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Square Enix Needs to Modernize Its IP, Former Exec Says

IbizaPocholo

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman
insider-gaming.com

Square Enix Needs to Modernize Its IP, Former Exec Says

A former Square Enix executive claims the company has failed to connect iconic gaming franchises with a new generation of players.
insider-gaming.com insider-gaming.com

Jacob Navok, former Director of Business at Square Enix, is discussing his belief that the company has failed to bring its popular IPs, such as Final Fantasy, to new generations by truly embracing the live-service model. In a long Twitter post, Navok admits that the brand actually understands live service as they've proven that with games like Final Fantasy 14 and Final Fantasy 11.

Still, he believes the popular JRPG franchise could do a better job of meeting young people where they're at, for example, he hypothesizes the fun that a K-pop Demon Hunters x Final Fantasy collaboration could be.

As further examples of what he thinks Square Enix should do with the Final Fantasy brand, Navok discusses the success that Magic: The Gathering has had outside of its original medium. He also uses Kingdom Hearts as an example, saying that the series has shown how Final Fantasy lore could potentially mesh with other properties. He also says he thinks it would be interesting to see Final Fantasy 14 used as the technical basis for building a new free-to-play experience that continuously updates through modern collaborations.

"I think Square Enix is so used to being slow that it can't imagine what life would be like if it acted fast. There's a lot of internal red tape; the CEO's job is to make a decision and cut that red tape so that innovation flourishes," he said.
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The problem with their main saga, Final Fantasy, is that they have failed to build a strong identity for two generations, losing a whole batch of new players that joined the fantasy/JRPG genre.

Square needs 3-4 top creators that rebuild all their franchises and Yoko Taro to have full control of the Nierverse. This level of mismanagement is just sad.
 
You have to create a scenario where a little brother/sister learn from his/her big brother/sister like transferring knowledge and experience. We don't get this stuff these days, kids are way too protected by their parents and the age gap between kids keeps getting bigger, it's definitely a kids parents issue for being too protective and deliberately creating age gap between their siblings and even their neighbours.
 
I think the problem is that they did modernize them already. FF7:Rebirth is the poster child of modern gaming. Hold the action button to win fights, explore empty worlds and be full of bloat content.
 
Fuck them kids. Look at Clair Obscur for inspiration instead. They upstaged Square Enix at their own game by making a successful evolution of the kind of games Square Enix used to make.

Competent writing + direction, characters who talk and act like grown ass adults with functioning brains, tight + focused adventure that isn't loaded with Ubislop open world bloat.

Build a truly great game and the gamers will come.
 
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(...)

hypothesizes the fun that a K-pop Demon Hunters x Final Fantasy collaboration could be

(...)
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Iron Man Eye Roll GIF


All these AAA execs can't think off anything originally/uniquely imaginative and captivating. Its all about latching onto some pre-established/existing property to coast on and expand their reach. Its all so tiresome.
 
i finished ff7 remake and reached around half of rebirth ( i didnt play the originals so i have no nostalgia bullshit in my system ) , these games lack depth and have alot of bloat , alooot of useless slow walking and squeezing through gaps , the story isnt bad but because they stretch it so much its makes it seems like it really sucks
 
He is basically saying they haven't sold out. Live service what? Countless mobile gacha games? A lot of those SE mobile games shutdown already. Dissidia is just fan service. I get the feeling like Square has a lot of clueless people at the top and their developers are more about pleasing a stereotype audience.

They've had so many live service mobile games. I can see a few of them on my Apple list. Everything from vampires to a mainline Final Fantasy. They aren't amazing.

Square-Enix was better (Squaresoft was better) before the PS3. I don't appreciate their work as much as I use to. I'll buy Octopath and their remasters. I feel like the people running that company are looking to sell out. I also think they've got a fanbase that follows their every move, regardless if it's bad.
 
I thought all the cool kids were playing Dissidia Duellum especially since that Opera Omnia game was like the worst ever and most definitely deserved the shutdown it got and before that NieR Reincarnation. Most definitely didn't have a large fanbase at all.

Sarcasm btw

Angry_Megalodon Angry_Megalodon Part of the problem is their talent scattered to the hills and became Monolithsoft and Cygames or just went their separate ways entirely like Uematsu did.
 
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MagiusNecros said:
I thought all the cool kids were playing Dissidia Duellum especially since that Opera Omnia game was like the worst ever and most definitely deserved the shutdown it got and before that NieR Reincarnation. Most definitely didn't have a large fanbase at all.

Sarcasm btw
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The First Soldier was suppose to be amazing yo
 
penn jillette shut up GIF


Square Enix needs to be looking to the past and delivering the kind of RPGs that people expect from the brand, not live service failures.
 
Pretty much.
Their issue is that most of their games have sucked for over a decade. People have waited many years to be rewaded with FFXIII Trilogy, an incomplete mess FFXV, a DMC wannabe chasing Game of Thrones with FFXVI.
They took forever to develop KH3 and it was another disappointment. They're taking forever to develop KH4 and DQ12.

The ending result is that new generations don't give a fuck about them and the only people caring are 35+ years old that still have fond memories of the Squaresoft golden age in the 90s when every game they made was a masterpiece but it's clear that age is long gone.

If they can't deliver great games without people having to wait almost a decade between each game and they don't stop chasing trends without having the balls to create their own identity and stick with it they won't have a bright future.
If the CEO is stupid enough to think that the cure is just multiplatform he's in for a rude awakening as already proved by the FF7 Remake ports sales.
 
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Dudes not wrong. If they're going to make AAA big budget games, they need to capture Gen Z and Gen Alpha and nothing about Final Fantasy is going to do that. They should stop trying and instead make a new IP that will appeal to a younger crowd (NOT Foamstars.)
 
Jacob says SE performance is a joke compared to Capcom, but in the same breath wants them to go all in on live service mobile games.

Capcom isn't making it's money on mobage, it's making hardcore, crowd-pleasing, single-player titles; you know, the ones Square Enix used to be famous for!

No wonder this dolt is an ex-executive.
 
Northeastmonk said:
He is basically saying they haven't sold out. Live service what? Countless mobile gacha games? A lot of those SE mobile games shutdown already. Dissidia is just fan service. I get the feeling like Square has a lot of clueless people at the top and their developers are more about pleasing a stereotype audience.

They've had so many live service mobile games. I can see a few of them on my Apple list. Everything from vampires to a mainline Final Fantasy. They aren't amazing.
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What he's saying is that they should have made something at the level of Mihoyo. I'm aware people who are not in the know about gachas love to lump them all together but that's as wrong as comparing Rockstar's games to Crystal Dynamics's. Mihoyo sweeps the floor with whatever Square has produced in the last decade.

Genshin was the first true AAA using a gacha model and has become a template for others to follow just like Ubisoft and Rockstar's open worlds are the template for western open worlds. And then, they made a turn-based JRPG just as successful, killing any "modern audiences" anti-turn based combat narrative.

Sony has even more to regret. They already had a very successful gacha in Japan (FGO) that could have been as big as Genshin Impact, but they lacked the vision and ambition to realize it.
 
Shifty1897 said:
Dudes not wrong. If they're going to make AAA big budget games, they need to capture Gen Z and Gen Alpha and nothing about Final Fantasy is going to do that. They should stop trying and instead make a new IP that will appeal to a younger crowd (NOT Foamstars.)
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They tried lol, it was called "Forspoken".
What they need is to be more daring, like Expedition 33 that had an actual story that felt like adults wrote it and not retarded teenagers. FF 16 made the illusion for the first 5 hours and then it was back to full anime tropes. The public needs to be surprised again, and Expedition 33 was the perfect balance between what people love about old-school Final Fantasy, but with enough innovation to make it fresh.
 
He says Square is good at live service because of FF 11 & 14 but ignores the dozens of flops they have released. Hell, even the FF14 mobile game was a massive flop in China.
 
I mean Well deserved? They been fucking with their ips specially Dragon Quest for so long by releasing it exclusive on Japan and Nintendo consoles, and if they release on West they take abysmal time to release them outside Japan.

Also about the Genshin thing, Mihoyo made Genshin not Square and even if Square made such a thing it would been 5 years exclusive to Wii U and in Japan, so it will end flipping hard anyways
 
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FoxMcChief said:
I think the problem is that they did modernize them already. FF7:Rebirth is the poster child of modern gaming. Hold the action button to win fights, explore empty worlds and be full of bloat content.
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There ain't no fucking way you just hold the button and win fights. This can only be true of low level shit tier enemies.

Doubly true of FF16.
 
"former"



For a minute, I thought this was something they were announcing. I think making good games will suffice. Listening to fans, hiring the best people for the job, investing money and care into products, etc. You know, all those old-fashioned concepts that still work to this day.
 
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Their issue was choking themselves out of their own key market, JRPGs, by releasing like 20 games per year.

They seem to have course corrected, at least in their financial press, to focusing on a smaller quantity of higher quality games.

Their next issue is an over-reliance on numbered franchises which are alienating to new audiences who worry whether they have to play them all to enjoy the latest title.
 
Maybe they could try going a different direction in terms of art style? Imagine if you will, a Final Fantasy where all the men actually look like men instead of 15 year old girls dressed like men? Couldn't hurt.

Maybe also get away from all the lazy anime tropey bullshit in their writing, and try to do something new and interesting. Just a thought.
 
He's mostly talking about gacha live service games, which is a market where Square Enix has fallen waay behind, if you look at their games compared to Genshin Impact, Zenless Zone Zero etc.

He's kind of giving mixed messages, brining up Genshin Impact and then actually talking about Fortnite-style collaborations? Unless, do the Chinese gacha games also do big collaborations with pop stars and stuff? Angry_Megalodon Angry_Megalodon ? The only one I remember from Infinity Nikki is the cute Stardew Valley event. If that's the case, it's not necessarily about doing collaborations, it's about working better and spending more money.

I definitely think part of it is that they've been always been hesitant to really commit to big changes, even with their big mainline single player Final Fantasy games. Since XV and on they've been trying out different sort of action game ideas, but there's always something that prevents their systems from being really great, Like they have these ideas but they're afraid to commit to them too much and end up with something that just doesn't work that well. (I like XV and the 7 remakes anyway, but not really because of the combat, it's the other stuff)
 
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Seriously, almost all calls for "modernize shit" has proven to be abject failures. There is no modern audience as a monolith or a collective. That is a bullshit myth. How many more times are we going to do this shit?

You can't game or force the next big thing. It just happens. It just hits.

Most of the time, the best you can hope for is to make a good game for your audience and accept the modest success it can be. Yes, things can just be a modest success on a modest budget. We used to know that as a society. For some inexplicable reason, we all got retarded and decided we have to double or nothing on every decision like unhinged gamblers.

This contrived attempt to game the market, industry, or format to keep up with the times is utter snake oil bullshit.

Just take a chance, experiment or refine, and see how the audience reacts. Don't bet the entire farm. If you want to go the extra mile, listen to your audience and adapt with their feedback.
 
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I know this isn't really related but it's crazy how these Square Enix people pointedly ignore that Persona 5 has massively outsold their latest Final Fantasy games, because the Final Fantasy development arm of that company doesn't want to hear it.
 
Go back to thinking about how you can satisfy your customers, rather than your shareholders, and you will find the answer.
 
DonkeyPunchJr said:
Fuck them kids. Look at Clair Obscur for inspiration instead. They upstaged Square Enix at their own game by making a successful evolution of the kind of games Square Enix used to make.

Competent writing + direction, characters who talk and act like grown ass adults with functioning brains, tight + focused adventure that isn't loaded with Ubislop open world bloat.

Build a truly great game and the gamers will come.
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kizito said:
They tried lol, it was called "Forspoken".
What they need is to be more daring, like Expedition 33 that had an actual story that felt like adults wrote it and not retarded teenagers. FF 16 made the illusion for the first 5 hours and then it was back to full anime tropes. The public needs to be surprised again, and Expedition 33 was the perfect balance between what people love about old-school Final Fantasy, but with enough innovation to make it fresh.
Click to expand...
Persona 5 and Dragon Quest XI are full of dumb anime cliches, angsty teenagers, and bloat, that didn't stop them from selling like hotcakes. You'd have to explain in detail where you think the disconnect is between these games and the FF franchise.

Personally, I think Final Fantasy has more of an identity problem. Every title is different so you don't know what to expect. The gameplay is standard action stuff you've played a million times already, and chances are another game did it better. The writing ranges from magnificent to grossly uninspired. But there's this weird disconnect I've found in the tone since they merged with Enix, from games X to the present. It's like the story is taking itself super-serious but then also being weirdly goofy. I don't know how to describe it, it feels out of place. Like Persona 5 is full of mature themes but also comedy, yet somehow manages to be tonally consistent.

No game better encapsulates "identity crisis" than the FFVII trilogy either. Sometimes it's pure, perfect nostalgia and other times I don't know what the fuck I'm playing. And I don't mean that in a positive way, either.
 
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Plague Doctor said:
...

This contrived attempt to game the market, industry, or format to keep up with the times is utter snake oil bullshit.

Just take a chance, experiment or refine, and see how the audience reacts. Don't bet the entire farm. If you want to go the extra mile, listen to your audience and adapt with their feedback.
Click to expand...

I was thinking "snake oil salesman" as I read this exec's opinions. It's not surprising how many 'get rich quick' schemes the gaming industry attracts, but it is unfortunate how long it takes for some companies to get the memo that making great games is the best route to long-standing success.
 
Their problem is they have already done the no gender , girl boss, gay characters, and whiny teens thing multiple times. 😂
 
Gexxy1 said:
Personally, I think Final Fantasy has more of an identity problem.
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This is the main problem.

Persona and Dragon Quest fans already know what they are getting and have consistency. With Final Fantasy they always try to reinvent the wheel and never have consistency.
 
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