Watched the video in the article. Online gaming has been toxic from the beginning, but it seems like it's only getting worse. Back in the heyday of Xbox Live at least things were fairly anonymous on both ends (not much targeting) and you could ignore a lot of it by not using a mic and muting those who do. These days you can seek out groups you hate online, snipe or brigade their streams and communities, and make your own perverse fun out of attacking them directly. In the old days a white supremacist may never even meet or have the opportunity to harass a black person. Now they can take joy in virtually lynching real ones from the comfort of their homes. There aren't even any real risks or repercussions for it beyond a toothless account ban. It's pretty messed up the more you think about it and I'm not sure what the fix is beyond taking platform moderation seriously.

It's so surreal how I've been asking for brutal honesty, and here's SE giving us that honesty, but in a way that comes off with blatant disregard for the platform.

It's like them saying "yeah, we know you exist, we don't like you, we like just this one Japanese corp, but we still want your money and more of it".

Fuck'em though. I'm glad I dropped them when they made their triple EGS deals within a year and a half, as well as the NFT investment.

I don't see any reason why I should bother with SE again, since they aren't improving their ports, charging more for said bad ports and then there's also the glaring factor of them not selling it on the storefront of your choosing. Feels like they've got right back to early 00's in terms of strategy for PC ports. 

Yea I feel as though EGS is partly to blame. It's pretty clear that from FFVIIR port, EGS doesn't care about the quality of the port, just so long as it comes to their platform. And because of this, EGS and SE can just continue to make deals where SE gets to put in little to no effort and EGS will cover their costs even if it doesn't sell.

But regardless of which, it is quite the shame. I like various SE games and I'd rather play them on PC than anywhere else. But if it means I'll have to deal with nonsense, then I might either skip or wait for a deep sale.

S-E didn't need the EGS to launch the smartphone ports of their first Final Fantasy games on PC and call them remakes. So no, it's bot the existence of the EGS that allows Square-Enix to make lazy PC ports as they had been doing that for years.

The lack of real competition in the jRPG scene on PC and the brand name of their IPs is what allows them to keep doing that.

Yeah, that's pretty much been the way of SE for years now, but I'd think that by taking more money from EGS, would further allow SE to just do less and less each time, because now they're getting paid extra just to do less.

EGS isn't a root cause for SE doing worse, but I feel like it's another venue for them to not do any better, because where can they go from this point, if they're getting free cash and not having to improve?.

I know the only way for them to actually improve is to just not buy their games on PC, but from what I've seen over the years on some forums and especially Steam game forums, the die-hard fans won't stop either out of fear or rose tinted glasses (though I see more fear of Jap publishers "pulling away" from PC as some fans like to claim).

We do have some form of competition in the JRPG space, but it's usually from the likes of Capcom and Bamco, but that isn't really much to go on. I honestly don't see there being big enough competition from that space on PC, that would be enough to force SE to get their shit together.

Square-Enix's problem is complacency. They don't need to do better to sell and, therefore, they don't do it. Them getting money from exclusivity deals from Epic only reinforces that attittude, also encouraged by Sony's money from console exclusivities.

Not buying their games will change that attittude, of course, but how can that happen? Game boycots have never worked so the only other reasons to not buy their games are: a) They're so bad no one will want them; b) People get bored of them; or c) There's something newer/better that lures players away from the traditional games.

S-E isn't stupid enough to make games that are that bad and, after 15 FF games and 12 DQ games, people still seem to want more of them. The only option remaining is that someone comes with something else that sparks competition, forcing S-E to get their heads out of their arses. But, who can do that? Bandai-Namco isn't, as their "Tales of" series has been around for a while and couldn't make a dent in FF sales. Capcom doesn't make RPGs (because no, Monster Hunter aren't RPGs) and they haven't showed any signs that this might change in the near future. Sega has Persona, but those games aren't competition to S-E due to its style and gameplay.

So, who else could do it? Well, I can only think of two answers: either none or someone from China. But, for some reason, chinese developers seem more focusaed on MMOs than traditional RPG games.

Yeah, that's what I'm getting at. They won't improve because what's in it for them? (besides earning better rep, which could lead to improved sales and long-term customer retention), and the Epic deals pretty much tell them to continue their current course. 

I feel like them siding with Sony has been a thing since their moving away from Nintendo, all those years ago. 

I still remember when Sony wasn't doing so great during the start of 7th gen, then SE had to actually release their games on Xbox and even do an Xbox style exclusive, but then as soon as Sony brought it back near the end of the gen, SE willingly hopped back on board and has been that way ever since (I also like to think that SE as stupid as they are, are largely Japanese loyal, despite Nintendo also being a Japanese company).

We're at a point in history where bad practices outright thrive for the most part, so I don't ever expect SE to learn from their mistakes and improve anytime soon. I know we cannot enforce that, because there are just too many out there that absolutely "need" to have said games in their lives (I used to be like that for years, but I'm getting older and fed up with being fucked around, and games are luxury products anyway, so I don't need them now and in my life as much these days). 

Sega has Persona, but Atlus isn't being forced by Sega to pander to the PC market proper, and I'm going on a hunch that Atlus don't like PC all that much (because why else are they taking this long and not making the right ports?, it just seems really fishy to me as to why they aren't giving what the fans are asking for, for such a small company).

China is likely going to be the one, if their recent games dev is anything to do by, but I gotta be honest here, their version of competition is them making the same style of games over and over with lots of flashy shiny things happening on the screens (For real, I love hack n' slash, but a lot of these recent action/RPG games from China all look like they want to be DMC and all contain the same flashy and motion blurry/chromatic aberration style games). 

I am not saying EGS is the sole reason but I do think they are partly to blame. Sure Square released smartphone ports onto PC but they did that to other platforms as well. That's just SE being SE. But as far as Optimization is concerned, we haven't had anything as bad as FFVIIR from SE in a long time. FFXV for example, showcased a lot of PC technologies and a good number of SE games has had plenty of PC tech implemented such as DLSS and Ray Tracing with Guardians of the Galaxy and Tomb Raider.

But then you look at FFVIIR, it's like... Where did the PC optimization go? This should have been similar to their FFXV release as FFVIIR has been a pretty huge hit. Yet FFVIIR has regressed back to the age of Nier Automata levels. Now they did have KH which was a goodish port that's also EGS exclusive but what EGS should have done with FFVIIR is play test it and say no, this isn't good enough for what we are paying you before allowing SE to release it in such a state. Instead EGS is allowing terrible ports onto their store front and going forward, I fear that SE might abuse that. Because on Steam, there is no safety blanket... They goof up the port, the customers will hit the refund button, they lose sales. On EGS, they goof up the port, customers get refunded, SE will still make money cause EGS will cover the difference.

I recently discovered that EGS is allowing asset flipped UE games onto their store, and after seeing the amount of games release on PC via their exclusivity and being buggy/a mess at launch, I think it's safe to say that EGS doesn't care what shape a game is in when it arrives onto their store, just as long as Steam/GoG aren't allowed to get it first, which also seems to fit with SE, since they regress here and there with their ports. 

Also funny how they mentioned in the past about "passing the savings onto the consumer", and then there's SE trying to charge 70 for a barebones VII port. 

They originally stated that they wanted to have a curated store, but now 3 yrs later, I don't think that's the case at all.

I know I'm a negative nancy when it comes to EGS, but man, I just want one player in the PC space to actually stand up and go "yo fam, stop making shit ports on PC and get some standards", and no one has done that so far (GoG only slightly, but that happens when you're found with DRM in your games and they simply say "nope" to your game being allowed on their storefront, but that's about it). 

Also, I just wanna point out that EG originally said that "it's the devs that will win this outcome, not the customers", so them not kicking up a fuss with SE's bad port quality, higher prices and devs like Ooblets shitting all over customers, is something EG's gets behind and fits their viewpoint.

Yea pretty much. It's been almost a month now since the issues have been discovered and reported to SE yet... Still no patch! We really are back to Nier Automata era...