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Will FF14 Help Revive the Final Fantasy IP?
JustARandomPanda
Member Posts: 61
I've been musing about this for some time and was curious to hear what other gamers think.
Not too long ago I had a conversation wherein the general consensus among the participants was that the Final Fantasy IP in the West was an IP on the decline - possibly quite steep decline - if it hasn't sunk to niche status already. The main thing I remember with the last FF is the venom directed at - and correspondingly fewer sales - FF13 and FF13-2 generated than prior FFs. And it seems each new FF singleplayer title over the years had sold less and less. The only thing that saved it's bacon sales-wise from being a dismal financial failure was being the first FF singleplayer that was multiplatform.
In fact...now that I think about it...the huge threads on various game websites I frequented sound identical to what I see at MMORPG. About how JRPGs have grown stale (sound familiar?). They're always the same old same old and NA and European gamers are increasingly weary of the jrpg formula with tweaks around the edges (sound familiar?) and it's been reflected in declining playerbase moving on to different games (sound familiar?). Long threads I remember on exactly these complaints lodged against jrpgs at sites like IGN, Gamespot, etc. Reminds me of the years of similar threads at MMORPG bitching and moaning the exact same kind of stagnation happening in mmos (until the last 2 years).
Anyway...back to my point. Move forward a few years. Yoshi mentions MS this time around refused to grant SE an exception to their Live policies and so as a result FF14 won't be available on XBoxOne. Sales of FF used to be such that MS felt they'd better be nice to SE (back in the day) so they made an exception for FF11 that they won't for FF14. Sales have declined so much for the IP that MS confidently stood its ground and told SE you play by our Live rules like all the other publishers (something I doubt they'd have done if all FF games still pulled in sales figures like each Call of Duty does) or you don't publish for XBox One at all. So SE walked away. I doubt MS is feeling they've made a financially stupid decision in not backing down on their stance to SE.
So here's the thing. FF14 - from what I can tell - seems to be selling reasonably well. I tried to pre-order the disc-based version of the Collector's Edition only to find out it's been sold out - or at least it has at the places I've tried to pre-order from. Now granted - this is only anecdotal evidence. I'm not trying to say that my city is typical for all cities in Europe and NA. But I do recall SE publishing something about over a million people (maybe more?) had applied to be a beta tester for FF14.
Clearly there seems to be at least some remaining enthusiasm for the FF brand. But I'm wondering if the people enthused about playing an online FF game are as niche or perhaps even more niche in number than the overall Star Wars fanbase. And we all saw what happened when SWTOR finally was released and out of any kind of "beta".
Will a positive experience playing FF14 - or reports of a positive experience to your non-MMO gamer friends - lead to increased sales of FF games and/or it's spin-offs elsewhere ? I wonder if it could help revive the brand? Does it even need reviving?
p.s. BTW - I am not the only one who's wondered about this. USGamer had an article wherein all the editors discussed whether the Final Fantasy IP is dead (with dead for the editors equalling "niche" sales and it's days as a multi-million dollar game burning up sales charts long since over).
Playing Now: The Secret World, Guild Wars 2, Neverwinter
Playing soon: Landmark beta, Swordman beta
Comments
The Final Fantasy IP is needing reviving? lol?
I must have missed that memo. Probably because I was playing Final Fantasy.
oh...wait.
The Deep Web is sca-ry.
I think it could help some, just by brand recognition and all. I remember FFX (one of my favorites) and XII (another one) and how much I loved them, but my good friend loved X and -hated- XII. Mind you, this is the person who introduced me to the series back when it first hit the SNES and who played them all faithfully up until then. The gambit system really drove him away (for reasons he still can't quantify, its just a visceral thing that I think comes down to turn-based versus more active). He didn't care much for XIII either, but it was a small improvement on XII he thought. He didn't like the characters in XIII much, where I liked most of them.
IOW, I think that FF's problems may stem from those who prefer turn-based play of 'older' FF games not liking the newer ones near as much because of Active Battle (which personally I prefer). Of course, I fully recognize this is anecdotal and our experience may be unlike anyone else's, but I seldom consider any one person to be the only person to ever experience, well, anything. I can't think he's the only person who was turned off over time by the game being less and less able to be enjoyed in a turn-based take-your-time style.
Just my thoughts. OTOH, we're both reallllly looking forward to XIV. Its our first online FF, so we have really high hopes.
The FF brand is still the envy of many companies.
14 ARR will add another element to it, as an Online game that doesn't focus on group only questing and content. It's an aspect of gaming, no less and not much more.
They need to focus more on the single stories rather than branching off.
FFXIII-2 was a success, XIII-3 will sell a lot also, but myself and most others would rather them have stuck to just FFXIII. I personally dislike having Lightning shoved down my throat in 4 separate games. Sorry SE, she's not the next Cloud.
FFXV (sigh) Should be FFXIII Versus just as it was told to us before the launch of the PS3. This game should not be a numbered FF. It should be a branch off, as it's an action rpg.
The long-term money in games is in MMOs. FFXI is the most profitable game SE/Square Soft/Enix ever produced. Which could explain the lack of (I guess you could say) originality in the traditional FF series. They're funneling all the talent to FFXIV and FFXI instead of their bread and butter.
I'm tired of spin offs. I miss the days of the hundred hour adventures that once you finish, YOU FINISH. I don't need a spin off of ff12, 2 spin offs of ff13, nor did anyone need a ff10-2.
The final fantasy name is tarnished.
The only thing I would say to the above is that I remember SE announcing all 3 games (actually 4 if you count the Japan-Only FF Type 0) were already in production prior to any of the games being released - including prior to FF13's release. Mainly so they could all share assets and hopefully reduce costs. The entire series of games was dubbed Final Fantasy Fabula Nova Crystalis and all were to be set within the same world - albeit in different eras. Except FF15 isn't in the same "world" anymore (from what I can tell) as the rest of the Fabula Nova games even though it's retained that name for marketing purposes.
I wondered whether FF14 could help make the FF IP a multi-million dollar seller again the way games like Call of Duty regularly are. I don't think any of the games starting with FF9 onward have ever matched the heights the IP sales reached on the PS1. It's been a long, slow slide downward ever since - with FF13 Fabula Nova games selling the least of all of them. As I recall even FF12 outsold FF13.
But you may be right about MMO gameplay being so different even if it were a surprise dark horse hit it would not be enough to deliver equivalent sales records for FF15 and beyond.
Playing Now: The Secret World, Guild Wars 2, Neverwinter
Playing soon: Landmark beta, Swordman beta
Playing Now: The Secret World, Guild Wars 2, Neverwinter
Playing soon: Landmark beta, Swordman beta
After 15 I dont think final fantasy is ever going back to turn based combat for the single player games.
The 1.0 version of FFXIV sold 600k copies. FFXI had a consistent 300-500k sub count for years.
This goes back to my original point though in the opening post. The only thing that saved FF13's financial-bacon was the fact it was multi-platform. Had it not also sold on the 360 it would have sold less...not more. FF12 was never available on the original XBox so it isn't comparing apples to apples to point out it sold less than FF13. You'd need to erase all those 360 sales for FF13 and the sequels to get a truer picture of the financial health of the IP.
I do stand corrected however about the bit on FF10. It seems there was an uptick over all - at least from FF10 to FF13. So maybe that is a good sign.
Playing Now: The Secret World, Guild Wars 2, Neverwinter
Playing soon: Landmark beta, Swordman beta
just think, after ff7 square really is having a hard time to make a good FF, FF8 was ok, FF9 weak, FF10 ok, but mostly because the blits ball mini game there (I consider it the best mini game in FF, then they crap the mini game on FF10-2, make me wonder what they hell tehy have on they head to do that?) then come FF11 who is online and it take the game back to FF5 class ideas and use all IP can offer, but then it became old, FF12 is weak, serious played it once and not even cared to replay it because it so random its not fun, then they made FF13 then the main char is pretty much a feminine version of cloud (cloud - lightning pretty original.....) with again the gameplay remember more romancing saga then a FF game, then they make FF14 with from what I played is also weak, and too slow for my taste, the craft before they remade it was more interesting then it is now.
pretty much what i'm saying is FF series is having a serious problem to let the past go and think on new things, new gamplay things not graphics, what I see now is they are spending too much time and effort on graphics and not gameplay, it also remember me the dragon warrior IP, DW7 have all good things on that series and the graphics was much like a Snes game, pretty simple, just better quality overall, but the gameplay was a certain 100hours jsut to finish the game plus whatever else you wanted to hunt for the extra dungeon, then they made DW8 all graphics, and they cut off the class change system to favor the graphics, playing a dragon warrior game without dharma temple is annoying to say the least plus it was a hell lot shorter possible spend 24 hours on it.
really I don't think we will ever have games like we had back then, right now is just graphics, soon we will not be playing games just reading graphics novel....
They didn't need reviving at all.
FFXIV 1.0 just needed a cure II spell.
Played-Everything
Playing-LoL
Didnt realize it needed to be revived...
there are 3 final fantasy titles coming out this year. 14,13-2 and 15. Sounds like its doing fine.
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Life... is the shit that happens while you wait for moments that never come - Lester Freeman
Lie to no one. If there 's somebody close to you, you'll ruin it with a lie. If they're a stranger, who the fuck are they you gotta lie to them? - Willy Nelson
I tend to agree that SE lost its way with FF13 and that the series is in some trouble. They are at the point where all they want to do is have pretty cinematics and graphics while the actual gameplay and writing are pure crap.
JRGs are very much on the way to becoming niche as the following figures show:
FF 13-2 released December 2011 - 3 million sales
Skyrim released November 2011 - over 10 million sales
FF13 itself sold pretty well, but the more telling number is the follow-up sales which have been dismal. A lot of people found the game to be crap and won't touch anything else with the same logo.
In the last few years ultra linear games with bad writing are on the decline. People want open worlds where they can choose their own adventures and ways to play as well as utilize Modding tools to create unlimited content.
Until SE stops developing rail-RPGs that don't even have good writing then the series will continue to decline. That said if anyone can make a comeback it is certainly FF as it is one of the few franchises that has a near religous level of zeal from its fans.
Final Fantasy XIII was one of the best selling Final Fantasies sense Final Fantasy VII, and it even sold better then it in here in the United States, the sequel did respectable considering how much lower budget and time was spent on it.
The Final Fantasy series does not really need "reviving" it is just not as massive popular here in the United States as it is in Japan. Final Fantasy 6-14 have been mass successes in Japan, and mild/smash successes in the United States/Europe, I do agree they need to try and open the games up a little.
I believe Final Fantasy 14 may give them the pull on some new players that would be needed to get them to play Final Fantasy titles, because a lot of Final Fantasy fans are fans from playing Final Fantasy 2 or Final Fantasy 7, which I will be the first to admit until 13 those 2 stood leaps and bounds above the others, 8/9/10/12 were all much worse then what I expect out of them. (This is all opinion of course.)
Revive?
/checks FF sales in the 8 years
I don't think that word means what you think it means....
I wish it would revert to turn based, I hated 12's combat. Ironically, FF can be different by staying the same; what other turn based games are there? I feel that besides summoned monsters, each sequel doesn't relate at all. SE just sells different IP's under one brand. The series is losing popularity because players like myself seek more of that classic FF formula, not Devil May Cry/God of War/WoW packaged as FF15 & 14.
I say keep the seriousness of 6-8, & 12, incorporate more of 1 & 4's medievalness, and scrap 9's Disney quality.
I hope it means more PC releases of FF :P.
But honestly it might. If it reaches near wow levels. Which I doubt.