lot and stayed up.  That number probably has been decreasing significantly month after month.

And then there's your ending statement-- The fact is, each server will charge about 3k players on each server after all is said and done.

You're saying that like it's going to be good business.  Read my previous post why that isn't good business.  54,000 players totaly would be a very bad thing.