Sorry if this thread looks similar to other threads but I don't remember seeing one like this so I gotta ask. Does anyone notice that Square Enix in general is focusing more on sequels and spin offs? Well for Kingdom Hearts, it's obvious that the series is being trolled by Nomura with spin offs. However, as for Final Fantasy, yes it's true that Square has taken a completely new direction with 12 and 13 (which from what I hear, is generally hated by classic FF gamers). But I've also noticed that other than 7 (and its compilation) and excluding MMORPG's, the the past 3 FF games in a row have had sequels. X had X-2, XII had XII Revenant Wings and other games in the Ivalice world, and now XIII has XIII-2. Iconic games such as 8, 9, 1, etc etc don't have any sequels. What are your thoughts? Do you think SE is more interested in spin offs, sequels, and milking money that the gap between main title games will be even longer?

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June Member of the Month and 10000th poster of the 10000 posts thread

The reason for more sequels is because games are taking longer and longer to develop. Square doesn't want to only make sequels, sequels are just easier to make. XIII took significantly longer to make than XIII-2 did. Games don't just spawn out of nowhere. They take manpower. SE must consider using that manpower for more efficient means.

By the way, as the grammar nazi, I have an obligation to tell you that the last sentence of your post is a grammatical catastrophe.

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(March 10, 2011 08:09:41 PM)Darryl Wrote:  Grammar Nazi: Aaron (15 Votes)

BlahblahblahBlahblahblah

I'm sure it has something to do with the longer development time and the greater investment of money that goes along with that. When you put several years into developing an IP you want to get a return on your investment wherever you can.
Also, I remember when I was a kid I wanted a sequel to just about every Final Fantasy that I played. I wanted to get to go back to the world and see what happened to the characters like Freya and Fratley, Zidane and Garnet and how Alexandria was doing under Garnet's rule. Maybe Square is just trying to give fans the sequels they've come to want for every game but we're being critical because 13 wasn't a world we were heavily invested in.

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This is something that I've argued a lot about. This separates Square's fans into two groups. Those who just want the next game and those who don't mind and will take whatever game they give us. I do fall into the later group, it doesn't matter much to me what game I get as long as it's good and fun.

Also there is a difference of meaning behind 'sequel and spin-off'. Sequel is fairly obvious, X-2 and XIII-2 are direct sequels. And FF IV has a sequel as well. The phrase 'Spin-off' is used misleadingly, examples would be the FF Tactics series, Crystal Chronicles, and last but not least FF Type 0, and even Verses. Which most people complain about Square making all these spin offs but then beg for Versus, which is, in fact, a spin off of FF XIII (a main series numbered title). Only difference being that it is part of a compilation. (and don't get me started on KH haha)

Yes Square is definitely releasing more sequels and spin-offs right now. But it is for a good reason. Firstly, this does not push production on other games back right now, except Verses/KH because it's the same team. Secondly, as previously mentioned games take a long time to develop. Thirdly, yes, square needs money to fund their production. What better way to do it than to make a fast inexpensive game. Plus FF XIII was very popular and brought a new audience. Though, really the only people who disliked it were classic FF fans.

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I don't buy the argument that "games take forever to make" for Square's reasoning to spend resources on spin-offs and sequels to main Final Fantasy entries. If anything, releasing these supplementary titles is just to reap more money from the fanbase. A mild distraction, if you will. But let me ask you this, after three of said games have been created and published, how often do fans still wonder where the meat-and-potato games are? Quite often. In fact, that's the topic of this thread, here. If Square-Enix's ratio of major projects to supplementary titles were balanced, meaning we got 1:1 or 1:2, then fans probably wouldn't have much to complain about. Except that doesn't seem the case.

The biggest problem Square-Enix has is that their first-party projects are spread too far and largely unfocused. On average, the first production teams are working on at least two to three projects at once, and on more than one platform. Even the Kingdom Hearts teams are split between a major console title (Versus XIII) and at least two spin-off handheld titles. That's alot of projects on a single platter. Then the priorities on these projects is questionable at best, like why Square green-lit XIII-2 when Type-0 and Versus XIII were still half-way into production? And now that XIII-2 is finally done, Versus XIII may finally kick into high gear, but who knows when the game will see a concrete launch window? And then you wonder if it took Versus XIII this long, how long a Kingdom Hearts 3 production would take? Five years? God forbid, ten years?! The fanbase is getting impatient as it is, why are we subjecting them to more torture with the notion that we won't see a next true console sequel to Kingdom Hearts until the PlayStation 4 has launched?

No matter how you slice or dice it, Square-Enix has a severe case of production ADD. Have they decided to stay focused and prioritize their workload, and not trying to sub-divide resources, we could have seen Versus XIII with a closer launch date. We may already hear official talks about XV, or hell, Kingdom Hearts 3. No waltzing around the bush, no smoke and mirror show, and no bullshit. They need to get their act together. I would gladly sacrifice a HD remaster of Final Fantasy X for Versus XIII to be out sooner. I would gladly sacrifice XIII-2 if Final Fantasy XV could be in pre-production. I would gladly give up Dissidia, Crisis Core, a Kingdom Hearts handheld spin-off, that rhythm game they're making for the 3DS, if it means we got more substantial projects in the future, and not so much fluff.

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I'm going to go with the "Time of Production" and "Cost" party. No matter how you slice it it comes down to time and money. Weither people want to believe it or not, SquareEnix is a business. They arn't stupid. It's WHY they were and still are in business. To a great degree, against my wishes to.

SquareEnix is like most companies. New IPs are always a risk. They are HUGE investments that could flop on a single bug or a badly timed negative press.

When they put a crap ton of time, money, and effort into FF13's story, engine, and environments; it's only natural that as a business they cash in some extra money by making a sequel that reuses quite a bit of those resources. Not saying none of FF13-2 is new, but that the engine and quite a bit of textures being reused cut a lot of costs in the sequel.

When they know a lot of people liked FF7, they knew if they made Crisis Core, Dirge of Cerberus, Beyond Crisis, and whatnot; they knew it would sell.

Same goes with the direction of their games. I personally don't like the moved from the old turn based menu combat, but they crunched the numbers and felt making the games more action packed would sell better. I hate it, but I know they see what's going to sell and thus moved on it.

The way SE does things isn't always what everyone wants, but it's their business model. Knowing all this, I have to stop myself when I try to claim I understand how to do their job better than them, or claim they arn't doing production right. Again, they arn't stupid and I think we sometimes don't see the big picture of how they run things just because they are so secretive.

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(February 11, 2012 08:27:14 PM)TheNinjaMax Wrote:  I don't buy the argument that "games take forever to make" for Square's reasoning to spend resources on spin-offs and sequels to main Final Fantasy entries. If anything, releasing these supplementary titles is just to reap more money from the fanbase. A mild distraction, if you will. But let me ask you this, after three of said games have been created and published, how often do fans still wonder where the meat-and-potato games are? Quite often. In fact, that's the topic of this thread, here. If Square-Enix's ratio of major projects to supplementary titles were balanced, meaning we got 1:1 or 1:2, then fans probably wouldn't have much to complain about. Except that doesn't seem the case.

The biggest problem Square-Enix has is that their first-party projects are spread too far and largely unfocused. On average, the first production teams are working on at least two to three projects at once, and on more than one platform. Even the Kingdom Hearts teams are split between a major console title (Versus XIII) and at least two spin-off handheld titles. That's alot of projects on a single platter. Then the priorities on these projects is questionable at best, like why Square green-lit XIII-2 when Type-0 and Versus XIII were still half-way into production? And now that XIII-2 is finally done, Versus XIII may finally kick into high gear, but who knows when the game will see a concrete launch window? And then you wonder if it took Versus XIII this long, how long a Kingdom Hearts 3 production would take? Five years? God forbid, ten years?! The fanbase is getting impatient as it is, why are we subjecting them to more torture with the notion that we won't see a next true console sequel to Kingdom Hearts until the PlayStation 4 has launched?

No matter how you slice or dice it, Square-Enix has a severe case of production ADD. Have they decided to stay focused and prioritize their workload, and not trying to sub-divide resources, we could have seen Versus XIII with a closer launch date. We may already hear official talks about XV, or hell, Kingdom Hearts 3. No waltzing around the bush, no smoke and mirror show, and no bullshit. They need to get their act together. I would gladly sacrifice a HD remaster of Final Fantasy X for Versus XIII to be out sooner. I would gladly sacrifice XIII-2 if Final Fantasy XV could be in pre-production. I would gladly give up Dissidia, Crisis Core, a Kingdom Hearts handheld spin-off, that rhythm game they're making for the 3DS, if it means we got more substantial projects in the future, and not so much fluff.

It doesn't push games back long (if at all) to make these lesser games. The only games that were pushed back was Versus to make KH 3d, and KH3 because of Versus. This is only because they have the same team. Square puts out these 'lesser' games because production does take a long time. Especially with Versus because Square had to study the PS3 engine, plus a lot of industry breakthroughs have happened between 2006 (when the PS3 released and Versus announced) and now. So a lot of changes have been made to the game to keep up and make this an epic game. It is about the money, it's cheap and easy to make sequels.

Also, would you be okay waiting 7+ dry years for a game? Or would you rather have something to do in between? I have the same argument for KH games as well. I'm grateful that I don't have to sit and wait for almost 10 years for a game to be made. Honestly, you complain now, but I think you would loose interest (or forget) the series as a whole if you had to wait that long.

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(February 11, 2012 10:24:50 PM)Simone Wrote:  It doesn't push games back long (if at all) to make these lesser games. The only games that were pushed back was Versus to make KH 3d, and KH3 because of Versus. This is only because they have the same team. Square puts out these 'lesser' games because production does take a long time. Especially with Versus because Square had to study the PS3 engine, plus a lot of industry breakthroughs have happened between 2006 (when the PS3 released and Versus announced) and now. So a lot of changes have been made to the game to keep up and make this an epic game. It is about the money, it's cheap and easy to make sequels.

Square, like any company, has to budget it's bank and decide how much of it's resource it can split between its projects. You can say that games that have more priority in the company's mind gets the most dough spent towards it, and the most attention from the producers. So you can argue when Square threw all of it's manpower behind finishing XIII that, yes, Versus XIII's production did suffer from it. Resources needed to be re-allocated from somewhere, and since Square decided that XIII was more of a priority and Versus was still in it's toddler stage in development, Versus was delayed. That was understandable.

What rubs me the wrong way is that XIII-2 suddenly appeared out of nowhere and then got the #1 priority spot in the production line, and all the support that implies. Like mentioned before, Type-0 and Versus XIII weren't even close to finishing and they got pushed back yet again because Wada and the rest of the board in charge of Square-Enix seemed so desperate to save XIII from on the backlash it got despite the good sales, or so it seems. So, yeah, when you have to re-allocate resources from other projects, those other projects tend to suffer from it. Those teams then are not getting the financial backing from the company bank to further development because the team with the whiny director demanded another allowance for his pet project. And that doesn't even take into the account of other many projects Square-Enix spends on publishing for developers under their ownership or partnership, depending on their relationship.

Its understandable that the Kingdom Hearts team would continue to make side projects to keep themselves relevant in the company, but I just wish it wasn't another handheld Kingdom Hearts game whose overall significance to it's own franchise is debatable at best. Unless, of course, the Kingdom Hearts team just ends up abandoning the console platform to turn to a greener pasture in the handheld market and make Kingdom Hearts 3 solely for that market - a move that has already garnered some criticisms from gamers who rather not see IP's like Valkyria Chronicles jump ships between sequels.

Quote:Also, would you be okay waiting 7+ dry years for a game? Or would you rather have something to do in between? I have the same argument for KH games as well. I'm grateful that I don't have to sit and wait for almost 10 years for a game to be made. Honestly, you complain now, but I think you would loose interest (or forget) the series as a whole if you had to wait that long.

I can bet you if Square would reduce the amount of projects they tackle down to one or two titles at a time, the chances of such long development times would diminish. Most developers do this, even the critically acclaimed and the commercially successful. Excluding World of Warcraft, Blizzard has both Heart of the Swarm and Diablo III. That's it. Valve is now only DOTA 2 to finish now Portal 2 is out. Bathesda barely touched any thing on Fallout: New Los Vegas when they were hard at work with Skyrim. Naughty Dog, Insomniac Games, Epic Games, Bungie, BioWare, Kojima Productions, etc. I guarantee you these companies have no more than two games on their production line, and most (outside of Blizzard) took a maximum of five years to develop. Skyrim took five years, and its an HD RPG. the original Mass Effect took 2 years and some change to develop BioWare's IP on a new console for an RPG, and it got a great reception and sales to reap from their success.

But to answer you question: Yes, I'd rather wait seven years for a potentially better game than be handed five supplemental games that I could care less about, assuming, of course, the right people are attached to the project, and that the game at least showed progress in it's development. Not officially unveiling the game until a year that it launches could help the agonizing wait as well. If you're worried about bridging time between waiting for the damn game, there's plenty of other games on the market from other companies that would love your money and your attention.

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There are some long posts here, but i will try to keep it short. It seems like they are in my opinion.

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@ TheNinjaMax: You make good points that I haven't really thought of. To make my point more valid I should have compared Square to other companies. Thanks

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