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Square Enix Q&A for Q2 FY3/21 - HD Games sub-segment in the red due to Marvel's Avengers sales underperformance
- Thread starter ggx2ac
- Start date
I keep telling them to do a high budget Valkyrie Profile and a high budget Star Ocean, and FF Tactics. and a XIII Trilogy Remaster.. On top of VII2, XVI, and Athia.. They can release so much for money but they a very picky with what they work on.
It is how they differentiate their other game developments. HD Games and Mobile.
The game got middling reviews and negative word of mouth before it was released(Spiderman being PS4 exclusive and the revelation that it's going to be a GaaS game), so I'm not surprised at all that it underperformed.
I personally lost interest in the game when I found out that it was going to be a GaaS game. They had a perfectly good template in Insomniac's Spiderman to create a story-focused game.
I personally lost interest in the game when I found out that it was going to be a GaaS game. They had a perfectly good template in Insomniac's Spiderman to create a story-focused game.
Yes, but mobile games are also HD. "HD Games" in 2020 refers to all games, so it's a useless term. Hence my calling it a leftover from 2005 lol.
I will both admit that I'm working off info I've heard elsewhere and can fully concede to being wrong on all of it. My bad, honestly.
The quick Googling I did said sold for FFXV, not shipped. >_>
It doesn't count their mobile games. I also don't believe it counts FFXIV either but I clearly ain't batting 1000 so yeah. >_>
What developers have to learn is that is not enough to just put a well know franchise outside of gaming into videogame form and have it just be average and expect it to sold amazing based on name alone. The medium and consumer's expectations are different, and they need to do better to get better word of mouth next time.
Oh, I get you now. SE might be pretty progressive in some areas, but we can easily say their business side is still very old school lol
Another GaaS that has a useless "beta" and launches in a broken state didn't sell as well as execs expect? I'm shocked.
I really hope they stick with it and can turn this around since it can be genuine fun and has a good core. The game is finally getting into a playable state and has some new content coming.
I really hope they stick with it and can turn this around since it can be genuine fun and has a good core. The game is finally getting into a playable state and has some new content coming.
Your talking about a company that managed to lose money on an avengers game a multi-billion dollar multi-media franchise.
The idea that the architects of feat while as being a sizeable publisher are project managenent genius' beyond criticism is quite a stretch. Their shareholders wondered how they managed to do that for good reason.
Yosuke Mastuda has managed Square Enix far better than Yoichi Wada ever did especially when it came to the Final Fantasy brand.
At this point, they have to. Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montreal have a wealth of intellectual properties they can dabble in and it would be smarter for Square Enix to have a studio head from either of the two studios to be the creative overseer and negotiator representing Square Enix Europe as opposed to sticking with the current Square Enix Europe executives who still run the subsidiary like the Eidos Interactive days.
For real. I really think Sleeping Dogs has the most potential out of all their western IPs and Square missed out on a truckload of money by not making a sequel. How many other non-GTA urban sandbox games are received so well?
I guess we're gonna ignore all the publishing decisions around Mankind Divided that garnered it negative word of mouth and scared off potential Day 1 buyers, then?
If Squeeenix avoided the ridiculous marketing campaign, didn't nickel and dime content, didn't crowbar in a multi-player mode designed to sell micro-transactions, whose relevance to the story isn't explained until the end of the 1st DLC, didn't do the "augment your pre-order" crowdfunding parody, etc, then maybe all reviews would've talked about how brilliant the level design was, instead of all the other crap; maybe more people would've played the meaty side-quests, instead of complaining about the truncated story;
Mankind Divided was set up for failure, because the marketing around it screamed "we have no faith in this product, that's why we wanna squeeze every penny out of it" . And it became a self-fulfilling prophecy: the message was so loud, people saw it and didn't buy the game, until it went on sales.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but at this point it seems there's far more GAAS "looters" failures then successes.
Hold up - how are some people equating "HD games underperformed due to disappointed Avenger's sales" to "FFVII Remake was a commercial disappointment"?
I think people are projecting on FFVIIR based on it not meeting their own expectations and the drop off in interest post launch.
It sold well and surely turned a profit. But it got absolutely outsold many times ovet by another one platform exclusive with talking animals that launched around the same time and no one talks about FVIIR anymore
For an episodic game you want interest to remain high to juice sales of the next game but at this rate its quite possible the next entry will underperform the 1st if it launches exclusively on the PS5 in the next few years to a much smaller installed base and without the novelty and "omg remake" factor of the 1st.
It sold well and surely turned a profit. But it got absolutely outsold many times ovet by another one platform exclusive with talking animals that launched around the same time and no one talks about FVIIR anymore
For an episodic game you want interest to remain high to juice sales of the next game but at this rate its quite possible the next entry will underperform the 1st if it launches exclusively on the PS5 in the next few years to a much smaller installed base and without the novelty and "omg remake" factor of the 1st.
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Nah, I'm saying they're probably smarter than your random forum member who acts like these things are obvious and doesn't have access to all the information.
Destiny and Warframe are basically Coke and Pepsi. All anyone can compete for in the looter shooter market is RC Cola. None of them have even succeeded at that much, lol.
You don't need access to all the information to be able to spot some clear misplays developers make. They happen so often with such consistency it's hard to miss them. There are countless number of articles and public statements where publisher or developer had stated they didn't plan on making a sku for such and such platform and only did so because the first party approached them (or fans loudly requested it) and said SKU ended being the highest selling version.
This is despite them knowing through the market research that they did that many games in that genre have sold well on that platform. It happens so regularly an example that happened this past week. There's a reason why their shareholders ask them these questions.
Literally every main Animal Crossing game except the first one and City Folk have out sold every Final Fantasy game besides FFVII - although NH has surpassed its sales number and OG VII's sales numbers are probably as high as they are now because of all the rereleases VII has had over a 20+ year period. I don't get why people still think VIIR would've out sold a new AC, a game that can be enjoyed by a lot more people, when there's no precedence for FF outselling that series in the first place. It reads like gamers thinking the more 'adult' game deserves more sales than the 'kiddy' looking one or something.
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My point is we don't have the complete set of information regarding why these things happening, and of course shareholders are going to ask questions like this as they only really see the bottom line. There are reasons these things happen throughout the pipeline that we're not privy to.
If random forum members here legitimately believe they know more about how square works and what's best for them, then I have some bridges to sell.
IT's hilarious. One of the more popular FFs ( on this forum ) FF12 sold about 5-7 Million. FF7:RE already reached 5 Million after a few months. The game is an absolut success and will keep on selling in the future due to releases on other platform, releases of sequels and remastered versions.
Also all of yall saying that FF7R was disappointing sales-wise for Square:
Honestly think its just people trying to poke holes, Remake did very good and when the PC and Xbox Versions are released look to see another few million added to the list.
Whomever decided that AVENGERS needed to be GaaS game needs to be fired what a stupid idea... Some people still trying to defend GaaS on their podcast.. which I know got a hefty chunk of advertising revenue for covering avengers extensively.
For me 2021 Square is interesting.. FFXVI for extensively purposes I believe is an early 2022 game, expect a massive dump of info around E3 time. FF7Remake Part 2 I know is in active development to to the point motion capture artists have been working with them in the last 6 months.
The XIV Expansion I reckon is delayed by a few months and will probably release Sept as Yoshi P zI recall said they were around 3 months behind schedule due to COVID. Nier is doing well and DQ has acheived some success but yeah its the western side of square having issues at the moment.
Square Europe is a fun read if you do research, lots of issues management (executive level) and QA staff are temps mostly unless you fall into certain circumstances.. Glassdoor is your friend...
Huh? I don't get the point of this, the answers they actually gave are pretty insightful and easy to understand for those in the industry.
Some aspects were "wanting", and lessons learned. At no point SE details failures, reasons or lessons.
Expand sales to improve profitability. No intention of detailing what those sales expansions or profitability will look like.
For you, if it is insightful, you have to detail what happened with Avengers. In SE words: what went wrong, what have they learned, and what is their plan moving forward. They spoke about these aspects.
I wonder if Square Enix can find the common denominator for all of their western games failing...
I thought they made it pretty clear in the limited time they had for the call. COVID 19 screwed up their marketing plans, more content planned going forwards to try and increase sales and pay off development costs. What were you expecting? They have like 1 minute to answer these questions, its not meant to be an internal post mortem into what went wrong with the launch, it's a quarterly earnings call.
XII fans being so concerned about VIIR sales will always be absolutely hilarious.
People will argue until the publisher is flat out shuttered that "obviously they know what they're doing" even if the numbers tell a different story. We've seen enough statements to know that a lot of platform decisions are made by a few people on a whim, or on a basis no more solid than your average forum post.
After PS4's Spiderman, it's hard for me to comprehend how a company could fck up sure-fire hot selling brand like Avengers.
It'd dead, Jim dot gif
I think it would probably have a better chance if there were movies releasing that they could cross-promote it with, but Disney is leaving them in the cold there. Pretty much everything they make now is potentially up to go on D+ at launch - except the Marvel stuff. They're intent on not eating shit on any of those releases, it seems.
If I am asked what kind of profitability I expect, my answer would be in the fucking numbers or estimations. Answering more sales and profit is vacuous.
And by the fucking way, you didn't even understand the answer. They didn't attribute the failure to marketing, they justify the high costs in the quarter because of the delayed marketing plans from the previous quarter.
Right. They got out at the right time. Shame Eidos Montreal aren't doing the same and are apparently (still?) making the Guardians of the Galaxy game. I don't have any hopes for that game at all.
SE was looking to get rid of IOI, it's not like they were able to get up and leave
And yet they managed to come out in a pretty good spot. They've managed to make two whole Hitman sequels since, and are now making a James Bond game.
Seemed like it was amicable?
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And they seem to be doing better than Square Enix's Western studios. At least I don't recall a 67 million loss.
that just goes to show that SEE's management isn't very good. the talent was there, but the poor management figured it was better to sell them or let them go. probably the same management that bunged up Tomb Raider and Deus Ex and now AvengersSeemed like it was amicable?
"It's not Hitman without IO": Why Square Enix set the franchise free
It was one of the biggest shock news stories the games industry has seen all year: Square Enix planned to sell IO Inter…
And they seem to be doing better than Square Enix's Western studios. At least I don't recall a 67 million loss.
As much as Mankind Divided's sales underperformed, it wasn't an abject failure or cost the company $67 million. Chased that Avenger's money right into the garbage bin.
How is Animal Crossing even remotely relevant to measuring the success of Final Fantasy VII Remake?