Game retail watchers can’t help but note that the price offered for second hand copies of Final Fantasy XIII has plummeted to about $15, despite the game initially retailing at almost $100.
Top second-hand game seller Geo’s price list shows they are offering a paltry ¥1,500 for used copies of the game, which was released at ¥9,240:
The same list shows the much older Perfect Tales of Vesperia to be worth more than twice as much as Final Fantasy XIII, with Geo offering ¥3,100 for it; indeed, there is no RPG being bought up so cheaply.
Low demand and high supply are presumably at fault here, for reasons which by now are painfully obvious.
So let’s sum up the contents of the comments on this post.
a) People needlessly apologizing for and/or defending the game blindly.
b) People making reasonable arguments that are either neutral or slightly favorable towards the game
c) People needlessly telling people in (a) and (b) to STFU because they’re blind little fanboys.
For my part, 10 hours is a long fucking time. 10 hours is enough time to play Portal 2 and a half times over. 10 hours is enough time to finish a 10 page paper due the next day. And for most people, 10 hours is enough time to spend on a game that, when it doesn’t capture the attention of the audience, can be thrown out. And it can’t be denied that the game is really, really linear. What made the previous FF’s actually enjoyable was defeating the optional and exceptionally hard boss in a chest in an optional dungeon, exploring said dungeon, and coming out older but not necessarily wiser. Why? Humans are naturally curious human beings who enjoy the learning process through discovery. FF13 takes a lot of that away, and in the process, undermines at least a whole aspect of the game if not more.
However, at the same time, people can like a game. For reasons that are probably similar to why people like Avatar, people happen to like the face-crunchingly popular series of FF. And what is there to it? I don’t believe there should be any reason to call out someone who plays the FF series as an “LOL WEABOO FANBOY” so long as they don’t shove their blind loyalty of the game into your face. The comments, to be frank, are needlessly angry and rude. Yes, it is the interwebz, but geez, lower the tone a bit and pretend to be intelligent.
That being said, the resale price is fairly telling of how the FF13 is faring. You can’t really deny the facts there.
Then don’t read them. People stop reading them – we stop posting them. Not happening so far.
I have not played it yet, since it has not come out in America. Considering that most people here seem to have a decent grasp of English, I reckon most of us are either American, Canadian, British, etc. I suppose some people might have imported it, and I don’t know whether the game has English subtitles or not, but in either case, if English is your first language and you don’t speak Japanese, the primary experience of the story is not available yet. I really do hope, though, that all the people saying how terrible it is have played the game all the way through.
One should also recognize that simplification and de-emphasis of traditional elements like towns, grinding for level, etc. is a significant trend in RPGs in general. Look at Mass Effect 2 for example. It’s very likely that they made it this way because they thought it would appeal more to American market, i.e., the oft-maligned “casual gamer”, who doesn’t want to sink 60 hours into a game. So while it may not be doing well at home, they might not be aiming for that market.
Personally, even if the game is linear as string, if the string is a good 30 hours and I like the story (which I am probably more likely than many to do, as I’ve liked most FF stories thus far) I will probably be satisfied.
“So while it may not be doing well at home, they might not be aiming for that market.”
It did do well at home. It sold nearly 2 mil copies.
Plus
“Dengeki has released the results of a readers poll in which people voted for what they thought was the best game of 2009. A list of the top 20 has been published on their website and Final Fantasy XIII has managed to secure second place”
It sounds just like any other FF game to me, either you love it, or you hate it.
f♥♥k everybody…
still gonna play it.
will find out for myself if it sucks balls or not…
Like I said: “Buy no game system under a year or so old”
You can bypass the price, the expense, the flops and the “Miserable failures”…
And with time, and low cost, even lousy games can be okay, though I won’t be getting this…ever.
Take “Circus Maximus” for the X-Box…
If I’d bought it for $60, shortly after buying the X-Box new and being scalped $400 for buying it in a deliberately slowed market (to limit supply to increase demand and hype it max) well I’d feel a bit cheated. The game is good, but it does have some flaws, if only they’d re-do it for 360…
But, as a game I bought for $5 and a month later an X-Box for $40, WOW!!! Lotsa fun!
I agree especially after buying Demon Souls and Assassin’s Creed 2 at full price only to play them a few times and then watch them collect dust.
At least I got through Dragon’s Age a few times but I actually waited a few months for that price drop.
As for Final Fantasy I have FF7, FF5, and FF9 (I only rented 10…) I played through 7 once and couldn’t be bothered to finish the others to bad SquareEnix won’t remake stuff like Dewprism, Vagrant Story, and Xenogears.