Square Enix “Will Focus On Social Gaming”
- Categories: Games, News
- Date: May 14, 2013 20:10 JST
- Tags: Business, Final Fantasy, Internet, Marketing, Social Games, Square Enix
After having posted the worst losses in its history and sacking its CEO, Square Enix has announced its new focus will be social games.
Its final balance sheet for the last fiscal year showed an operating loss of 6 billion yen – the first time since the merger with Enix that the company has posted an operating loss – and total losses stood at 13.7 billion yen, the worst result in its history.
Most of these losses stemmed from writing off all the games it has cancelled over the last year.
Square Enix maintains its problems had nothing to do with it – according to group manager Michihiro Sasaki’s statements at a recent press conference, the massive slump in its revenues was because of “intense environmental change,” and its concentration on console and arcade games slowed its progress in the field of social and online gaming, damaging the company’s performance, whilst North American video game sales were “stagnant.”
He emphasised that for the next financial year “the driver will be social games,” and that the company is expecting to return to profitability by focusing on social gaming, forecasting profits of 3.5-6 billion yen next year.
Markets have actually responded favourably to the news, although the company’s shares still trade at rock-bottom lows:
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Watching the fall of Squaresoft is like losing a friend to a life of drugs. It's painful to see the downward spiral as your friend loses their mind, makes completely daft decisions, goes bankrupt, and dies in a spasm-filled death throw on the hospital bed. You beg and plead with them to make the right decisions and turn away from the road they are headed down before it is too late, but they think they know what is better for them and don't listen.
I used to swear by Squaresoft gaming.
Rest in Peace, bro.
I still remember watching my brother playing FF7 and later FF8 when they got released. Since then I got into JRPGs and loved the FF franchise. FF10 was only so-so (too straightforward, characters not fleshed out enough etc.)... but then came the merger: Square-Enix.
I played most of their games and don't remember even one being great. TBH, I don't even think of Square-Enix as the former Squaresoft or anything like that. The good people left Squaresoft and the company died. That's the end of the story.
Square-Enix is just something that shouldn't have existed in the first place. What they turned into in the last couple of years is simply pathetic... first they ruin FF and what made JRPGs great, then they released games like Tomb Raider (which made me WTF and laugh for some time), and now they focus on social gaming...
Quoting Wikipedia:
Square - Defunct April 1, 2003
What they need to do is take a good long honest look at themselves and what made them great in the past. I very much doubt it has to do with a "changing environment." I think it's pretty much the same.
These blind fools see the success of Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, and a couple others and think "OMG, we need to be there! Mobile/social is soooo successful!" Well, no it isn't. Look at how many hundreds of thousands of mobile games there are versus the few that are successful, at least successful enough for a large company to survive. All others just rot away.
Mobile gaming is a more brutal market than other gaming with more turnovers in companies coming and going. Everyone thinks they will be the next "Angry Birds" when they very likely won't make anything back.
If SE goes this route then they're going to be in for a nasty surprise when their cash disappears even faster when no one cares for the games and old fans abandon ship.
Anonymous agrees with Anonymous.
most of them are successful enough to warrant another, most aren't runaway successes.
see most mobile apps cost less than 50 grand to make
a store release console game, 10 million$
a store release console AAA game, 50-100 million
for one non triple A game, they could take 100 shots, and for a triple A game, they get 500 to 1000 shots with the same cost.
you see why social and mobile games are desirable now?
the only way gaming will go forward is if we get engines that can take some of the cost burden off of the developers.
But large companies have huge overhead as later anon says, might not be as easy for Squeenix. Nintendo certainly burnt themselves.
wow nice discussion, once in a blue moon here
To make it in web games you need to be a tiny group with little over head.
Said group also need to be very creative in coming up with ideas.
Chasing the next "angry birds"/"world of warcraft"/"call of duty"/"gears of wars" is the worst problem of modern publishers and some developers, they been trying and failing for 10 years but they still refuse to accept they were exceptions
The market seems to be evolving into a "Long Tail" market (many more kinds of products, less sales of each, more sales in total) which is the completely opposite of what they want
Choosing a niche instead of the competetive global video game market. Well I can kind of understand the decision.
With Sleeping dogs and Tomb Raider creating losses for them, Square-Enix must think it's not profitable right now to publish costly games. And this console generation is at the end of it's life cycle.
The social games bubble often features exploitive models for low cost on the other hand. This bubble will burst at some point though. After all those shitty years, we should be happy if they dissappear. We still have Atlus.
You don't need to pay skilled programmers to make web games any group of two bit code monkeys can squeeze one off.
What's with most of the comments being voted down? Is this Square Enix's doing? >_>
comments are being downvoted to show Square Enix of our displeasure :D
We're really in the throes of a tectonic shift in the games industry. This isn't just happening to Square but to companies like EA and Ubisoft as well. What's happening is that the Casual market is increasingly shifting towards Tablets and Social media while Hardcore Gamers are increasingly abandoning AAA Console titles in favor of PC gaming and small, indie studios and Kickstarter projects.
The only company that's really weathering this storm well is Valve.
It's a shame to see this happen to Square. Hopefully the Japanese gaming and anime markets will benefit from an Indie revolution soon. The current way of doing things is not doing them any favors.
The Indie genre is garbage, and you have no idea what you're talking about.
That's like, your opinion, man.
I lost all interest in gaming during the current gen. I only bought a X360 because of Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon and the then exclusive Eternal Sonata and Star Ocean 4... later I was pissed off that some exclusives got PS3 ports with additional content, better graphics, Japanese audio, etc.
I did like LO and BD, but most other JRPGs were disappointing. FF13 sucked, ES was too easy, linear, boring battles; SO4 didn't like the battles, weak story... Last Remnant was quite nice, but often frustrating... Vesperia didn't really keep me interested + battle system is bleh for me (prefer turn based)... Resonance of Fate had good ideas, but too easy, weak story, really simple, easy and boring battle system...
So yeah.. I wanted great JRPGs but got only mediocre stuff. There aren't even new JRPGs!
FPS bore me, and action-adv. are too short = not worth my money, sports are not my thing, Jump 'n' Runs are too easy and short... racers don't keep me interested... MMOs are only nice when starting (because everything's fresh), also I don't play online & not a social person, so no interest in parties, guilds, etc...
The PS2 was the last console with lots of good games IMHO... everything current gen is only about GRAPHICS, multiplayer, online, social gaming, achievements/trophies, rankings, buyable marketplace content (cash cow) and other shit. It's not about actual gaming anymore!
I won't buy a next gen console, I'm done with new stuff. If I want quality I play NES, SNES, N64, PSOne, PS2, GBA, Master System, Game Gear or Dreamcast... just to name my favorites^^
LOOOOL all the coments are drivel, fanboys maybe??
maybe i want to have some drivel too?
Played the english versions of ff (well.. no just the beginning), ff2, ff3, ff7(3 times no less!), ff8, ff9 (which was tedious), and finally ff10. When ff10x2 came out it couldn't keep my interest anymore & I stopped 5hr in game.. so I moved on to ff11(which felt like I was going in circles trying to follow the plot that didn't want be be found) and I stopped again!
+
Then ff12 came out and I thought this was it! The company was trying something New! The story was strong and burst out the gate like a cocaine fueled monkey and I was on a great ride~~~~ but then I just stopped. I've bought ff13 and ff13x2 and played 20 minutes into both and never came back.
+
Did I burn out or did something go Very wrong with this company? With time marching on, I saw that time became a big factor in deciding when to play these games and the archaic idea of forcing the player to find save spots became a major hazard to me enjoying this games. I couldn't just open a menu -Save- and turn off the playing machine, so I didn't play those game anymore~
+
Now; I play instants like resistance 2 co-operation (done in 25 or less minutes) or just random shooting games. Fast-quick-easy & done. No thinking involved to relieve stress from a long long day of work.
"... ff12 ... The story was strong"
Sorry, I think you were already in denial at this point. I don't even want to discuss the trainwreck this story was...
Story was actually pretty solid, the issue that made it feel strange was actually that they focused on a story-driven plot minus the usual character elements we were used to. The reasons drove the plot rather than the characters' reasons, so it felt completely different than we were used to. I wanted more character moments. Vaan was an everyman dragged into a situation which was interesting because for once he wasn't the hero, but the thief along for the ride. We basically took that game from the perspective of the thief in the party seeing the epic happening around him and seeing his reactions which I actually really enjoyed that they took that perspective.
Agreed.
Though I have to admit, I actually kind-of-enjoyed FF12 after a dropped first play... The first time I didn't like the battle system, characters were boring, story was... boring and not much there... the world was too... boring, everything looked the same, sidequests were... not many.
I dropped it and only restarted after several years. Not thinking about what I liked in previous FF games, I played through completely and it wasn't bad, though story and characters could've been better. Compared to older installments it sucked^^
Then I played FF13 and... that REALLY sucked! Forced my way through and even completed all optional content (which btw is only 1 thing, hunting mobs... everyone who says 'after chapter 11(?) you can roam freely and do LOTS of sidequests' is a retard without brain -no offense to fellow handicapped people- because there is only ONE boring plain with like 2-3 linear side-areas and the only optional task is hunting like 10 different species after running around forever... and most battles were really easy. Hardest challenges were that giant cactuar 'required luck' and the final mob with wings)
The story was strong. They just told it in such a confusing and stupid way. Also the bad characters didn't help it any.
No, you seem to be missing something here. The story was NOT strong. It had the absolute potential to be a strong story but the presentation, characterization, and progression of the story itself ruined that potential.
I think it's partly that the formula of the actual gameplay can get old after a while. Once you've tired of the gameplay in a particular style of game, there's just the story, art, characters and other supporting elements to hold your interest. And if the gameplay becomes a tedious slog, it brings up the question of why you're playing through dozens of hours of something that doesn't interest you just to view a few hours worth of content that does.
Longtime fans of Final Fantasy likely have fond memories of earlier installments in the series, because the system was still fresh and new to them at the time, and there wasn't as much to compare it to. They were willing to sit through 40+ hours of making menu selections and dealing with random battles because it was something new. After a couple more games though, they start to find these things becoming tedious, and would just like to get to the good parts of the game. Add to that the large time requirements these games require to get to those good parts, and they just don't seem worthwhile.
These days, more games are offering expansive story and character development, often coupled with gameplay that is more engaging than the Final Fantasy formula, so Square has a lot more competition to deal with. They've tried to make changes to streamline their games in recent years, but I don't think those changes have actually addressed making the gameplay better, just less involving.
Square Enix "Will Focus On Social Gaming"
Oh $h!t!
http://www.gametrailers.com/videos/hf1054/screwattack-s-real-trailers-real-trailers--final-fantasy-all-the-bravest
"the company is expecting to return to profitability by focusing on social gaming, forecasting profits of 3.5-6 billion yen next year."
Funny thing is, there just might be enough stupid people in the world to make it actually work.
the fuck happened..they said they would go back to the core a few months ago..
they said ff13 would be ps3 exclusive, they said dual audio would be added if the fans cared enough. they said ps3 photoshopped screenshots were xbox360 screenshots. At this point, I don't believe a single word they say.
Putting effort into making things like actual towns is a task that can't be done!
AKA, they're fucking lazy as hell..
It is not that they are lazy, but that their former CEO already fucked too much up, remember he outsourced nearly all their work to China.
Most of their own work Studios should be gone by now and they can't simply back out of the contract their Prior CEO made with These Chinese companies.
Castian's right, because clearly no good games were made with discs < 7.5gb. I mean, who really liked FFVII or even Chronotrigger, right?
Therefore that MUST be what crippled the company.
lol, they didnt whore themselves to microsoft, they realized there was no freaking way in hell they were going to shift as many units as they needed to break even by making it an exclusive and Sony was not willing to put the difference in an exclusivity deal
its a wonder they didn't port it into PC, wii, ps2, cellphones, tablets and everything else with a microcontroler, i guess the 360 port probably didnt sell enough to justify the porting costs
There's really no point in blaming China or the XBOX 360 for the fact that FFXIII lacked towns and such. Square Enix simply didn't want to take the time and spend the money to make the code for the towns and for the ability to talk to NPCs like in previous Final Fantasies.
So the 360 ruined it for everyone. Good job 360.
They should stick with PS3 and PC insteaad.
They're not lazy nor it was China's work.
It was that they developed their games for the 360, they were stuck with 7.5 gig capacity discs, so they had to downgrade all their games to fit such low standards.
In those times, games were stacking up to 11 and more gigabytes.
They were making the game Ps3 exclusive, the game WAS 18Gig big, but as they prostituted to Microsoft they had to hack off and downgrade the game, leaving the crap it is now.
The issue was Money, gaming prostitution, bad buissnes practices and lame ass choices.
No, great games can come in small data volumes. They just suck at making games anymore and outsourcing to China is part of the reason.
going back to core means investing money (they probably dont have or at least are not willing to bet, and be honest they are likely to waste on a FFXIII-4 anyway)
social games are cheap and usually bring a profit (unless you are a bonehead and try to sell them at 20-40 dollars in a 1-3 dollar market... which they have done in the past), the profits will be small however, nowhere near to support the size of their current corporation so saying they will focus on that is kind of saying that they are going to start a fire sale and greatly shrink themselves
i just hope their franchises dont end like the ones from Atlus, i'd like to see another Sleeping Dogs
Except that Atlus is so popular that they even pushed PSP sales with Persona.
While Sleeping Dogs created losses.
The game sold well enough, 1.75 million copies at retail by march 2013 (and most of PC sales were probably downloaded sales that were not counted) it was first in lists for several weeks, most reviews either from magazines or bloggers were pretty positive
It was their unrealistic expectations and bad budget management that caused those loses
FFXIII-4....
[shudders]
Why was this comment given a down vote? Who here actually wants a FFXIII-4? I enjoyed FFXIII, granted it was at the time when I was in denial that it was actually a bad game overall, but when I completed that game, I was primed and ready for FF Type 0, FF Versus XIII and FFIV (before discovering it was going to be another MMO). The thought of sequels for FFXIII didn't even cross my mind and I still don't want them. I played FFXIII-2 and I will buy Lightning Returns, but I didn't ask for them. If they have more story to tell then fine I will see what they have in store for Lightning and company but I'm definitely not getting my hopes up. They fucked up the first two, so there is nothing to make me think that this third and final installment won't be fucked up as well.
The core is just a bunch of fucktarded, greedy idiot suits who have absolutely no idea of what Square and Enix was all about. This is a testament to rampant capitalism ruining everything in the name of the quick buck. Back in the day, failing figureheads were kicked out/hanged for creating such a mess.
They say a lot of things. Why do you still care at this point?
why do you still CAR what I MIND (your business=value unknown)?
Just shut the doors, already. There's nothing that can salvage this studio. They're dead on arrival and don't even know it.
Oh well, Fairy Fencer F is going to be the next great Final Fantasy title anyhow.
Chivo que se devuelve se esnuca!!!!!!!!!!
Is Square Enix on this site making every comment bad or WTF!
Well, I have absolutely no issue with this, now that Star Ocean's developer stepped out there is no real reason for me to support Enix. Considering Square are the ones who turned their series into a flood of horrible dubbing and metrosexual boy-band-esque characters since it turned to PS2 and never thought about their roots even once short of remakes, created an MMORPG without any sort of valid PvP combat. I am hoping they will disperse into nothingness because they haven't done much of anything good short of in some people's opinions (not mine) collaborating with Disney and creating essentially an abomination, just like everyone else who has ever collaborated with Disney in the digital age. (Not that I have anything against Disney alone, but Disney + Other Media = awful watered down garbage people settle for), this is well established.
I, for one have absolutely NO idea why anyone would be upset by this, this is AWESOME. Do you really want a company to kill the franchises you love even slower that it has? This is perfect because it means we have less of a chance of seeing more Akira Toriyama-quest, less of a chance of seeing more Final Direction,and more of a chance of seeing a legitimate company who can make good modern JRPGs fill the void Square-Enix made. Seriously, nobody should be surprised by this; the Squaresoft side has been dying since about 2001, and the Enix side has been dead since 2010 or maybe; being blunt about it 2004, not to mention Tri-Ace not following through on their other franchise.
For the love of video gaming be happy about this, you can not expect a company this huge which has done so much wrong to live for even as long as it did as a primary game developer. Let it kill itself elsewhere, and what a better place to kill itself on the most minimalistic form of video gaming since Java clients in the 90's, the cell phone.
Wait, what happened with Triace?
One of their lead programmers left recently. Google it.
i agree with everything except one point - if by a "watered down game" you mean the kingdom hearts series, stop fucking there. a game being more ~kid friendly (which it fucking wasn't because it is legitimately *hard*) doesn't make it any better or worse than a "more adult" game. if it doesn't suit your tastes, perfect, but don't call it a "abomination" just because it features kiddie stuff.
you purists are the same or worse than square enix's practices.
Kingdom hearts IS an abomination, as is any Disney based game
It's an abomination that made big $$$.
It is an abomination, however I can see it being "fun" for some people. The main issue I have is that whether you're playing Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy 10, you are pretty much playing a pile of awful dubbing and a franchise gone COMPLETELY off track.
However, if you want to argue about it; watered down relative to what? Relative to the actual games in their heyday? YES, it most definitely fucking was. Final Fantasy started out more medieval/feudal era-esque in style, then it became more bright for a while, then when 6 came out they brought in the steampunk. When 7 came out they really should have held the rails, either A. Keep the anime art style. or B. Go back to the badass feudal looking stuff. For 8-9 they seemed to experiment with the art styles, for example in 9 the characters sort of had a midway point between good/cartoony and what essentially was the bane of character design post 128 bit gaming. Once sprites were out of the picture the initial style was lost. Suddenly, 10 comes out and we have characters that look like marionettes, as well as some of the most awful excuses for dubbing imaginable.
Then Kingdom Hearts came out and poured salt on everyone's wounds. Square officially sold out, they lost all of what they originally were and went on to go downhill from then on. If someone likes Kingdom Hearts, good for them; but it is pretty much an insult to compare it to Final Fantasy, especially when the games are barely of the same genre, and KH merging two things that should never be merged. Now all of a sudden that Square-Enix is finally dying the death it deserved, I can't even comment on how much I dislike KH. KH and FF are in entirely different leagues, to see that shit compared is hilarious. Then again, Final Fantasy has been shit since 2001 so you can pretty much say what you like since KH came out in 2002; there is your free basis of comparison, I can't blame you then.
To sum it up, yeah; make "kiddie stuff" but they needed to get their heads out of their asses and understand exactly where they went wrong.
I agree with what you said.
With SqaureEnix going for social games it really opens the market for new studios to pop up and make good new IPs. SquareEnix had a pretty good stranglehold on the game market for so long that it really lowered the chances of small independent companies from stepping up. Since developing for a console (any console) requires a well established studio with the know how and contracts to make such games the chances that such a studio would be bought out at that point by companies like SquareEnix are pretty high. So hopefully with the new development we will see some new IPs.
The next best step would be if the dev teams that used to make the good games for SquareEnix would quit and reform as their own company (this has been done MANY times with quite a few western companies) Which would give us a chance to see games that get back to the better days of SquareSoft.
Square-Enix never caught my attention in a positive sense. I didn't really enjoy any of their games. Back on the PS2 I rather went with "Level5" and loved their games: Dark Cloud 1 & 2 and Rogue Galaxy.
If only more developers would release something similar... instead of all those mediocre abominations.
Now that Squeenix is dead, there must be something new... and good
Indeed, it would be nice; considering Square and Enix both were absolutely excellent companies in their heyday. I can not imagine the entirety of the talent going for the mobile scheme, if they branch off; I can see good coming from that as well. It would certainly open new pathways for the JRPG genre, that is the only way I can see this.
Square-Enix is long past the time where someone could legitimately believe they can pop out something better than the original Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest games. They have been given innumerable chances for people to believe them but they never pulled through to any real degree.
Out of all the genre which need to look toward the future, it is the JRPG genre. The FPS genre is doing absolutely great considering it is doing it's job, WRPGs are doing excellently because that is all about world building and immersion. Platformers will always be for the sake of fun, and more competitively speed and scoring. JRPGs are none of those things, the JRPG differentiates from the WRPG with the idea that it tells a story, rather than has you write it. In a WRPG, Cloud would have been nameless, and traveled immense worlds gathering resources and slaying beasts. (You can not quite say Monster Hunter is an RPG, it is an RPG simply in role and concept, but by that definition Super Mario Bros for NES was an RPG as well.
JRPGs tell stories about a cast of characters, and the problem with the current generation is there haven't been enough good stories to tell. The big names deteriorated and even though their games were quality in many ways, the original charm was all but lost.
I really hope that the next generation brings many games with many stories, rather than just a few games that are only passable because they had a name tied to them.