Hey FF Marketing Team, remember the old days?

[Transatlantic Ace]

Quote:

Final Fantasy IX was announced and developed in tandem with Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy XI. This three-pronged marketing effort was intended to provide gamers with the promise of three upcoming games of varied style and gameplay: an intentionally retro RPG in Final Fantasy IX, a smoother evolution in style and design in Final Fantasy X, and an online experience in Final Fantasy XI.

Reading this got me thinking, wouldn't it be interesting/good if Square Enix came forward and said "Hey, we're working on game x, y, z and this is what we plan to do."; general enough to not let the cat out of the bag, but informative enough to A)let us know some info B)give us three different games to look forward to for three different reasons.

I'm kinda over the the obsession of FFXIII. Game was alright, but I don't quite understand the need for endless sequels and DLC. As for FF Versus XIII, while it is in a somewhat different category than FFXIII, it's still having issues of a possible release date, information, and progress.

[Cupcakesu]

Transatlantic Airship

I'm kinda over the the obsession of FFXIII. Game was alright, but I don't quite understand the need for endless sequels and DLC. As for FF Versus XIII, while it is in a somewhat different category than FFXIII, it's still having issues of a possible release date, information, and progress.

gaia_angelleft yum_puddi gaia_angelright




XIII's development was rather long (4 years) and cost quite a damn lot of money to make because they created an engine they had plans to use for their upcoming games (XIII included). Also, the sheer amount of content that was created and cut was so large that it was, supposedly, enough to make a whole other game. They needed to make use of what they invested money into, so they created a sequel to reuse assets. This cut costs in XIII-2 so much that despite its much lower sales numbers, it still produced good profits. And if a XIII-3 is to come out, it will likely reuse assets also.

Another possible reason is that they're filling the gap while Versus is still in development, and making another XIII game is certainly cheaper and faster than creating an entirely new entry because they don't need to design anything from the ground up.

The DLC was an experiment. So many other game companies are incorporating DLC into their products, and it's obviously working out for them. Square Enix tried the same thing, and clearly it made them a lot of money. However Toriyama has already acknowledged that many people had problems with the DLC in XIII-2 and they're considering what to do about that. The obvious solution would be "cut DLC altogether" but Square Enix is a company and DLC is easy money.

But anyway, back to the actual topic... sweatdrop

Their main problem, especially with Versus, is that they announce things far too early. Many people believe Versus has been in development for 6 years, when in reality it has hardly been 4. That's because they didn't begin work on Versus until 2008, and it didn't hit full production until 2010. If they had either been vague with its announcement (saying they had 3 games in the work rather than being specific and showing fancy CGI trailers) or even just left out Versus entirely until recently, no one would have a problem with it.

[Ephemeral_Dream]

I agree, they announced it way too early. I remember being in sixth grade and being all exited about it. I'm in college now.

[Kuja9113]

Cupcakesu

Many people believe Versus has been in development for 6 years, when in reality it has hardly been 4. That's because they didn't begin work on Versus until 2008, and it didn't hit full production until 2010.

See now, I don't buy that. If a company begins work on a project, it's in production. And if a company rarely, but consecutively updates the news and shows off new trailers over a six year time lapse, it was never not in production. If they choose not to prioritize, then that's their prerogative. And if they feel that not placing one of their most anticipated titles into what they consider 'full production' for the first 4-5 years of its life cycle is an intelligent business strategy, then they're welcome to do it. But that doesn't mean the game hasn't been in production for at least six years. Seven being the more likely number and that's with some pretty generous assumptions.

[klebold]

Sequels of sequels is the lamest idea that has ever come into the Gaming Industry, I laughed when I heard X-2 because I was like, okay why not just call it 11? Oh because it's the only one with a connected storyline, well in that case, just give it a separate name instead of "2" then maybe? No? You suck? Yea?

FFXIII should have been renamed "Press X" and I feel bad for any new generation gamer who's first Final Fantasy game was 13 or 13-2 because they have no idea how awesome the earlier FF games were, and never will because of the substantial graphic differences. Not to mention, every non FF player who's tried out FF13 has asked "Do I need to play the other ones first?"

[Super Stardom]

klebold

Sequels of sequels is the lamest idea that has ever come into the Gaming Industry, I laughed when I heard X-2 because I was like, okay why not just call it 11? Oh because it's the only one with a connected storyline, well in that case, just give it a separate name instead of "2" then maybe? No? You suck? Yea?

FFXIII should have been renamed "Press X" and I feel bad for any new generation gamer who's first Final Fantasy game was 13 or 13-2 because they have no idea how awesome the earlier FF games were, and never will because of the substantial graphic differences. Not to mention, every non FF player who's tried out FF13 has asked "Do I need to play the other ones first?"

That how you feel?

[Raidus]

Square-Enix needs to stop fiddling around FF13 and focus on FFv13, and release FF15 and KH3, or another new RPG game.

[Cupcakesu]

Raidus

Square-Enix needs to stop fiddling around FF13 and focus on FFv13, and release FF15 and KH3, or another new RPG game.

gaia_angelleft yum_puddi gaia_angelright




Fiddling with XIII will not detract attention from Versus XIII because Nomura and his team head Versus and Toriyama and his team head XIII. KH3 ain't happening until Versus is done because Nomura heads KH. Other RPG games ARE in the works, such as BD:FF for the 3DS. Which looks pretty damn awesome~

Kuja9113

See now, I don't buy that. If a company begins work on a project, it's in production. And if a company rarely, but consecutively updates the news and shows off new trailers over a six year time lapse, it was never not in production. If they choose not to prioritize, then that's their prerogative. And if they feel that not placing one of their most anticipated titles into what they consider 'full production' for the first 4-5 years of its life cycle is an intelligent business strategy, then they're welcome to do it. But that doesn't mean the game hasn't been in production for at least six years. Seven being the more likely number and that's with some pretty generous assumptions.

It was all just pretty movie CGI when it was announced. Nothing seen was even remotely playable until that one minor gameplay trailer in 2010. Hell even XIII didn't have a clue what it was doing when we first saw it in 2006. It took them over a year to come up with a clear vision of what they wanted to do at all, and then from there they had to rush things together. News between 2006 and 2010 for Versus was nothing more than Nomura talking about concepts and plans as well. So I don't, in fact, find it difficult to believe that they had only just started then.

[xx Cookie-Boots xx]

I miss when we got new entries in the series instead of sequels, spin-offs, and MMOs.

klebold

Sequels of sequels is the lamest idea that has ever come into the Gaming Industry, I laughed when I heard X-2 because I was like, okay why not just call it 11? Oh because it's the only one with a connected storyline, well in that case, just give it a separate name instead of "2" then maybe? No? You suck? Yea?

FFXIII should have been renamed "Press X" and I feel bad for any new generation gamer who's first Final Fantasy game was 13 or 13-2 because they have no idea how awesome the earlier FF games were, and never will because of the substantial graphic differences. Not to mention, every non FF player who's tried out FF13 has asked "Do I need to play the other ones first?"

Every time I hear FFXIII = Press X, I die inside.
You could easily argue the same thing about any installment in the series with the memory command, tbh.
Besides, paradigm shifting.

And the graphics thing emotion_facepalm
Starting with a later installment =/= graphics snob.

[Transatlantic Ace]

Cupcakesu

XIII's development was rather long (4 years) and cost quite a damn lot of money to make because they created an engine they had plans to use for their upcoming games (XIII included). Also, the sheer amount of content that was created and cut was so large that it was, supposedly, enough to make a whole other game. They needed to make use of what they invested money into, so they created a sequel to reuse assets. This cut costs in XIII-2 so much that despite its much lower sales numbers, it still produced good profits. And if a XIII-3 is to come out, it will likely reuse assets also.

Not to be rude, or come off as mean, but is that truth or speculation?

I have a hard time believing that Square Enix (in one form or another), who has been making games since '84 and Final Fantasy since '87 didn't know how much content was needed for a Final Fantasy game.... and made so much that an entire game ended up on the cutting room floor or in storage somewhere. Seems like a rookie mistake.

A bakery owner knows how much eggs, milk, and oil go in a cake.

[Transatlantic Ace]

xx Cookie-Boots xx

I miss when we got new entries in the series instead of sequels, spin-offs, and MMOs.

I kinda agree and disagree on your first two points.

I always get excited when a new main entry is announced.

But if I love a game a lot (FFX), then I'm excited when a sequel/spin-off is announced. However, FF7's spin offs did get a little out of control.

As for MMOs, I agree completely. I'll never be the person who will want to buy a game, pay a monthly fee, then pay for all the expansions. Which is sad because being a fan of FF, I'd want to play them all.

[Raemyi]

I don't remember the IX/X/XI marketing campaign, but isn't that *kind of* what they were going for with Fabula Nova Crystallis by having XIII, VS XIII, and Agito XIII being three distinctly different experiences? I mean, it kind of got messed up in that they're all going to come out at different times, but the *idea* was there, even if it fell to pieces. sweatdrop

Again, I'm not totally certain about the similarities/differences because the IX/X/XI thing went totally under my radar at the time, and I have no way to verify that such a marketing scheme even existed. The actual release dates were about a year or two apart, weren't they?

[Temmy]

Transatlantic Airship

Cupcakesu

XIII's development was rather long (4 years) and cost quite a damn lot of money to make because they created an engine they had plans to use for their upcoming games (XIII included). Also, the sheer amount of content that was created and cut was so large that it was, supposedly, enough to make a whole other game. They needed to make use of what they invested money into, so they created a sequel to reuse assets. This cut costs in XIII-2 so much that despite its much lower sales numbers, it still produced good profits. And if a XIII-3 is to come out, it will likely reuse assets also.

Not to be rude, or come off as mean, but is that truth or speculation?

I have a hard time believing that Square Enix (in one form or another), who has been making games since '84 and Final Fantasy since '87 didn't know how much content was needed for a Final Fantasy game.... and made so much that an entire game ended up on the cutting room floor or in storage somewhere. Seems like a rookie mistake.

A bakery owner knows how much eggs, milk, and oil go in a cake.

Sure, they pretty much admitted themselves that FFXIII's development was less than ideal.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/30640/Exclusive_Behind_The_Scenes_of_Square_Enixs_Final_Fantasy_XIII.php

I don't know if there's a postmortem about FFXIII-2 floating around somewhere, but Cupcakesu's probably got that covered. razz

SE clearly has problems with managing in-house large-scale projects that include hundreds of people working on a single title. I'm not sure if Wada's recent announcement of out-sourcing more manpower will make them that much more productive though.
A comparison to their games done in the 80s and 90s does not work because development for modern AAA titles is just too different from the industry as it was back then. Plus if you suddenly add more people mid-development to hurry things along, you get problems such as Brooks' law.

edit: I know it says Brooks' law doesn't apply if you add people early enough during development, but not having finalized many core parts of the game up until they forced to do so for the demo is definitely on the "WTF were you guys doing" scale

[Cupcakesu]

Transatlantic Airship

Cupcakesu

XIII's development was rather long (4 years) and cost quite a damn lot of money to make because they created an engine they had plans to use for their upcoming games (XIII included). Also, the sheer amount of content that was created and cut was so large that it was, supposedly, enough to make a whole other game. They needed to make use of what they invested money into, so they created a sequel to reuse assets. This cut costs in XIII-2 so much that despite its much lower sales numbers, it still produced good profits. And if a XIII-3 is to come out, it will likely reuse assets also.

Not to be rude, or come off as mean, but is that truth or speculation?

I have a hard time believing that Square Enix (in one form or another), who has been making games since '84 and Final Fantasy since '87 didn't know how much content was needed for a Final Fantasy game.... and made so much that an entire game ended up on the cutting room floor or in storage somewhere. Seems like a rookie mistake.

A bakery owner knows how much eggs, milk, and oil go in a cake.

gaia_angelleft yum_puddi gaia_angelright




I'll bold things that were stated as facts in the quote.

It's not that they didn't know how much content was needed, it's that XIII was development hell and they didn't really have much of an idea of what they wanted to do. And in the end, they needed to accommodate disc space as well. The current XIII as we know it is already 3 XBox discs and almost a full blu-ray. So many things, such as a portion of Bodhum and Lightning's House, a resistance base for NORA, and a zoo in Nautilus were cut. Also, Serah was supposed to be playable in earlier concepts of XIII and that was cut as well due to development issues.

Random article (of many) reporting this: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/97532-Mounds-of-Content-Cut-from-Final-Fantasy-XIII

Also tack on what Temmy said. And in terms of a XIII-2 postmortem, I'm pretty sure I posted those a few pages back in the XIII Sticky. But just for conversation's sake...

Cut areas: http://squareportal.net/2012/07/16/final-fantasy-xiii-2-cancelled-environments-areas-and-dlc-plans/

Scrapped XIII-2 concepts (this is rather interesting): http://squareportal.net/2012/07/06/new-final-fantasy-xiii-2-ultimania-omega-scenario-details/

[REGINA SPEKT0R]

Someone mentioned KH3, and I'm too lazy to quote it but whatever.

Here's why KH3 will fail:
Having taken too long on the development, the generation that played and enjoyed Kingdom Hearts as tweens/teenagers have now grown up, and when KH3 is released, yeah, half of us will buy it, half of those will enjoy it. In the meantime, like three side games have been released, and most people haven't kept up with them. Then, when they introduce all the s**t from BBS into KH3 people will be like "what? why did I have to buy another handheld system to understand the third game in a trilogy?" and then burn down Square HQ.