Square Enix shutters the studio behind Forspoken
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On the topic of Final Fantasy XIV- another failure to this degree will likely destroy the company
Was that a lie, or did XIV's amazing turnaround give them leeway again? Either way, their executives haven't learned shit.
Edit: oh hey, they're firing the president. MAYBE they'll course correct?
https://twitter.com/RPGSite/status/1631538950279135238
That news is a decade old. A Realm Reborn, the rebranded version of FFXIV, launched in 2013 with resounding success. That success has been largely consistent to this date. Forspoken isn't a catastrophic failure. Square Enix knew Forspoken would not be well received, which is why it was relegated to a studio that was essentially disposable. The decision to shutter the studio this soon after the game's release is an admission The Message™️ isn't a sustainable business model.
I know that remark is old. I was one of the people that actually played FFXIV 1.0. And it's not just Forspoken being a flop. It's an entire physics engine that they made themselves and only used for TWO games. (FFXV and Forspoken). And then there's Crystal Dynamics and the failure that was Marvel's Avengers. They may have finally sold off CD, but the absolute failure of Avengers is still a red mark on their ledger.
I don't think we've seen the last of the Luminous Engine. Although XVI utilized Unreal in its earlier stages, many people seem to think the final product will utilize Luminous. I doubt SE would let it go to waste. As far Crystal Dynamics goes, their history of mistakes is as old as the company itself. I'm sure they fully intended to push The Message™️ with the Avengers game. I'll give SE the benefit of the doubt and assume they just wanted to capitalize on the popularity of the Avengers franchise at the time. That's why they were looking for another sucker to offload CD to after the game flopped.
I played XIV recently up to the latest content, cleared all current savage raids and was appaled that they only release 4 encounters every 8 months. Vast majority of the player base seem to be just using this as a roleplay hub. I know it has a lot of side activities but I'm still surprised how it supposedly has so many active subs year-round.
They're making good content. But it's still a long grind. I couldn't keep subbing having reached what was the furthest point at the time, and didn't buy the next expansions from there. I'm sure I could have a couple more months of fun if I get the next expansions from where I left off (Shadowbringers and Endwalker), but once I reach meta, it's back to the boring grind.
YoshiP did really awesome shit to not only revive XIV, but turn it into an amazing experience that's still going. He's the biggest reason I haven't completely written off SquareEnix as a developer.
It's worth playing through the last two expansions just to see the story wrap up. Felt like a good finale to everything that was built up. Just don't bother with the end game stuff, quit after you've finished Endwalker's story. The Nier raids are worth seeing once too, but you can use the Duty Finder for those.
The Endwalker post-plot stuff is the FFIV antagonists. If I come back and get that far, I'm DEFINITELY going through that.
FFXIV is a game that actually diversifies its content and end-game raiding is not be all end all.
As someone who spent several years playing FFXI, I have zero faith in SE's executives to do anything other than follow their own whims, consequences be damned. They do not listen and they do not learn. All evidence to the contrary is happenstance or deceit.
Maybe.. they think ff14 became successful because trannies like it.