RPGSite: "Square Enix says Forspoken sales have been lackluster, and many small and mid-sized titles "did not perform as well as we had expected"

Chairmanchuck (另一个我) · Mar 10, 2023

Article here:

Square Enix says Forspoken sales have been lackluster, and many small and mid-sized titles "did not perform as well as we had expected" | RPG Site

Square Enix financials in their HD Games segment don't look too hot.

www.rpgsite.net

Forspoken:

Reviews of "FORSPOKEN," which we released on January 24, 2023, have been challenging. However, the game has also received positive feedback on its action features, including its parkour and combat capabilities, so it has yielded results that will lead to improvement of our development capabilities of other games in the future. That said, its sales have been lackluster, and while the performance of new titles with February and March release dates will be the ultimate determinant, we see considerable downside risk to our FY2023/3 earnings.

I mean those are the games S-E released in the latter half of 2022:

Voice of Cards: The Beasts of Burden
Various Daylife
The Diofield Chronicle
Valkyrie Elysium
Star Ocean: The Divine Force
Harvestella
Tactics Ogre: Reborn
Dragon Quest Treasures
Not including some games that got ports during that time.

Lashley · Mar 10, 2023

Shocking.

Who could have predicted this?

DidactBRHU3 · Mar 10, 2023

No way :0

HandsomeCharles · Mar 10, 2023

Forspoken looked pretty interesting to me, but I was *seriously* turned off by the marketing. I might pick it up in the future, can anyone tell me in the in-game dialogue is anything like the infamous trailer?

Stef · Mar 10, 2023

Chairmanchuck said:
I mean those are the games S-E released in the latter half of 2022:

Voice of Cards: The Beasts of Burden
Various Daylife
The Diofield Chronicle
Valkyrie Elysium
Star Ocean: The Divine Force
Harvestella
Tactics Ogre: Reborn
Dragon Quest Treasures
Not including some games that got ports during that time.

Maaaaaaybe there are TOO MANY medieval fantasy (or whatever) games in their lineup?

Little bit more variety would help?

Wise · Mar 10, 2023

Wouldn't be surprised if Sony bought em tbh, they've just been releasing a lot of flops as of late

Masagiwa · Mar 10, 2023

This sucks cause I love seeing them putting out titles with a bit smaller budgets
I think Tactics Ogre did quite well for what it is right? I saw that on some sales charts

Veil · Mar 10, 2023

Do we have any data on how Octopath2 did?

Dreamboum · Mar 10, 2023

There's no way Tactics Ogre Reborn didn't meet expectations. It outsold Sonic Frontiers and God of War in week one sales in Japan and it has a ton of reviews on steam

Patitoloco · Mar 10, 2023

You mean releasing a thousand niche strategy RPGs without any marketing didn't work?

It can't be.

andymoogle · Mar 10, 2023

I hope Tactics Ogre Reborn didn't bomb at least. The rest of the games on that list are kind of meh.

tiebreaker · Mar 10, 2023

That's disappointing. They've been releasing good games.

Toth · Mar 10, 2023

Well there it is. Poor Forspoken.

MegaSackman · Mar 10, 2023

Stef said:
Maaaaaaybe there are TOO MANY medieval fantasy (or whatever) games in their lineup?

Little bit more variety would help?

Good games would also help. Half of those are a combination of low budget and bad.

Brazil · Mar 10, 2023

Most of the game Square Enix released last year were fire, but, man, we only have so much money. They need to plan their shit better.

hobblygobbly · Mar 10, 2023

The DioField Chronicle is a good game, the gameplay is awesome but the major issue I had with it is that so much of the story happens off screen, which sucks a lot. The story was fairly interesting just very badly presented. And they also did barely any marketing for that game. It's one of those games if they gave a bigger budget and attention has the potential of being a solid franchise, as it has a lot of unique aspects to it

The rest were pretty bad games

Stef · Mar 10, 2023

MegaSackman said:
Good games would also help. Half of those are a combination of low budget and bad.

Also, embrace full multiplatform releases.

Liquid · Mar 10, 2023

Dreamboum said:
There's no way Tactics Ogre Reborn didn't meet expectations. It outsold Sonic Frontiers and God of War in week one sales in Japan and it has a ton of reviews on steam

One region is far from standard to judge overall performance. That said, Tactics Ogre probably did well considering it was a remaster.

ILikeFeet · Mar 10, 2023

They crammed too many games in a small window and are surprised some didn't do well?

Diagon · Mar 10, 2023

Maybe it's just poor time management on my end, but I really think I'd have played like, 4 of those if they hadn't all released in like a month.

Bansai · Mar 10, 2023

Those game were mostly mediocre and came one after another, this shouldn't be that surprising.

Stef · Mar 10, 2023

MegaSackman said:
Good games would also help. Half of those are a combination of low budget and bad.

Yep. For instance, HArvestella would have needed at least 5-6 more development months.

pbayne · Mar 10, 2023

When you release a bajillion games all close together with huge overlaps in the fanbase for each yeah they are proabably gonna hurt each other. The biggest rival for squares games last year was probably themselves lol.

Voodoopeople · Mar 10, 2023

This has the smell of an acquisition in the future. The can't surely keep underperforming across so many titles and keep going forever can they? Are they heavily reliant on one or two games for survival or something?

entrydenied · Mar 10, 2023

HandsomeCharles said:
Forspoken looked pretty interesting to me, but I was *seriously* turned off by the marketing. I might pick it up in the future, can anyone tell me in the in-game dialogue is anything like the infamous trailer?

The dialogue is great. As is the character writing for Frey. Probably one of the more realistic characters, in terms of how she handled being transported to an odd world and grappling with how she is seen as a savior when she just wants to go home. The story fell a bit short towards the end as it felt like they ran out of budget and had to cut back on some story quests but overall the trailers really didn't do the story and writing justice.

I also want to do a shout out for Harvestella. The game is much better than most would expect and is really an RPG with farming SIM elements, rather than the other way round. The PC port is also really good in terms of performance. Didn't really see anyone encountering big AAA games issues. Square did the game dirty but not doing any marketing.

Yuntu · Mar 10, 2023

Expected, too many releases in too little time.

Streusel · Mar 10, 2023

square's output last year would be well suited for a sub service, i don't think it works well for individual purchases, full price in particular

Xils · Mar 10, 2023

I feel like every time SQEX says anything about sales of any game, it's always some variation of "lackluster" or "not as expected".

Really makes me wonder what's their expectation for these games.

Stef · Mar 10, 2023

pbayne said:
When you release a bajillion games all close together with huge overlaps in the fanbase for each yeah they are proabably gonna hurt each other. The biggest rival for squares games last year was probably themselves lol.

Also, if you start releasing games that could easily look like (nice) indie games you put yourself in direct competition with 23049 more games that may be as valid as yours and cost 1/3.

Joe White · Mar 10, 2023

tiebreaker said:
That's disappointing. They've been releasing good games.

The issue is that majority of those games have limited and/or tiered releases to selected platforms. Skipping tens of millions of potential customers can cause lacklustre sales.

Masagiwa · Mar 10, 2023

Xils said:
I feel like every time SQEX says anything about sales of any game, it's always some variation of "lackluster" or "not as expected".

Really makes me wonder what's their expectation for these games.

haha yeah
It's rare you see them happy about anything

HandsomeCharles · Mar 10, 2023

entrydenied said:
The dialogue is great. As is the character writing for Frey. Probably one of the more realistic characters, in terms of how she handled being transported to an odd world and grappling with how she is seen as a savior when she just wants to go home. The story fell a bit short towards the end as it felt like they ran out of budget and had to cut back on some story quests but overall the trailers really didn't do the story and writing justice.

Cool, I shall add it to the list!

dancingphlower · Mar 10, 2023

Star Ocean was actually pretty solid, a shame that it didn't do so hot apparently?

nsilvias · Mar 10, 2023

they dumped a truck of games onto the market with little marketing and obvious lack of budget. some of those games could have been great with a little bit more budget. valkyrie elysium for example

elenarie · Mar 10, 2023

Time to double down on that NFT investment. 🙏

Stef · Mar 10, 2023

Xils said:
I feel like every time SQEX says anything about sales of any game, it's always some variation of "lackluster" or "not as expected".

Really makes me wonder what's their expectation for these games.

Well, regarding Forspoken this could be true, considering the speed the game disappeared from sales charts.
I don't think it sold a lot actually.

Synohan · Mar 10, 2023

Most of the games they released are incredible. They just need to space them out more.

This better not be a sign for their lower budget titles. These games are currently the shining stars of the company. Tactics Ogre Reborn and Harvestella are incredible and are the best games they released last year.

Menchin · Mar 10, 2023

HandsomeCharles said:
Forspoken looked pretty interesting to me, but I was *seriously* turned off by the marketing. I might pick it up in the future, can anyone tell me in the in-game dialogue is anything like the infamous trailer?

That trailer concentrated all the worst parts into a single ~20 second package, and tainted people's perception of what the dialogue would be like. Granted, it's still not exactly brilliant, but it doesn't plumb the depths of the writing septic tank like that trailer

bloodyroarx · Mar 10, 2023

We flooded the market with mid tier games (not that there is anything bad with them) and they all under sold.

Cant fucking blame your losses on Crystal D and the Montreal studios now can you Square?

Lulu · Mar 10, 2023

A lot of mid releases back to back. Hope TO and TS did well though.

BubblegumNemesis · Mar 10, 2023

Make mediocre games, sales mediocre. Shocking. Add exclusivity for extra shite sales.

Mechaplum · Mar 10, 2023

Voodoopeople said:
This has the smell of an acquisition in the future. The can't surely keep underperforming across so many titles and keep going forever can they? Are they heavily reliant on one or two games for survival or something?

Man some of you are so desperate.

They're doing well with FFXIV and other FF titles.

GravityDazeKat · Mar 10, 2023

Damn... I'm gonna miss this mid budget era of Square, I hope this doesn't deter them from interesting mid budget projects in the future and at the very least teaches them to actually space these releases out and not dump them out all right next to each other.

Kopite · Mar 10, 2023

Too many games, too similar, many of them meh, shrinking your fanbases because of short sighted exclusivity, selling off the western studios, the ride never ends with SE.

Yuntu · Mar 10, 2023

Voodoopeople said:
This has the smell of an acquisition in the future. The can't surely keep underperforming across so many titles and keep going forever can they? Are they heavily reliant on one or two games for survival or something?

They are a sucessful business despite some flops. Nowhere near in need of saving. Lots of potential upwards obviously but not rly near "we have to sell".

Dreamboum · Mar 10, 2023

Voodoopeople said:
This has the smell of an acquisition in the future. The can't surely keep underperforming across so many titles and keep going forever can they? Are they heavily reliant on one or two games for survival or something?

They can underperform on console games as long as mobile gaming still performs well.
Square is still bigger than Capcom. If you smell an acquisition for them, then any company can just slip a bill to buy Capcom.

Stef · Mar 10, 2023

BubblegumNemesis said:
Make mediocre games, sales mediocre. Shocking. Add exclusivity for extra shite sales.

Maybe exclusivity brought them more money that the actual sales for some of those games?

(i can see this happening for Babylon's Fall, for instance)

TaleBknB · Mar 10, 2023

This company won't last 4 years without being bought

Fudus · Mar 10, 2023

RIP luminous.
If FF16 isnt a sufficiently big hit I wonder if SE will rethink how they do AAA games.

Yuntu · Mar 10, 2023

Kopite said:
Too many games, too similar, many of them meh, shrinking your fanbases because of short sighted exclusivity, selling off the western studios, the ride never ends with SE.

Selling the western studios was the correct call. They clearly couldnt manage them well, why continue to waste millions upon millions instead of streamlining your business?

RPGSite: "Square Enix says Forspoken sales have been lackluster, and many small and mid-sized titles "did not perform as well as we had expected"

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