BasilZero said:
outlawauron said:
Basil, here we have a fundamental disagreement. I think the constant focus and outpour of resources into ports and re-releases for little profits is poor. Because it's taking away from what could be far more profitable and ambitious ventures. Square's output of new IPs (or really just not re-released content) has gone down so considerably and I believe it's hurt the company in some ways. The overreliance on their core fanbase to rebuy their content is a delicate balance that weighing too heavy into milking IMO. Square has done wonderful work with many of their remakes, but a lot of the recent content has been subpar.
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Of course we disagree. Because I dont think a AAA publisher like SE is struggling because they had skeleton crew size teams making ports and releasing them with premium prices be the reason why the company is where it is.
Its not because of ports that it took them 10 years to make one game, its not because of ports that they failed one MMO and had to re-build it from the start, its not because of ports that they make poor management and development decisions to decide on making useless spinoff titles that no one asked for like Final Fantasy Explorers and Dragon Quest builders. I'm pretty damn sure it isnt because of ports that led to the decision to create two sequels to a heavily criticized entry in the Final Fantasy series.
I'm gonna say this the nicest way I can - unless you can provide me actual proof that these ports are the main reasons why the above happened and why the company is where it is now - I am still going to think you are blaming ports only because they are being released on other platforms other than your preferred platform. Which is fine I guess - I mean I was like that too few years ago too , so I understand.
If what you say is true and that the profits are poor - why do they keep insisting on releasing and re-releasing these ports to other platforms rather than making new games, or should I say the new games that took them years and years to make - and kept on getting delayed and making promises that they cant even keep like the stupid FFXV release date event back in March?
SE's output of new IPs have been down since their merger between Squaresoft and Enix - its not because of ports - its becauses of poor management and development decisions which is why where SE is where it is now.
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You're coming across pretty hostile here Basil. 
I'm not blaming the ports for any of their failures or recent missteps. I'm saying that the focus on easy content instead of new content has been a poor decision. It's a byproduct of the same poor management we agree about. It's a financially sound one because you can get good return, but nothing more is gained than that. Strawmanning me as a butthurt fanboy because they're releasing ports of games on mobile/PC is insulting. I think you're being way too unfair to DQ Builders and FF Explorers, because both are different types of games that Square usually makes. I applaud them for branching out and both look to be pretty fun.
I already said that the ports are financially sound decisions, but they're just guaranteed to have modest returns while requiring very little efforts (although there was a point when the re-releases were far more meaningful and had good changes). It's not hard to sell easy profits to investors and a BOD. The amount of original content has been steadily decreasing and it was a bit after the merger because the PS2 generation definitely had some good stuff from SE. I do like the SE Collective and hopefully they can find a great new project from there.
