Why Square Enix Is Losing Money—An Indictment

Square Enix’s profits are plummeting—and it has no one to blame but itself.

[Godchild1020]

They are losing money because they have been releasing games that most of their fans don't want and their development cycle for a handful of their games don't match the quality it should have or what it was in PS2/1 era.

[NeXXXuS]

^ What you said. +bubs

[Moonman]

Well I must admit as of late, they are redeeming themselves with me. I reall want Bravely Default and Dragon Quest 7 remake to release in USA/EU. if they don't then I'll agree..haha.

[Capt-FuzzyPants]

And FF Type-0. I don't care that they're on portables. They're still look more fun than console games.

[Wigriff]

I think it's mainly the Square half of the equation that receives most of the vitriol. I love Enix and all things Dragon Quest related. I'd love to see the DQ7 remake as well, and I'm actually pretty excited for the Dragon Quest MMO.

[Godmars290]

Frankly, as much as many don't to hear it, basking MS over Sony didn't help. Actively giving preference either expecting old fans to jump onto the new ship or acquiring new fans to make up for the old was just asinine. More so postmortem when something like FF13 sold 2-1.

[miyamoto]

Like Capcom, Square Enix basically sold their soul to the oligarchs of the West.

I really feel so bad for the whole of Japan America has really pounded them this time.

[Ranma1]

Lets hope next gen, they can make a fresh start and not make the same mistakes.

This gen , its not possible to fix their mistakes

[Godmars290]

"Lets hope next gen, they can make a fresh start and not make the same mistakes."

They're only talking up their Luminous Engine, which has only show more focus on graphics. So...

[Marcello]

Japanese Devs have so lost the plot this gen, Sega & Capcom especially aswell. They have this trend of doing the exact opposite of wat the gamer wants.

Things have gotten beyond bad with them, we have made it so clear wat we want but they chose to totally ignore us so we are left having to ignore them & their shovelware.

[caseh]

SE kind of remind me of Sega a bit. Poured a ton of resources into their main IP and it hasn't sold well, the main difference being that FF was crap and Shenmue was a brilliant game that deserved more.

Now we get watered down FF games from SE and Sonic + 20 sequels from Sega as a result of minimal revenue from their most ambitious IPs.

[Ben_Grimm]

Time to dust off and make a bad a$$ Secret of Mana and Vagrant Story

[Minato-Namikaze]

Stop westernizing games, and focus on the gamers who got you what have square.....and FIRE Wada11

[HarryMasonHerpderp]

I don't know why anyone would disagree with that.

[ritsuka666]

Square is dead since the day merger with Enix...

[StrawHatPatriot]

I'm surprised the article didn't mention the lack of good stories/good plot development for the games in recent years

[Godmars290]

Wada basically stood up and said to stockholders he planned to take the fun out of making games. Of making it a quick production process.

Don't understand how anyone could say such a thing and not realize how such a process hampers and destroys creativity. With few game sales, thus lower returns and dire reports to stockholders, being the result.

Somehow in basic business the idea of investing in you base line, in this case the creative process, has been lost. Just pay off some outside research group to tell you what to make.

[brish]

When did wada say that?

I googled: take fun out of making games

The only references I found were for Bobby Kotick at activision.

[Godmars290]

They've both said it. Wada seems to worship Kotick.

[Pillsbury1]

want to make money square? simple, listen to the fans who give you that money.

[ACEMANWISE]

For me I lost interest for several reasons. It began when they released FFXI Online and I didn't have internet to play it. I also didn't see how they could maintain an authentic Final Fantasy experience if they had no control over the online aspect of different players. continued below....

So I waited for the next single player experience to arrive which translated into twice the time period between installents.

By the time FFXII released I moved on thinking about the diminished effect FFX had on me anyway. So I never picked it up to play. Then years later I got a PS3 and thought the platform could push the visual envelope like "CGI" did with the older FF games. Instead they went multiplat, which was fine but was a bit of a diisappointment to hear.

Then they released a linear experience while still preserving issues that became prevalent in later games (I'll explain these in a minute). It was the events that occurred this console generation that made me realize that Square was trying to reach somebody else. I felt like they were more concerned about recouping their lost, yet small, audience by finding a new crowd to take their place. In this process they lost their remaining audience and seem to be going "all in" to find the money.

At the same time they have failed to adjust to the changing landscape of gaming. As promised above I will explain what I mean.

One of the biggest changes that have occurred is the visual landscape. Older titles had less detail leaving more to my imagination. Adding voices, if not done right, Can remove the imagination as well. It was easier for me to connect to those characters because they didn't ruin it with failed design. Compare Wada from X with a sprite character in the 16bit era. I'll bet we can match personality types while still hating Wada more.

Final Fantasy VII did two things right. They told a universal story that wasn't crippled by translation...meaning the translation of words wasn't the way people connected to the story. It was more told through visual communication. This story seemed to relate to humanity rather than a particular culture or race.

The 2nd thing they did right is cheat its visual capabilities of the PS1 console by using CGI to impress the player...enhancing the realism and drawing the player into the story.

Yet these two things have never really been recreated since ( except Yuna's story in FFX which was a worthy effort but seemed too focused around her...like they picked up on the Aeries' incident and make it the center drama piece).

[ACEMANWISE]

continued from above...

They never really recreated that CGI treat either. Instead they decided to make the entire game visualy possible which I feel is unecessary because it becomes counterproductive to the focus on the story. When before the graphical CGI was a tool to make the player pay attention because an epic tale was being told. Now it's a commercial of Square's abilities to brag about it. Big difference when the formula isn't there.

What Square needs to do is come up with 7 human beings that are interesting, different, and mesh well with each other. Set a story that most human beings can relate to and bring back deeper gameplay elements that the casual audience can play while not affecting their core audience. It sounds hard but its not. They just need to go back to the basics a bit, tone down the graphics and put some advanced CGI scenes that visually can't be done on current consoles. I know the last part seems to be a tall order but it can be done.

ACE (Typing through a controller on the PS3...WHEW!)