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Square Enix President Looks To Online Play
Gamespot has a story detailing comments by Square Enix president Youichi Wada. In the article, they touch on the fact that Square is going to be increasingly looking to online play in their future games. From the article: "Wada predicted that online games will be Square Enix's main source of income in the future. 'I think that over half of our income and profit will be based on network content [including games] by 2008 or 2009.'"
I refuse to pay to play a game. Witch is why final fantasy 11 is the only final fantasy game I havent played/own.
If they dont make many MMORPGs.
There simply is not the market for many of them at all. Unless there is one flat fee to play all square-enix mmorpgs.
Even then, I prepher the D2 and UT style online play. Where players have their own servers and it is free to play online.
If that is the case. Then this is awsome. I would love it if they made a game like that for the DS. Or just an old school-esque FF game with online play.
From what I have heard about FFXII an optional online mode like D2 could be great.
Last I checked, World of Warcraft gave them a thorough trouncing.
Rob
The amount of people willing to pay a monthly fee to play a game is not that large. Unless they are willing to make online games that have free servers - SquareEnix-run or not - they will be chasing after the same small pool as everyone else. ;)
I'd rather pay an extra $10 for faster internet
(It's never too late to join the Renaissance)
If this is how they want to change their business structure, that's fine. It does seem strange that a company that has acquired much profit from offline games would make this decision.
It just comes down to direction. Nintendo is trying something different, so it isn't too shocking that Square-Enix is as well. The most shocking thing that both are doing are turning away from proven forms of capital.
Don't get me wrong, I like(d?) Square, but the creator of the Final Fantasy series recently left (as well as the composer). Moreso, it seems the series has been going downhill with each release past 7 (with respect to acclaim and sales) with the only bright spot being 10. What's more, they're releasing direct sequels now in a Disney-like effort to milk the characters for every cent they're worth (I'll set my copy of the Lion King 2 next to FFX2). The marketing department needs to be shot (FFT2 could have been a wonderful game if they were consistant with their audience; it had the plot simplicity and difficulty of an ages 5-7 game with an ability system that adults could've enjoyed (if the overall difficulty weren't so easy). Their target audience should've been the same people who bought the first one.)
Both Disney and Square have the same fundamental ailment: profit-driven business models in a creative enterprise involving risk. You don't get critical acclaim or sales for repeating the same formula (except if you're Halo 2).
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
What they are forgetting is that the lowest common denominator is the console - only a minority and that's a real definite minorirty but a *minority* none the less have or give a shit about online play
I dont have FFXI, because I liked FF games due to the plot and story created and the playability which while not hard was entertaining and kept you going.
The move to online-only games = the computer equivalent of reality TV. They don't need plots and people will kill each other (almost) to produce the content the developers don't need to anymore. The character interaction, etc., is what makes RPGs and l44t sk9i11z kids don't exactly imply adequate value.
But it's $60 + $15/month. You might cancel after a few months, probably 3-4 I would guess is what the board of directors figures. This means up to $120, well worth it even with a smaller userbase.
What a bunch of shit.
Acting stupid isn't much fun when there's someone around who knows better
Actually, FFXI has a pretty decent story. It's just a story that you can't gain access to if you try to go solo.
You're wrong. Sorry, it's just - well, you're wrong.
Here's the story:
Evil Shadowlord creates tons of beastmen which attack the four nations on Vana'diel. A rag-tag team of adventurers (ie, you and five other morons playing the game) all gather together to defeat him.
Tada.
That's the story. Yay. In other words, it's pretty much exactly like FF, FFII, FFIII, FFIV, FFV, FFVI, FFVII, FFVIII, FFIX, and FFX in the generic story. Except far, far more cliched.
Apparently the EXPANSION PACKS added more to the story. But FFXI's actual story sucked ass. And the expansion packs lock you out of the story until you're like level 60, which takes approximately 40 DAYS of gameplay to reach. Yes, 40 DAYS, as in 960 HOURS of gameplay. Of course, most people will take longer than that, as 40 days is basically rushing straight through.
Fuck that, I'm not going to play FFXI for the "story" and I would highly suggest no one else should either. The story is bland and uninteresting, and the amount of effort required to reveal it simply isn't worth it. It's a waste of time and money. And it's the #1 reason I refuse to buy any other Square-Enix game again.
Hah, you think $60+$15/mo is expensive? It's not. I used to regularly buy 3-4+ games a month, that's at $40-50 a pop. Per month.
Enter FFXI (or any MMO of your choice, really). Sure, I pay $50. After that I pay $15/mo. (With FFXI, it's $13/mo and $1 for each extra char, which becomes worth it if you get into the game.) But FFXI has enough content and I play it enough that I don't usually buy anything else.
So, if it make Square more money, it saves me more money, so what's wrong with a win-win situation?
As for the rest; FFXI actually has a quite intruiging story and world. Square doesn't let you down there by any means. The last expansion pack was almost exclusively story. But you will need to be committed to make it through; I don't contest that at all. World of Warcraft is a lot more accessible, especially for the casual player. However, after a couple months playing that (which was fun), I'm back to FFXI... simply because it's more compelling.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Pretty much since the two companies became one they've been trying to do this. They've put out plenty of betas in Japan trying to look for that winning genre combination. There's "Junkmetal", which is an MMO mech-based FPS, and "Shisso, Yankee Tamashii.", a more original MMO where you play as a Japanese highschool delinquent. There's not really that much you can do with the MMO model, though, but they don't seem to get that...
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