Square Enix’s past with MMOs can be summed up a such: Final Fantasy XI was released and still trucks along well to this day. Fantasy Earth Zero was launched, died a quick death, and was revived by another company only to die again just this year. Final Fantasy XIV, however, is where the story gets interesting. Still reeling from its own launch, FFXIV has yet to institute subscriptions and has no timetable for doing so. The PS3 version has been delayed indefinitely with no release in sight. Finally, Square Enix’s upcoming MMO…hold the phone, upcoming MMO? One moment please.
And we’re back. Yes, folks, Square Enix is working on a third MMO, according to their most recent earnings report. The game is set to be announced this fiscal year, which means this article is essentially show boating and a reason to incorporate Tough Guys Don’t Dance into MMO Fallout.
There is good news, non-Final Fantasy fans. The MMO will be a different IP, it appears, meaning it could be anything from Dragon Quest to Thief, Kingdom Hearts, or more (personally I’m rooting for Snoopy’s Red Baron MMO). More on this title as it appears.
As per my own rules, I try to keep the product sales relegated to digital distribution, mainly because considering retail giants would require me to either include stores from a number of countries, increasing the sources I have to regularly check, or just not include any at all. So, in the effort of fairness, I only include worldwide digital distributors (Direct2Drive, Steam, Impulse, etc). For those of you living in the US, which I know for sure includes some of you, you could find Final Fantasy XIV at Target on a price cut for $39.99. I almost purchased it at the store I work at, but the item has been out of stock for weeks.
While browsing Target.com, I went to see if the website had the same price cut, and found the above image. Although Final Fantasy XIV is available on the Target website, the chain is no longer stocking the item in stores. Now, I’m sure half of you will tell me it was due to poor sales, but (at least at my store) when they reduced the price by $10 the store ran out of stock in the matter of a couple of days.
After checking Target’s website, I went on to check Walmart.com, which also listed both Final Fantasy and its collector’s edition as “not sold in stores.” Other websites I checked including Gamestop and Best Buy all seemed to have the title in stores, so as far as large chains go this appears to be isolated to Target and WalMart, but no doubt two of the largest retail giants in America.
Either way, advertising and promotion is key in MMOs, the lack of which almost killed titles like Dungeons and Dragons Online (and sent Turbine launching a lawsuit against their publisher), and Square Enix just lost a big line of publicity with Final Fantasy XIV no longer on the shelves of two retail giants in a time where what they could really use is some players picking up the game.
I know at least one person will eventually reply with “Um, Omali, it’s technically buy to play not free to play, as you’d still need to buy the client.” Final Fantasy XIV players are coming upon November 22nd, when early adopters will start hitting the end of their second free month of game time. Just this week, Square Enix announced that Final Fantasy XIV would receive yet another extension on their free time, giving a total of three free months (two if you don’t count the free month included with purchase).
As Casey Schreiner pointed out on the G4TV MMO Report this past week, as Square Enix has a patch coming that will hopefully fix a lot of the issues, but that patch isn’t set to come until early 2011, players are likely to see a few more free months added to their game time. Until then, Final Fantasy XIV is technically a free to play title. Remember, if you buy Final Fantasy XIV and register your character before…no, that was the 19th. Never mind.
More on Final Fantasy XIV as it shuffles lazily into our path.
Being a business oriented website just wouldn’t be business oriented without the fun task of, what else, reading financial reports, and even more so reporting on those figures when they are released. The most fun one can have on a Monday afternoon.
In Square Enix’s latest earnings forecast for 2010, the company lowered its expected sales by 10.5%, or $99 million USD. Net income, a fancy term for what you got after costs and taxes are factored, dropped by almost 30%, or by $8.7 million USD. This forecast, dated for April to September months, is lower than 2009’s figures for the same period.
Despite what several Final Fantasy fanboys may tell you, from behind the barrel of a pistol, the past few games have sold exceptionally well, with Final Fantasy XII being one of the fastest selling games in the UK of 2010. Granted, Final Fantasy XIV received about as equally negative praise as entering a PETA conference dressed in Lady Gaga’s meat outfit, but the financial report cited a loss on sale of property and equipment as being part of the revision as well as slower growth in sales.
And…cue the claims that Final Fantasy XIV is going to bankrupt Square Enix!
私の時は広場Enixについて話してください 私が 通常 言及して ファイナルファンタジーXIVが多分どのように日本で素晴らしいことをするかに. Sorry, I left my translator on. That being said, however, Japan has always been the primary consumer of Final Fantasy-based goods, and holds a considerable stake in the Final Fantasy XI community. So when I say Final Fantasy XIV will do great…in Japan, I don’t mean to imply that the title will do poorly here in the West, but that there will be a considerable divide in purchases.
You can imagine my surprise when I was tipped off that Amazon.co.jp already has Final Fantasy XIV listed at 28% off. Not only that, but the reviews put the title at a 1.5 star rating, with 78 out of 98 reviews being a one star. Eighty reviewers, a public opinion does not make, but from the information I could scrape off of Google’s poor translation, the sentiments were very similar in each.
So either Amazon.jp has been blitzed by a wave of disgruntled early adopters, or my sentiment that Japanese players would be more willing to put up with Square Enix’s square wheel methodology was incorrect. As a reminder, the Square Wheel methodology is how I imagine Square’s development techniques. They take a square wheel and innovate on it, making it one of the best looking wheels on the market, the craftsmanship is just stunning, and you would buy it in an instant, but it is a wheel…that is square. It could have the best traction in the world, and it is still a square wheel. Driving becomes so much of a pain in the rear that it ruins the rest of the experience. The wheel is square because square wheels are different, but not different in a good way, different in an “I’m going ten miles an hour, tops, and the bumping is causing the rest of my car to fall apart, but otherwise my car is a sex machine,” different.
I like Final Fantasy XIV, and I would love it if they would change some unfriendly mechanics. Square Enix is like the friend with a great personality that you don’t hang out with because he pierced his nose with a giant metal rod, just to be different, in complete opposition to the rest of his personality. He needs to be taught that there are more relevant ways for him to be different.
More Final Fantasy XIV analogies as they pop up. Big thanks to Wiezard over on the MMORPG.com forums for the tip.
Playing Final Fantasy XIV requires a base $9.99 monthly fee plus $3 per character, leaving you with a $12.99 monthly cost assuming you only create one character (and with the ability to be all classes, there is no need for a second character, quite frankly). Assuming most of the visitors to MMO Fallout have played a subscription based MMO before, many of you are likely assuming “well, I’ll just put in my credit card info, and set myself up for the monthly charges.” You would be completely wrong.
Rather than going for a traditional subscription system, Square is instead running a Square-Bucks system, also known as Crysta, that is used for everything from account services, to planned cash shop items, to your subscription. Of course, proprietary cash system means what else, but forced increment purchases. In this case, you can only purchase Crysta in $5, $10, $20, $30, $50, or $100 purchases, making you fork over fifteen dollars for a twelve dollar subscription, so that three of it may go to…consider it a savings account. Your alternative is to pay through a company called Click and Buy, although depending on who you ask, the company’s reputation is rather dubious for unauthorized charges.
Those of you who played Final Fantasy XI and are returning for XIV are likely asking, since when was Square Enix ever about convenience for their customers? If the lack of an auction house, non-functioning patcher, fatigue system, and leve limits, weren’t a clue, all one has to do is look at the twenty hour bosses in Final Fantasy XI.
Don’t get me wrong, Final Fantasy XIV will do great…in Japan, where Final Fantasy sells like Fanta in the Sahara, but will likely remain a niche title in the West. The problem doesn’t stem from bad gameplay, but from lack of user friendliness that doesn’t even come close to “hold my hand, Square.” More importantly, however, is that Square has shown some quick movement in the past couple weeks to make the game more user friendly. After a large number of complaints by players, Square finally added in hardware mouse support.
At the end of the day, Final Fantasy XIV is like a fine wine, one that you can’t reach because the company put it on the top shelf, you are five foot three, and the only staff on the floor who can get it for you is currently texting his girlfriend in the frozen food aisle, and will be with you “in just a minute.”
More on Final Fantasy XIV as it appears.
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I’m not a fan of cross-platform games as the more systems that are added to the fray, the higher the odds for delays due to unforeseen problems on one system. The end result is that, in an attempt to please everyone in the crowd, the developer delays all of the titles in order to ensure a simultaneous release, even if it means a delay of up to a year or more. MMOs, thankfully, have not had this issue. Given their release dates, the rest of us can breath a sigh of relief that Funcom never decided to delay Age of Conan for the never-released 360 port, or Champions Online with the also-never-released 360 port, and now Star Trek Online for its now-canned 360 port. In the case of Champions Online, the 360 version was fairly close to release, shutting down due to issues with Microsoft.
So bully to PC and tough luck for PS3 as Square Enix decided that they will release the PC version of Final Fantasy XIV this September, while the PS3 version will be delayed until March 2011 (at least). The PC version will hit at the end of September, and not much has been said specifically what caused the PS3 version to be delayed.
Even more interesting was the announcement of pricing structure. Players will be given one player and one ‘retainer’ character. The retainer character essentially acts as an official mule, managing the player’s sales and storage. Creating alts is possible, up to 8, but each one will tack on an additional three dollars, a month, to your subscription. Given the versatility of the player (able to level up all jobs), and the possibility of Final Fantasy XI’s grind making its way to XIV, an alt is unnecessary.
More on Final Fantasy XIV as it appears. Hopefully we won’t see any 20+ hour Pandemonium Wardens.
Last month I wrote about how someone at Square Enix is sooo fired, when a high level Human Resources employee blabbed the following:
“I think some amongst you will know, but FF11 started in 2002 … Well, this year it’ll end and the stage will shift to FF14.”
-Square Enix Employee
Of course, with the nature of the internet, fans went wild. Is this an indication that Final Fantasy XI is going to be shut down when XIV comes out? Is this confirmation? Who knows? Square Enix knows, but unless that answer is anything other than “yes, we are shutting down,” anything they say is likely to be ignored by the group of players who are now convinced that the title is indeed set to be canned later this year.
But Square Enix has turned around and confirmed that no, not only is Final Fantasy XI not getting the boot this year, it is receiving even more updates! Square has announced three new scenarios for the not-so-Final Fantasy MMO, as well as an increase in the level cap to 99 (because all good updates have increased level caps). In addition, players will also see the gift of two new summons for use in battle.
So there you go, Final Fantasy XI..ers. If the announcement of new updates isn’t enough to convince you that the title isn’t going anywhere (at least for now), at least you’ll be occupied for the long grind to 99, long enough to forget about your woes.
In my current line of customer service work, saying the wrong thing to the wrong customer can be devastating. Odds are, if you tell a customer exactly where they can stick their refund, you’re going to get fired on the spot. Now, business can do all they can to stop employees from saying stupid things, as that just leaves one or two customers annoyed and potentially lost for good. Meanwhile, when an employee reveals something maybe they shouldn’t have, or reveals something that, despite false, damns the company, then you’re going to have a real problem on your hands.
Enter Square Enix! I don’t get to talk about Square Enix, nor their unconventional conventions of MMOs, so I always jump on the opportunity… So essentially once since MMO Fallout started. MMOsite is reporting on a Square Enix Human Resources employee who revealed the following on his blog:
“I think some amongst you will know, but FF11 started in 2002 … Well, this year it’ll end and the stage will shift to FF14.”
-Square Enix Employee
Now being Mr. I-Hate-Rumors, I immediately assumed one thing: This means Square Enix will shift much of its attention towards Final Fantasy 14, which makes sense. As for Final Fantasy XI being shut down; considering the number of players who still enjoy XI, and the message shutting down such a profitable game would send that player base, Square Enix would have to be more insane than normal to think that the players would just jump right over to XIV. Sure, some will, but overall Square will wind up with a predicament similar to that of Asheron’s Call 2.
Final Fantasy XI is eight years old this year, and still remains one of the (if not the) most popular MMOs in Japan. The game is showing its age, but by no means is the title ready to go on the cart. No, I think Final Fantasy XI has a good few years left in it, assuming Square isn’t using Final Fantasy XIV as the club to beat XI to death. There are still plenty of events planned for Final Fantasy XI, yet to come.
Luckily, Square got right on the case: The post has been removed and there has been an announcement that the post is a lie. That being said, thanks to your average sensationalist blogs, the topic will be on whether or not Square Enix is lying.
It’s always a good idea to tell your employees, especially your Human Resource people, not to reveal information that might be damning to a game, especially if the information isn’t really damning, but you’re going to word it in a specially cryptic fashion that makes it look so.
[Update] The Steam Sale is over as of January 3rd. Better luck next time!
It’s time again for the Steam Holiday sale, and that can only mean one thing: MMO Sales to be found all around! Here is a list of the games you can find on sale at Steam this week, all of which should be on sale until January 3rd. You have a week and a half, so don’t put it off too long!
Please remember that all of these price are in USD.
[Update] The Steam Sale is over as of January 3rd. Better luck next time!
MMO Fallout 