Comment by jerf | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jerf | Hacker News Reader

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I can't speak for the intention of the purchaser, but in their position I'd be looking to just unlock the teams. My impression of Square-Enix is that they've frankly just never been a company comfortable with being international, and it has shown for a very long time now. Just let the teams go produce something without the Eastern and Western design, management, marketing... heck, nearly all the philosophies clashing and producing much less than the sum of the parts.

(Since I know how things work nowadays, I'm not saying the philosophies necessarily intrinsically clash or that they can't be reconciled by other entities, just that to my eye, Square-Enix in particular is a company with a multi-decade track record of failing to do so.)

Specifically, this is Enix. Square had a considerably more international outlook and viewpoint, but even a lot of that seems to have been squeezed out since the merger.

You can look at the spun-off/second-party studios to see - from Square Monolith and AlphaDream consistently pushing formal boundaries of the JRPG, vs. from Enix tri-Ace's extremely conservative approach to Star Ocean and... I can't think of any other studios.

Enix was I think a smaller company which is now notable because their remaining people are still working even though they’re really old.

That can be good (Yuji Horii has a game sensibility nobody younger would) or bad (they were stuck with their composer who was mainly known for being a far-right Japanese nationalist).

This is the correct take. SQEX has a pretty poor reputation when it comes to outside studio management in general (both domestic and international). Their in house development has produced the most hits.

Also, SQEX desperately wants a Destiny style live game that they can run for many years, like the domestic mobile titles that keep them afloat. Marvel Avengers, Outriders, and Babylon’s Fall were all attempts at this model but none of them captured a significant market.

They’re also pushing harder in the mobile space, trying to get at least one international moneymaker. We’ll see if their bets pay off in the next few years.

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