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Comment by haunter | Hacker News Reader

>The Transaction will assist the Company in adapting to the changes underway in the global business environment by establishing a more efficient allocation of resources, which will enhance corporate value by accelerating growth in the Company’s core businesses in the digital entertainment domain. In addition, the Transaction enables the launch of new businesses by moving forward with investments in fields including blockchain, AI, and the cloud.

https://www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/news/pdf/20220502%20A_Pre...

They are still making incredibly good games (FFXIV, DQXI, Nier, Bravely Default etc.) but for every single good one I swear they make 3 utter shite too + their gacha games are not even that good considering the saturation on the gacha market and what quality games some other companies can make (see Genshin)

But at least Naoki Yoshida is on the board of directors + he is producing the next mainline FF game and I think he has the trust of millions of players considering what they did with XIV. So not all hope lost as long as he is at the company.

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"Investments in blockchain, AI, and the cloud" sounds like they have absolutely no idea what they should do, and will spend most of the money paying very expensive consultants who produce delirious slideware about web3 metaverse opportunities.

I think that's just pandering. The markets expect to hear this line and will punish the stocks of tech companies that don't show some kind of investments into this kind of stuff.

They'll make some NFT-based card game with advanced self-learning AI opponents just to tick all the right boxes.

Why? Because enough VCs/Hedge Funds have bought into the lie that is crypto or “AI”. Is this some kind of economic extortion?

Yes, precisely. Executives want to pump the stock price because it's a large part of their compensation. Many Hedge funds/VCs want to invest in "innovative" companies .

Famously: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/21/long-island-iced-tea-micro-c...

More recently, insider trading and pump-and-dump charges.

https://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/2018/lr24201.htm

https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2021-121

Penny stock frauds like that are more about ripping off retail.

Traditional values are gossip based pseudoscience. The majority will never dig deeper, so it works, but what’s more they’ll never understand the nuance so why bother? Stick with gossip.

VCs reward investments into all that horse hockey, because VCs reward investments into it. It's greater fools all the way down, a weird self-fulfilling prophecy.

I still remember when companies proudly claimed their software contains XML and therefore is worth unicorn dollars

Crucially they don't need to buy the lie themselves, they only need to believe others will.

More like a race to the bottom. If everyone else is e.g. using Bahamian tax shelters, and your company explicitly states that it won't do that, then your company's stock price will go down, because the market predicts that without those "table stakes", your company is not going to be competitive with all the companies who are willing to do that. (Whether that's true or not is irrelevant; it's only about whether the market believes it's true.)

The most distressing aspect of the current bull run has to be that it's difficult to point to concrete examples/products that use the best buzzwords.

Web3? Show me an application which isn't just trying to sell some other crypto scam. Why can't I know simply access a web 3.0 web page, is the web 3 not the web?

AI? I see lots of ML in products these days, but calling it AI is ... extreme. Products that look like they could match the description are relatively far from commercial viability.

Those seem like obvious areas of research for a next generation game developer. Perhaps you are overreacting because of a culturally normative skepticism toward the word "Blockchain"

Veteran game developer here: What makes "ai" and "the cloud" obvious areas of research for a next generation game developer? Games have had "AI" for decades and we've had neural net hardware on GPUs for years and years now which gets used for things like upscaling, global illumination, etc. "the cloud" has been available for ages and games already use cloud hosting extensively where it makes sense.

All I see here are buzzwords and abstract terms that mean literally nothing as an investment unless your goal is to impress investors and specialist press. The blockchain is not going to do anything to streamline game development or improve game quality, all it can do is provide new monetization options... but traditional gacha games already make a truckload of money, so it's questionable whether the cost of moving into blockchain is reasonable for a company like Square Enix that can already rake it in via microtransactions.

"games have had ai for decades and the cloud has existed for years" is not a reason why research in those areas is pointless.

Your failure to, as you admit, see these topics as anything other than "buzzwords" all but confirms my original opinion of a cultural skepticism.

I don't think the OP said those things were pointless, only that they are already actively used in industry standard approaches.

FWIW I agree with the assessment, the terms are broad, generic and have no specific connotation for gamedev. It's not oriented at anyone in industry since you'd talk about specifics and not the "cloud", "ai", or "blockchain".

For AI, it's mostly machine learning that's attractive today. physically based animation will probably be the next big breakthrough to finally reign in the increasingly burdensome costs of asset production. It's been around for years in various white papers, but it's only recently starting to show up in commercial products.

Cloud is simply what it is in other media: having your device be a thin client that the developers/hardware manufacturers deliver your media to. I know it's a thorny topic for enthusiasts, but it's very likely in 2 decades' time that most players won't be using a dedicated console nor gaming computer to play AAA games. "Netflix of Gaming" is too attractive a title in this multibillion dollar industry to not pursue.

Square Enix may not be looking to host those games, but it's had this tech around for a while and probably wouldn't mind being a middleman: https://www.destructoid.com/project-flare-square-enixs-cloud...

>so it's questionable whether the cost of moving into blockchain is reasonable for a company like Square Enix that can already rake it in via microtransactions.

TBF Square Enix's MO for the last 30+ years is to try and be on the cutting edge as a market leader. It may not make financial sense, but they've constantly made huge gambles. Some paying off huge, some bombing hard, and a few almost bankrupting the company.

As an engine programmer, I can't help but admire the ambition in an age where so many studios seem to instead rely on Unity or Epic to leverage that for them. But it also makes me wonder how long until the company flies too close to the Sun.

>"Netflix of Gaming" is too attractive a title in this multibillion dollar industry to not pursue.

"Netflix of Gaming" title has not aged well from years ago. Today's perception of Netflix is very negative and trend is negative as well. Tbh, negative perception of Netflix did not came from Netflix as tech company. It came from content production side. Game industry is a content heavy business and giving up IP and studios is net perceived loss. Its very strange when real value is replaced with buzzwords.

As engine programmer myself i cant pretend i understand content side of the business well. And as someone who finally cancelled Netflix subscription I am biased ofc.

Pick a hapless MBA-equipped middle manager at Oracle or IBM or some other washed-up corporate hell, and ask them what are important technology trends. The answer will be some variation of “blockchain, AI, cloud.”

It’s not encouraging if high-level leaders at a game studio can’t articulate their vision any better than that.

again, you are making casual comparisons to your existing impression of companies using buzzwords. this reveals a cultural bias, as i am trying to explain.

you are not directly impugning one of the best game development studios in history in any way, despite seemingly thinking so...

what you are revealing is merely your sentiment about these terms

The market and real estate systems in FF14 are indicative that Square Enix's creative units either have no idea whatsoever about how economies work, or no interest in making theirs fit for purpose. Their efforts in this direction are easily derided as painfully limited, crude, naive, and dysfunctional, certainly one of the least well designed aspects of the experience. This stands in stark contrast to the thoughtful, detailed design evident in gameplay and world-building exhibited by much of the rest of the game. The supply-chain economies and sophisticated markets found in some other MMOs put it to shame.

The buzzword vomit from their CEO is simply a continuation of this trait.

Except that the other MMO economies are horrible to play in. FFXIV is a lot more fun than say GW2 economy driven game.

Subjective you'd say? Maybe but it does show that maybe they know better about what a game needs than you think.

Subjective perhaps, but I don’t think the soft soap stands up to scrutiny. Case in point, witness the absolute fiasco of this month’s “property lottery”. A shitshow of bad design, disastrous implementation, and consequently failed rollout, which somehow won’t be resolved for weeks. As for the market; anyone who tries to run a shop is in for a world of pain, forced to micromanage their listings using the clunkiest of tools, in an unstable market with limited price signals and irrational competitors. Fun? No sir. It’s a pain in the ass.

I can’t speak to GW2, but cherry-picking something you clearly think is worse sets a very low bar. I don’t accept that meeting a low standard is a reasonable expectation. A long long time ago I used to help run an Eve:Online corporation, and there the sophisticated economy and market systems made for a vastly richer player experience.

The point being, Square Enix can’t be taken seriously when they talk about in-game economic structures. Their track record is one of incompetence and indifference.

FFXI had a better economy, but it comes down to the fact they don't seem to want money to matter in FFXIV. The game hands it out like free candy but it's only really worthwhile on cosmetics unless you buy into day 1 gear. Couple that with vertical gear progression and nothing is exciting - it's all the same items with different names and higher numbers. I'm not sure how they can even improve it with the game being how it is.

Housing is another matter, they mention server strain but given their past comments on what is and isn't possible (like showing what items you own), coupled with their terrible netcode, I'm inclined to not trust them on this one. As you say they are great at the game side of things, but seem to struggle with the tech side.

In the noclip documentary on FFXIV a few years back, Yoshida mentioned that he was considering leaving Square-Enix to make his own games. FFXIV is really good, but Yoshida is the soul of that game. If he left, that would be devastating.

If you haven't seen the noclip documentary, you should. It's on YouTube.

He has since stated that he won't leave FFXIV. Has re-iterated it in the face of the 6.0 launch, since 6.0 wrapped up the main storyline and there were fears of his departure following that.

That's great to hear!

He's also the producer for Final Fantasy XVI, which is being developed by his org (Creative Business Unit III).

They need to fire their loser NFT-deluded president and let YoshiP run the company.

It looks like all CEO's have agreed on legalizing pyramid schemes.

Pyramids are great for the pharaohs.

Rather like the Jan 6 events, once people get away with one thing they will try another. And another. In this case, enough people have made enough money from pyramid schemes without going to jail that it's becoming hugely popular.

It is not always a good idea to let productive people run a company. Let YoshiP make games, that's what he is good at.

And have someone who knows how to make money be the president, so that he can finance YoshiP games, preferably without too much meddling into the creative process. I am not into NFTs myself but if it makes money that can be invested into good games, by all means, let them do it.

YoshiP is killing it with 14. Let's just leave him alone to build great things. Or at least until he gets 16 out first.

For me, Square Enix has been more of a manga publisher than a game company in recent years, and on that front I would say they are doing a pretty good job.

> but for every single good one I swear they make 3 utter shite too

That describes almost all AAA companies. I think Square takes more heat on this point because they are some of the few studios still investing heavily in the "AA" market. Outside of Avengers, most of the other projects people may point to aren't really the highest budget games to begin with. And those rough releases are something most other studios don't want to risk anymore.

> + their gacha games are not even that good considering the saturation on the gacha market and what quality games some other companies can make (see Genshin)

I mean, the entire market is trying to chase Genshin right now. It's a very arguable point that no mobile game released as of now is as good as Genshin, at least on a technical level.

I understand why. The attraction of mobile is running a relatively low budget (say, "A/AA" level) project and having it profit for a few years until they need to recycle the assets into a new project. A game like Genshin is the equivalent of trying to put GTA V on a phone. Which may be technically feasible now, in 2022, but it'd get you laughed out of a pitch in 2017 or so when Genshin started development

Remember, this would have been right before the Switch launched and had Breath of the Wild show what an ARM architecture was capable of rendering. Most other studios are too risk averse to consider such an endeavor. Console developers especially because they don't want to cannabalize their games with something that plays too closely to their $60 AAA blockbuster.

I think a lot of their games are really niche too. Nier is definitely not for everyone.

Nier is easily one of my all time favorites and as much as I try and get friends to play it, it's so hard to explain what kind of game and experience it really is. A great piece of art.

I bought it and got distracted by other games without playing it yet, I need to get back to it! Mostly was inspired by the Consolevania review (which had a truly bizarre opening minute that you might enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8jeEwL9QUM)

edit: I rewatched the review now I totally get why I picked it up, Ryan's enthusiasm is absolutely hilarious and infectious ("It's just perfect as I've ever seen you can ride a fucking boar in it")

Few games are for everybody, but Nier: Automata sold millions of copies. The niche of action gamers who like asses is pretty big.

But Nier was even more interesting (formally experimental, better writing - at least in English translation, deeper characterization) and sold poorly.

I guess the lesson if you want to make an art game is to make half an art game and the other half ass.

The gameplay of the original Nier is dogshit though.

That leads to poor reviews, which leads to poor sales.

"Gameplay" is a non-criticism. The combat movement is clunky, especially by western it-sucks-if-I-can't-cancel-everything-all-the-time God of War standards. Plenty of other stuff is amazing.

> it-sucks-if-I-can't-cancel-everything-all-the-time

Western gamers loves Dark Souls/Elden Ring so that statement is definitely false.

> "Gameplay" is a non-criticism.

How is "Gameplay" a non-criticism of a Game? That makes zero sense.

Also, that gameplay you are talking about was arguably pioneered by Devil May Cry, which is a Japanese game.

So I don't know what you're on about "Western Gamers"

GoW’s explicit design goal was “NG/DMC but easier and more cancels.” Which is fine, but the difference is there.

https://www.gamedeveloper.com/pc/combat-canceled-i-god-of-wa...

As for “gameplay” I’m not going to recapitulate the past decade+ of how we’ve learned to write about games. It’s semantically empty, say what you mean instead.

Not sure I'd say dogshit but not near as smooth as automata.

Plus the story of the original game took a looooooong time to get going combined with the ability to lock yourself out of the true ending without knowing or discovering it for like 75% of the game is definitely going to limit the audience.

It's not just "not as smooth as Automata", it's bad by the standards of the era it was released into.

It's a 2010 PS3 game with movement and combat and controls that feel like an early PS2 game where they are still figuring out twin stick movement and cameras.

The controls are terrible. The combat is super repetitive. You transition between areas very slowly. You can lock yourself out of endings without even intending to. You can accidentally throw yourself into forced events super underleveled. You have to grind like hell for some of the materials. I can go on and on.

"Dogshit" might be a bit hyperbolic, but not by a lot.

Nier: Automata is a good (not great) game from Platinum wrapped in a juicy Nier narrative layer that elevates it to a very good game.

Nier Replicant ver.1.22... is a remake of the original and has gotten positive reviews (80+ on Metacritic.)

I did not find Nier Gestalt to be worse than any other JRPGs of its era in terms of gameplay, and it had some clever bits like switching between 2D and 3D perspectives as well as game styles. My main complaints were the tedious fetch quests (I completed about half of them before deciding it wasn't worth finishing them all), the fact that the fishing minigame was explained incorrectly, and (slight spoiler) a story that I found to be sad and depressing. Completing multiple endings can be somewhat tedious as well. But the creativity, the atmospheric graphics, and the soundtrack were exceptional.

I think Nier Gestalt and Replicant on the PS3 were underrated (if flawed) gems.

Nier had significant assets in that regard too.

Nier: Automata was just a flat out better game.

The term ass.ets is quite an interesting choice of words in this regard. Though besides that time (including current trends) might also have been a very important factor. I would imagine a Deus Ex game might've sold better rn (with the increased hunger for cyperpunk-ish games after Cyperpunk 2077) than in the last few years. Though with the dev times on those games planning for future trends might be unreasonable.

Maybe he's talking about the first in the series, Nier 2010?

I mean, Final Fantasy XIV has something like 1.7 million active players at the moment. That's just people paying a sub at endgame. $25m in monthly revenue at the low-end is pretty impressive for a single game.

Nier also had a minuscule budget. I doubt they lost a lot of money on that.

No it is their Western AAA projects that are hemorrhaging them money.

Pivoting further into gambling utilizing their IP has worked reasonably well for Konami.

People in the west seem to have become oblivious to the fact that Konami still makes games (and yes, by that I mean traditional video games)-- just that most of their library has become invisible from the POV of the west. Games like Momotaro Dentetsu and Pawapuro are doing plenty well in Japan.

The enthusiast gamer market is a bit too laser focused on AAA video games at times. They do make console games, but the only ones that give the slight time of day to are PES (or some remasters of games they already like).

I believe most of it is frustrated Metal Gear, Castlevania, or Silent Hill fans. Maybe even some old school Suikoden fans.

To me xiv is a horrible game and barely a mmo. Square enix hasnt done good games for a while. TWEWY is probably their only good series but they barely market it. Also their strategy of releasing everything epic game store exclusive on PC is pretty scummy.

can't agree about xiv-- i've never been an mmo guy, but have absolutely loved playing xiv. the story, esp. w/ Endwalker (the newest expansion) is fantastic. but to each, his or her own, i suppose. :)

Probably because xiv isn't really a mmo but single player theme park, with some multiplayer features.

That's what a lot of MMOs are right now. Feels like saying that modern CGI movies aren't really movies because they don't feature actors. Unfortunately the age of EQ, where you grind for hours and hours with a group as the primary way to level, has passed.

i guess that's true, but my friends and i always kind of hacked the system in a way where we were all leveling in lockstep and stuff anyway. but yeah, the individual quests themselves are mostly single player, with some weird multiplayer affordances (like sometimes if you are on the same quest as someone else you can kind of fight the same mobs / make the same progress). i found all that stuff pretty boring anyway-- the trials, dungeons, etc. are the meat of the game as far as i'm concerned (and they are the ones bookended by the cinematics that deliver the meat of the story).

>one I swear they make 3 utter shite too + their gacha games are not even that good considering the saturation on the gacha market and what quality games some other companies can make (see Genshin)

I heard from sources that the western department is doing this.

Sources: Are on Twitter, forgot the name. (Yea I know, that I don't need to "believe everything" so please add salt to my statement)

Source #1: https://twitter.com/Genki_JPN?t=FlkGLMQE4aoCHqod-O68RQ&s=09

That read like a parody

For people who don't play MMOs because they're way too addictive, the focus of square on FFXIV has been really disappointing

When you zoom out a little it makes a lot of sense. FF15 and FF13 were both failures, company had serious financial issues before FF14 took off. Hopefully you will get to enjoy FF16, and making that game wouldn’t have been possible without the success of 14.

FFXIV also has the least addictive qualities of any MMO I have played in my experience. There’s very little FOMO & you’re encouraged to play at whatever pace you enjoy. Many players just play through the story and treat it as a mostly single player game.

I wouldn't call FF13 or FF15 failures from a sales point of view; they both performed strongly. From a "brand damage" point of view, though, they were catastrophic. I think the development of FF16 speaks for itself: they gave the development of a mainline single-player title to Creative Business Unit III, their FF14 studio, because they have a rep for making consistently good content and delivering it on time. Meanwhile, no one expects Nomura to reveal anything about the inevitable FF7 Remake sequel for at least the next 3 years.

FF14 is great, though, as a non-MMO player. The community is largely helpful to newcomers, the story content is very accessible and requires little to no grinding, and the game as a whole doesn't gate important plot developments behind high-tier endgame content the way most MMOs do.

> they gave the development of a mainline single-player title to Creative Business Unit III, their FF14 studio, because they have a rep for making consistently good content and delivering it on time.

I think it's simply because the other CBU's are swamped with work.

- The old business division (what they called Creative Business units before the restructure 5 years ago) that made FF15 split off into Luminous Studios, and went straight from FF15 DLC into Forspoken

- CBU1 (AKA, the Nomura division) handles FF7R as well as Kingdom Hearts. Two huge franchises. Adding another FF onto the pile would be overwhelming

- CBU2 is "The Bravely division". I wouldn't be surprised if they get to try their own hand at a Final Fantasy one day, but it would have been too early for FF16. FF16 was likely being worked on before Octopath Traveler.

- CBU4 was always a smaller sort of "spinoff" studio. Nowadays they focus more on the mobile market. Very little chance they were ever considered.

I don't think Square Enix sees the last few FF games as damaging as fans do. They simply have a lot of work and some teams have more or less room for that work.

Funnily enough, it may be a possibility of FF17 having a mobile client given Genshin's success, but this is just random conjecture

From a sales standpoint alone no, but from a profitability standpoint definitely. A lot of time and money was poured into developing a game engine from the ground up that ultimately ended up not being very good and thankfully is being replaced by Unreal in FFXVI.

Crystal Tools was supposed to make development for several games easier & faster, but instead it took more effort to complete than expected & was still difficult to work with after it was complete.

You can basically engage with the entire story of XIV without touching the MMO part at all. Especially now that they're going back and enabling NPC party members for the story dungeons.

That's only for the 4-man dungeons. You still need to run the Crystal Tower raid, for example.

In the space of MMOs FFXIV tries to do most things right though. There is hardly any "you must log in every day to progress", you can still experience all the old content at your pace (with some limitations, of course), even the seasonal events are usually done in 10-30 minutes and are available for a whole month. I know, it's easy to just name the things that are done better than in e.g. World of Warcraft, but YoshiP has said repeatedly (and this is very very rare for MMO studios): You don't have to play every day, and if you're done playing the content from the latest patch, go out and play other games, then come back when you like. It's basically the antithsis of FOMO. The only other example that comes to my mind is Guild Wars 2, which is actually some "come back 3 years later and continue where you left off".

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