Square Enix Are Massive Losers !!

greed poor decision making Financial ruin these are just a few of the phrases often mentioned when discussing Square Enix these days in the high stakes world of video game development few names carry as much weight as Square Enix known for crafting immersive world and memorable narratives the company has long been a Titan in the gaming industry but even Giants can stumble and recent Financial reports suggest the Square Enix is in the midst of a challenging downturn among the flagship titles caught in this Whirlwind is Final Fantasy 7 rebirth the latest installment in one of Gaming's most iconic franchises statistics show that amongst the turmoil the company is facing that rebirth is selling at half the rate remake did 4 years ago something that many people find alarming considering that AAA games are becoming increasingly more expensive to produce suffering huge losses across the board some blame the production of rebirth as the direct culprit behind many of Square's Financial wos whereas others blame the situation on everything but obviously the reality is that current circumstances are a lot more nuanced than either of these ideas that Fanboys and detractors are running with so I'm lady decade hit that subscribe button and join me today as we look at the current challenges faced by Square Enix one of the gaming industry's Biggest Losers news has been circulating online reporting on the fact that at present Square Enix is a massive Loser on the 30th of April 2024 Square Enix would send out in their own words a notification of recognition of extraordinary losses it would lay out that Square Enix Holdings Company Limited expects to recognize extraordinary losses pertaining to abandonment losses associated with its content production account on its books for the fiscal year ending march 2024 add to the meeting convened on the 27th of March 2024 the board of directors voted to revise the group's approach to the development of highdef games with the intention of being more selective and focused in the allocation of development resources as a result of a close examination of the group's development pipeline undertaken in keeping with this revised approach the company expects to recognize approximately 22 .1 billion yen in content abandonment losses on its books for the fiscal year ending march 2024 to put into perspective how much money that is that's the equivalent of12 million or $141 million an incredible amount of cash to lose as for what they meant by their statement is worth noting that they specifically stated that they want to cut back on the production of HD video games a term used to describe traditional PC and console single player driven Adventures rather than mobile titles service games or MMOs terrifyingly these sorts of sentiments and Visions for Gaming's future aren't exclusive to just Square Enix and it seems like across the board corporate goliaths intends to cut back on the production of traditional games and move more towards the mobile market and competitive multiplayer games that feature the same business model of fortnite a horrifying example of this is that recently Warner Brothers interactive entertainment has expressed similar desires JB paret Warner Brother CEO of streaming and games recently spoke at a Morgan Stanley conference where he complained about the Earth realm of console gaming being a volatile Market a market in which getting shareholders richer is becoming increasingly challenging in his words he would States the challenge we've had is that our business historically it has been very AAA console based and so as you know that's a great business when you have a hit like Harry Potter it makes the gear look amazing but we also have disappointments we just released suicide squads this quarter which was not as strong it just makes it very volatile acknowledging that in the field of gaming they make most of their money from Harry Potter Game of Thrones DC and Mortal Kombat he says that in the future rather than focusing on AAA so much the opportunity is to take those four franchises and be able to develop a much more holistic approach particularly around expanding into the mobile and multiplatform free-play space which could give us a much better and consistent set of Revenue and then secondarily live Services rather than just launching a kind of one and done console game listen to how these people are speaking this is the beginning of the end for the style of games we know and love those who have played Mortal Kombat 1 will have noticed that this already $70 game features an aggressive amount of predatory micro transactions offered up and content locked behind a pay wall that is not even accessible to those who have purchased the even more expensive premium version of the game this has obviously caused an absolute uproar from consumers who feel grieved at having spent so much on a game and yet not having full access even as swiftly as 1 month after it was released Namco Bandai Tekken 8 is also becoming increasingly aggressive in trying to get its player base to make microtransactions too shadily and stealthily announcing paid features conveniently shortly after receiving positive reviews from the gaming news industry the backlash to this which insues would be enough to gain the attention of a Tekken commanderin-chief katsu hero Herer with him claiming that such practices were necessary due to the rising costs of video game development as adding that it cost them close to Triple the amount of money making Tekken a than it did the previous entry in the series he would add that in the past there weren't so many specs and there wasn't online plus they didn't have such high resolution and high definition now so many people want the game to run and be supported for a long time it cost money to continually update the game for that reason to put it simply the AAA gaming industry is facing significant challenges production costs are soaring driven by the need for advanced Graphics expensive worlds and continuous updates however to recoup these costs many developers increasingly rely on monetization strategies like microtransactions which most players find exploitative especially considering how expensive a day one purchase of a AAA title is these days these can lead to a perception of declining game quality as the focus shifts from delivering a complete experience to finding new ways to ize the player base one of the biggest problems with this business model is that it's completely immersion breaking when playing a video game you're essentially enjoying a piece of art and allowing yourself to be absorbed into its world if Midway through this experience you notice that Publishers are sticking their hands out and asking for money no longer are you immersed in a fairy tale realm but you're instead whisked back to everyday reality the reality in which Mega corporations profit from your engagement this sudden shift from fantasy to Commerce can shatter the immersive experience that games strive to offer when players encounter the in-game purchases it reminds them of the transactional nature of the industry disrupting their connection to the game story and world this model can make players feel like customers rather than participants in an interactive Journey ultimately undermining the creative and artistic value that video games aim to provide at the opposite end of the spectrum you might notice that younger people are not only more conditioned to these practices but more accepting of them too however I think there is a psychological reasoning behind this acceptance Beyond it simply being considered a cultural norm they grew up with you'll notice a lot of the so-called service games they play aren't single player Escapist experiences but instead competitive multiplayer games in which friends gather over headsets and use this form of fun competition as a way of socializing it's basically the digital equivalent of both going to the pub or going going down the park for a kickabout with your friends therefore making purchases in these freet to-play games isn't as immersion breaking as with traditional console games as players aren't as absorbed into these games as they're not story driven for a start let alone being played with friends bantering over headsets so this raises the question has Final Fantasy 7 underperformed because it's not enough like fortnite let's discuss despite receiving a fantastic critical reception rebirth has reportedly fil to live up to sales expectations particularly in comparison to remake which was released 4 years prior functioning as the second entry in a planned Trilogy that looks to retell and add to the story told in the 1997 original Square Enix has huge expectations when it came to this game while many believe that gameplay wise rebirth feels bigger and better than remake it lags behind sales wise UK boxed sales of rebirth on the game's opening weekend were down 30% when compared to the previous installment it seems though that such a drop off has nothing whatsoever to do with quality but more to do with other factors for instance Not only was remake A Dream game that many had fantasized about prior to the launch of the PS3 but it was also a game released during the height of the covid-19 2020 Global lockdown considering that many people were stuck at home during this time fured and unable to work combined with the fact that home entertainment was the only only entertainment option for most then it makes sense why a highly anticipated game like remake would have been even more jumped on in such an unprecedented time in modern history that's not the only reason why the game is more popular than rebirth debuting as a PlayStation 4 exclusive fortunately for Square Enix the install base of PS4 owners was absolutely huge for this at the time mature system in 2024 on the other hand the install base of the PS5 the home of rebirth isn't even close to anywhere nearest large thus meaning that people aren't going to buy rebirth if they don't even own a PlayStation 5 to play it on now when we consider that the majority of AAA titles are released across PC PlayStation and Xbox formats yet still claim not to be making enough money for all the Publishers to be happy with game sales alone such as Tekken 8 and Mortal Combat one for example games much smaller in scale than rebirth I might add it's no wonder that rebirth isn't close to turning over the profits that would be needed to justify the creation of such a huge and demanding game or is it a case of the people behind Mortal Kombat 1 and Tekken just being greedy to give you an idea of how important multiplatform releases can impact sales even when it came to remake which was considered to have done really well 3.5 million copies were shifted for the PS4 in just 3 days however a few years earlier when both the PS4 and Xbox One were newer consoles with smaller install bases the less hyped Final Fantasy 15 sold a crazy 5 million units in just one day basically it hasn't done rebirth any favors existing as a PlayStation 5 exclusive looking back at the game's development and prior to that its planning cycle the whole idea of taking the original story of Final Fantasy 7 and dragging it out across three different games is panning out to look like a bit of a disaster no matter how good these games might be Ro respectively it almost seems completely ludicrous that a deal would be struck to create an entire Trilogy of games released years apart with some entries to function on Hardware that hadn't even been released when the plan was conceived the future of not just gaming but the entire world in general is getting increasingly turbulent so to announce a Trilogy to slowly be rolled out with DLC over a decad for various generations of Hardware seems like an incredibly risky PA to take I guess the Assumption was that the Final Fantasy 7 brand was so strong that it would be impossible to mess up in a partially greed driven decision more money seemed like it was on the table to Milk The Cow three times instead of just one however what Square reenix fail to take into account for any of this were any global economic downturns the world would face and more importantly any challenges to the dominance of the PlayStation brand let's face it one of the reasons the original Final Fantasy 7 was so popular in the first place was because the original PlayStation was the most popular game console on Earth by 8 country mile being a Sony PlayStation console exclusive the two entities complemented each other and encouraged sales the PlayStation 4 was also a highly popular system which was in part due to Microsoft's anti-consumer policies that would put many people off bying the Xbox One platform that generation however in the era of the PS5 it's not even overtaken the Xbox one yet let alone the PS4 or Nintendo switch a game console that has outsold everything we have mentioned today not only that PC gaming is more accessible and popular than ever and because it's so convenient and reliable to use services like steam many gamers just seek out their AAA experiences over there instead to put it simply the PlayStation brand isn't even close to being as dominant as it has been when compared to the majority of years in the past therefore you would imagine that rebirth would have an upswing when it eventually ends up on the PC so while rebirth would ass solds better under different circumstances and most certainly will sell better in the future when it arrives on other platforms the broader picture reveals that square enix's missteps span well beyond the existence of Final Fantasy 7 games Final Fantasy 16 due to also being a PlayStation 5 exclusive has similarly suffered in cells in comparison to many of its predecessors despite also being another amazing game on top of this square inex has confirmed that their digital sales have been down 4.7% across the board from the previous year despite Final Fantasy 16's existence they have partially put this down to the slow decline of the popular MMO Final Fantasy 14 pair everything we have covered so far with the rising development costs and it becomes increasingly clear how Square Enix has ended up in a sticky situation what losers and I don't mean that as an insult by the way I'm just stating a fact while the recent formal statement paints a rather Bleak picture of the fortunes of the company throughout the last few years is easy to identify many mistakes the company have made which stretch far beyond to the realm of Final Fantasy games let's talk about the rubbish for example that has happened with Crystal Dynamics after Square Enix purchased idos interactive and took over all of their Studios this allowed them to add Tomb Raider to their catalog while commissioning Crystal Dynamics to make the first couple of Tomb Raider games under their ownership they were delayed to task them with making the terrible Marvel Avengers game some review sources including egm would slate the game for rather than delivering a fun superhero romp the title would be deemed annoying overly repetitive and full of games as a service component the very cancer that is increasingly afflicting games across the board in 2024 in September 2021 where Enix and Crystal Dynamics faced backlash after introducing an XP boost purchasable only with real world money which helped players level up faster this change followed a March 2021 update that made leveling up slower seemingly pushing players towards the paid boost critics argued this violated Square enix's previous assurance that microtransactions would to be limited to Cosmetics not affecting gameplay due to the backlash from the community and journalists Square Enix backtracked and removed the XP boost a month later on the 3rd of November highlighting their attempt to monetized progression despite earlier promises to make the whole scenario worse the third Mainline Tomb Raider game under Square Enix would be stripped from Crystal Dynamics so that they could focus on that abysmal Marvel game with the dubious idos Montreal working on Shadow of the Tomb Raider sales for the game were extremely disappointing with some long-term fans perplexed with how the French Canadians bastardized the British produced character to cater to what they would refer to as modern sensibilities to learn more about this mess check out my recent Tomb Raider upload not as many people have seen that so far Square Enix would later sell the Tomb Raider IP complaining that ironically Tomb Raider games were too expensive to make in many ways foreshadowing today's story but what they would do next would make them look great greedier and more predatory than ever that same year embarrassingly square reix would announc that they wanted to get into nfts hilariously after Most Japanese Publishers and developers had already backed down due to the public essentially always being very aware that the concept is a scam in 2022 their president Yos matsuda expressed that the company were firmly committed to blockchain technology and even though fans were begging them to reconsider their dubious plan squares stock would increase by 8% the moment Matt suda's letter was published the president insisted that the inclusion of nfts linked to games like Final Fantasy 7 was to make games like that more exciting and would be a great way to get people to play the game who had no interest in video games a red flag if you've ever seen one expensive digital cards would later see release and in the following year of 2023 Square would double down on this direction partnering with web platform Elixir to promote blockchain games to traditional Gamers this by the way was in the face of companies like valve completely Banning the use of the dubious technology outright on Steam with them noting it was overwhelmingly technology used for scamming people another disappointment for the company that year would be the release of for spoken an action roleplaying game developed by luminous Productions the game would receive lackluster to disappointing reviews primarily due to its underwhelming narrative inconsistent character development and unrefined gameplay mechanics despite the high expectations and promising previews full spoken struggled to meet the standards set by previous action games Square Enix would blame the game's poor reception on the resulting poor sales So the plan seems to be going forward no more games like fores spoken as outlined by Metro current Square president tesi kidu is already putting plans into action to try to end the massive losses the company are suffering relating to the notification of recognition of extraordinary losses we mentioned at the start of the video during an invested Q&A back in November giru already began laying out his intentions for the company's future this included more carefully selecting the games which are going to be developed to a high quality standard including expanding his portfolio Beyond just its famous RPG IPS loan changes include octopath Travelers tamoya asano and the diof field Chronicle producer taka masiba being made company Executives while the future of Square Enix remains unclear it certainly seems as though they along with other so-called AAA Publishers are struggling financially at the moment compared to the usual and are thus in the process of taking Extreme Measures to try to recoup some of their losses taking everything into account it really does feel like we're in the midst of a video game crash with it seeming as if big Publishers are becoming increasingly predatory and ever reliant on microtransactions and service games to get by looking at everything that has transpired recently it starts to make a lot of sense why these big firms were so Keen in the past to try and sell us all on the nft scam it certainly wasn't in the interest of the consumer was it all negativity aside Square Enix is catalog of video games remains amongst my favorites in history so I wish them all the luck in the world of getting their traditional games right rather than relying too much on complete rubbish like so-called service games Let's cross our fingers that the third installment of the Final Fantasy 7 reboot doesn't turn out to be the shmu 3 of the modern era games aren't only expensive for Publishers but more importantly for us with individuals struggling daytoday more than any corporate company so due to this I'd like to help you obtain thousands of games for much cheaper including those from Square Enix use my instance gaming Affiliates links down below to support this Channel and receive the Final Fantasy 7 remake with all of it DLC and even more Bargains for dirt cheap let's support each other through these tough Economic Times happy shopping [Music] oh

Channel: Lady Decade

Views: 28,972

Keywords: Square Enix Are Massive Losers !!, final fantasy vii rebirth, final fantasy 7 rebirth, final fantasy vii remake, retro gaming, square enix, square enix huge loses, forspoken, forspoken review, nfts, gaming news, industry news, mortal kombat one, tekken 8

Id: 7wENqkbfa6M

Length: 22min 13sec (1333 seconds)

Published: Fri May 03 2024