Square Enix profits have plunged and its stock price is at rock bottom – fortunately CEO Yoichi Wada has a plan to reverse this, including a dramatic increase in the company’s reliance on micro-transactions and item charging in its games.
He enthuses about item charges in an address to investors, the same one where he revealed the company would be scrambling to regain lost trust:
“I get the impression that ‘Dragon Quest’ type users and ‘item charge’ type users have quite different feelings [about a business model based on charging for items]. With the likes of Facebook, you can easily introduce friends and things spread quickly, so I feel it’s well suited to item charges, with the game being free.”
He went on to suggest the proportion of revenues accounted for by item charges will be increased from 30% to 40%.
Just whether item charging will make its way into some of Square Enix’s traditional franchises (presumably what is meant by his “Dragon Quest” reference) seems difficult to predict, although even Wada seems cautious if his comments above are any guide.
However, Final Fantasy XIV in particular was designed from the outset to appeal to casual gamers, so a free version with charges for items, skills and other content does not seem entirely outside the realms of possibility.
http://www.ffxivcore.com/topic/27426-sankaku-successful-trolling/
Readers of this site (SKKC) that actually believe this drivel are nothing more than a bunch of sheep.
what the?
square damn it…
only Hajima Tabata and the Dragon Quest Team and Kingdom Hearts Team are making quality titles. the rest are eh.
I know of one thing that could save this game… make it into a dating sim ! f♥♥k yeah fucking Miqoute’s ! DO WANT
Wow, way to f♥♥k that up for yourself, too, SE. Honestly, that stupid “charge for items” bullshit is why I’m glad that none of their phone games have made it over into the US. :/
They can do what they want to their facebook game as that will never affect me but if they try to put micro transactions into a Dragon Quest game that will put me in to super high tension rage.
Really they should just have the Final Fantasy franchise have a break to let people cool off and give the Dragon Quest team time to make a proper Final Fantasy game as they at least seem to know how to keep fans happy and make a good game.