Square Enix Announces MASSIVE Reorganization | Backlog Battle
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- Опубліковано 12 тра 2024
- I did NOT expect to be talking about this topic again so soon! Let's talk about the recent financial earnings call and see how Square Enix is moving forward!
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UPDATE: UGH. And I mean BIG UGH.
8 hours ago, Square Enix confirmed that there will be layoffs in both the U.S. and European divisions as part of restructuring. How big the layoffs were unclear, but they said that it’d be in publishing, IT, and Square Enix’s Collective indie games division.
Layoffs have already begun, with employees unable to access their Slack channels.
Yeah well I came here to also update my comment because that also aged like milk stored outside the refrigerator...
I guess you were right about the Japanese laws, but that did not protect the people in Europe and the US.
However, just laying off people in an instant (I.e. just cutting off their access and telling them to leave) is...not legal here so I do wonder...
I feel this is a real 'EA' move.
"Our rich investors aren't happy with the millions your did earn them, so you now lose your jobs"
If you can't get job security from a well established and profitable company like square Enix, where can you?
It's not just about Square; it's the end of third-party exclusives for Sony. Third-party publishers no longer want to limit themselves to a single platform due to the high costs of game production. Sony will either need to pay significantly more, which could be financially devastating, or settle for small-budget exclusive titles.
We can already observe this shift. Sony relies heavily on third-party exclusives, with no first-party games expected before March 2025. The few third-party exclusives released recently, like Forspoken (64 on Metacritic) and Rise of the Ronin (76 on Metacritic), were poorly received. Square Enix, a major studio that favored Sony, won't continue this trend.
Square Enix took a while to realize they were losing out; only Sony benefited, while players suffered. PlayStation gamers didn't purchase the game, with "Rebirth" selling half as much as the "Remake."
PlayStation players are puzzling; they buy consoles but not games, while Xbox sees better sales on its store.
Meanwhile, PlayStation fans hope for Xbox games on their consoles, but Xbox, with its 35 studios, can keep the best games for themselves and share a few with other platforms. Sony, having closed four studios in 2023, lacks the capacity for numerous first-party exclusives. They'll need to change their strategy, likely expanding to PC and potentially other consoles like the Switch and Xbox.
I believe Sony might eventually become a third-party publisher. Their consoles could become irrelevant, similar to the PS VR2 which was abandoned due to a lack of VR games. This could happen to their home consoles as well. Console sales aren't profitable, and if players don't buy games, the consoles are pointless.
The reality is many PlayStation consoles are underused, with casual gamers only playing games like Fortnite and FIFA.
Xbox has a higher Monthly Active Users (MAU) rate, indicating more active players than PlayStation. This is what interests publishers, not the hardware but the active user base. Even for casual gamers, a PlayStation console is less appealing, especially with games like FIFA and the upcoming Call of Duty being available on GamePass.
@sergeesteves I am not handwaving your criticism of Sony, cause much of it is true.
But in light of recent Events at Xbox and due to the fact that despite having bought half the industry they put out 4 exclusives a year AT BEST (and many of them mediocre)...this sounds like someone at Xbox paid you to write this lol
FF14 player here. It's not just that 2023 was between expansions. It was bad even by off-year standards, on purpose.
Endwalker and the late Shadowbringers patches got kinda shaken up by Covid, with EW having a holiday release despite every other expansion launching in the summer. Rather than continuing the cycle with holiday releases from that point on, CBU3 decided to delay Dawntrail until summer 2024 to get back to their usual groove.
This meant that there would be a year-long period where the game had no major content patches. The devs tried to keep people around with a ton of events and collaborations, but they knew a lot of players would leave until Dawntrail.
CBU3 knew it would be a bad year, but they wanted to do this for the long-term health of the game. If the higher-ups were caught off-guard by this loss (which it sounds a bit like they were?), then that's just poor communication.
Let's not forget about Forspoken.
Technically outsourced, yes!
And AAA… or was that the previous fiscal year?
Actually, i'd love to forget about forspoken.
@@khatdubell 😂
@@BacklogBattleLP was an internally ran studio by SE.
For sqenix
HD stands for "home devices"
SD stands for "smart devices"
I think this might result in fewer niche things being made, but overall I'm kinda reading this as they've reached the obvious conclusion that good games sell. Cautiously optimistic I guess?
Funny I think you are one of the few that actually read the report. I think a lot of other people just read titles + sub points and jump to some conclusion. 👀
I would like to see 90's Square Soft and Enix game design philosophy again.
Fuk yeah. Immagine if FF16 was a turn based old school party RPG with a 25h main story, no sidequests but minigames, hidden stuff and endgame challenged + a meaningfull gearing path and a world map to explore.
Heck, you can make a turn based game and an action gameplay swappable in the menu.
"Merchandising"... how about releasing statues that people want... that AREN'T $16,000.
edit: The problem with SE being choosy on which games to develop, is that I think they would've been a lot more likely to put money toward Forspoken than SO2R
Or they could've put more marketing towards Octopath Traveler 2
I would buy FF16 the flamethrower.
Third Party Developer Releasing for PS5 Only was the wrong move.
Playerbase is Millions more on the PS4/Pro/Xbox One/Xbox One X.
Capcom knew this, thats why they went Multiplat on "Re4 Remake."
"Stray" Devs also released Multi-plat versions.
The BIGGEST games are Multiplat.
COD, Fornite, Destiny, Battlefield and many more.
EVEN SONY's First Party games ITSELF released Cross Gen God Of War Ragnarok, Horizon Forbidden West and they are doing great.
*Do what needs to be done and give us the BEST* 😬
Romancing Saga Minstrel Song Remaster and Valkyrie Elysium were my favorites in that fiscal year
I remember you saying that about VE!
@@BacklogBattle It's a great game. Everything I wanted out of Valkyrie Profile mixed with Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden.
@@JeannieLove I’m glad you enjoyed it. Genuinely! But that very description and the early footage I watched of it told me it was precisely not my cuppa in the same way that the mainline final fantasy series has been trending towards similar gameplay styles that I am… not personally fond of. Grow or die does seem to be the corporate mantra, but with this corporate shake-up in tandem with the creative design shift we’ve seen towards action based games… well, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for gamers of my ilk (slower or just preferential towards turn-based systems) to fear we’re going to get left out in the cold going forward.
I just worry Square Enix unrealistic vision of their success. I remember seeing they wanted Final Fantasy to be the console seller like GTA. It's admirable to aim high for success but it's important to be realistic. Whether we like it or not Final Fantasy has become a niche type of game. And to limit it even further by going exclusive to one platform just asking for it to not succeed.
This isn’t 2013 anymore where they expected Tomb Raider to sell 7-9 million copies. This is the company that felt that having that brand really went contrary to what the rest of Square Enix was and sold them all.
Playstation is where the main JRPG base is for their games. They don't make games for Nintendo unless graphics suitable, they don't downgrade. Yes, they are unrealistic and it shows how far they wanted to butcher Final Fantasy to gain profits. No RPG or JRPG can do that. Exclusivity has sold games, not limited them. The only reason SE is not now is because they are desperate for immediate sales. XBox they never gain sales, they didn't even release how many subscribed for XBox with FFXIV. Switch requires downgrades which they are bad at and do not do. That leaves PC, which only means releases won't be delayed by a year or so. It really means nothing.
They should stop releasing games exclusively on Switch and PC only. Games like Harvestela, Dragon Quest DP, Triangle Strategy should be ported to the PS5.
OOF the layoffs are a huge bummer. Hate to see it, but I hope that this reorganization and change in strategy will bring longevity to Square Enix and another decade of great games. Selfishly I know this mean more Square Enix games on the Nintendo consoles which I'm looking forward to.
More SE games on more platforms is good!
Good to know that Ever Crisis was worth sacrificing Opera Omnia for /s
I don’t get these moves
Oof. Don't remind me, I'm still in pain over OO. 😭
Unless releasing on multiple platforms is extremely expensive, I don't see why you wouldn't do it....
Day 1 multiplatform limits double dipping. You dont have a ecosystem on PC only gamers as much as the PC master race likes to pretend like it is. The sect of PC only gamers is a niche within a niche.
If you stagger the releases youll boost the pc sales. The pc absolutist are still there waiting and the double dippers are fomo'd into buying the better version.
Well, CBU3 was announced a bit back as Creative Studio 3, for example... but it's been rebranded as a studio-style brand rather than just a business organization for a while--this is just the extension of that. Yoshi-P's still on the board of directors and while he's Studio Head of CS3, he's still on the Board of Directors and a Vice President of the company.
FF Tactics remake seems more and more like a distant dream, never to be
Indeed, time to dust off the vita
Tactics ogre not selling much, so though luck...
Ugh, that and Saga Frontier 2 were two of my big hopes going forward. Bahamut Lagoon would have been a pleasant surprise as well.
Diofield Chronicles, and Harvestella were decent games. I actually enjoyed Harvestella alot. However if memory serves, Harvestella, Diofield, Valkyrie Elysium came around the same time, which got me thinking that Square Enix was competing with itself.
More octopath travelers 2 please 🥺
You have some of the best takes on the industry. Which is really struggling ATM. Keep it up and I hope Square gets there shit together! We, as fans, don't want mmos and live service. We want great single player RPGs!
Oooo Alex got stock money 😮😊😊😊
It’s more like a high yield savings account at this point lol
@BacklogBattle hey as long as u getting something it's a good thing
I hope their new business organization doesn't upend Creative Business Unit III, the makers of FFXIV. YoshiP runs a tight ship and I don't want his work diluted by corporate BS.
Funny thing to get worried about because as I said, Yoshi-P is literally one of the people determining the new structure lol
Yoshi P can basically write his own ticket at this point. FF14 players have a saying, "in yoshi P we trust" and Square seems to have the same motto.
Okay, here is the thing... the reason they were able to put out such a content-heavy game like FF7 Rebirth so soon after Remake is - as per the developers - the fact that they retained most of the team that also worked on Remake.
As far as I understand, Square's Creative Business Units have always just been fancy names for development teams, right? So if they are dissolving those, what DOES that mean for the FF7R trilogy? Are they just renaming thr Business Unit and keep the team? Is the team getting dissolved and a completley different bunch of people works on part 3? Is the third game one of the canceled projects they mentioned?
I would hope the latter is not the case but you never know. Companies do things for profit, all kinds of things. The fact that they are unusually intransparent about the whole thing is what makes me worry a little.
I want to be clear that all of this news doesn't mean laid off workers, I can tell you that much. Unlike the West, Japan has some laws that protects employees from companies trying to inflate their profits by letting go of people.
As I said in the video, the promotions of Asano and Yoshi-P to higher execute roles probably means that they're working on a new organizational structure. What that is, we can't say. Their appointment in their new roles is very fresh, and they're probably seeing parts of the company that they weren't before and gaining more knowledge as the days and weeks go by. And since this is a three year plan, you can't just rush things as you might disrupt games currently in development.
To your point about FF7R, it is highly unlikely that the next game will get shelved. The entire series was planned to be a huge investment from the very beginning, even well before Remake, and they know what's riding on this entire series to just cancel it. That's like if FFXIV didn't get A Realm Reborn to earn back the confidence of their audience. And having talked to people working on it, especially its director, they're already full speed ahead on the last part of the trilogy with Nojima finalizing the story.
TLDR; We can't just apply what we see in the West to other countries as their ways of dealing with economic conditions are vastly different. The takeaway should be that this is a company hemorrhaging money because of bad investments and they're choosing to correct their course rather than proceeding like "business as usual."
Also why in the world would you split up Yoshi P's team, at least the 14 side of things
@@nateputerbaugh5709 His team will be intact. Things will most likely get shuffled around.
@@BacklogBattle Oh trust me I am aware Japan works differently from the US. I am from the West, but not as far West as the US. That is to say, Europe. We have laws like that too so I know Japan is similar in that regard. I'm not too worried on the lay-off front. But I do think the corporate heads of companies even in Japan sometimes do not understand the bread and butter of their business at all, they just can't do as much damage as they can in the US because of said laws. In Square's case, their president's weird insistence on NFTs and AI in game development is not exactly filling me to the brim with confidence in the guy and his decisions.
Now, the fact that some people who actually know what game development is all about have been put into more executive roles is reassuring me a little about this whole direction they're going in. If Iwata has shown anything it's that a developer in a decision making position tends to be good for the company.
Anyways, you make some good points. I don't disagree with any of them really, but my worries remain. And they probably will until they release a first trailer for part 3 of the Trilogy. Because as much sense ans you're making, there is never a guarantee that companies only make decisions that make sense.
That's a me problem though. ✌️
Update: And there are the lay offs lol. Not on Japan, but lay offs are lay offs. Should've known
@@nateputerbaugh5709I suspect there's a part of his team from FFXVI that hasn't moved back to FFXIV that is working on something unknown or is being shifted. But they likely won't do anything with the actual FFXIV team.
Still waiting for that Dragon Quest X localization 😢
At least give us the offline version!
Everyone talking about Forespoken but lets not forget Guardians of the Galaxy. I loved the game but it was a loss leader for the studio.
Me personally, I can’t remember the last time I cared about a Sq-En AAA game. I liked the lower budget stuff, the turn-based stuff, the retro stuff. But I feel like that’s exactly what they’ll be doing less of, and instead doing more action games and turning more of their traditional games into action games.
A UA-camr or news site probably gave you false info. Square Enix NEVER said they would stop experimenting and make smaller titles. They said that they would be selective. There’s a difference.
Let’s not spread FUD because someone reporting elsewhere didn’t do their homework.
@@BacklogBattle hope so, but I’m not convinced. They’ve definitely said they’re doubling down on AAA, haven’t they?
@@BacklogBattle if you google, you’ll see articles from August 2023 talking about how they’re going to focus on AAA and less on mid-sized games. That’s what I was referring to. They’ve been saying it for awhile.
I play a LOT of SE games. I also am an avid FF14 fan, and I also like their FF gacha games. I played Opera Omnia for four years until it EoS'd earlier this year, and am currently playing FF7 Ever Crisis. As far as I know, the other two FF gachas, Brave Exvius and War of the Visions are doing quite well.
I was heavily disappointed in Chocobo Racing going live service, and First Soldier was terrible.
CBU3 is an insanely good studio.
I hope all these timed exclusives come out on the new Switch!. By the way, what console/PC do you usually play your jrpgs on?
I have all of them, but I mostly play on PlayStation!
@@BacklogBattle I hope to play visions of mana in my ps5!.
I'm still upset that we finally got a Valkyrie Profile game and it's Elysium, VP is one favorite games of all time, Elysium is very lacking in terms of story, characters and even gameplay. I know VP norse mythology is not all that "faithfull" but atleast Norse, now they have Greek myths suddenly? I hope that VP gets another chance
It was a weird pivot, for sure. Of course we now know that Tri-Ace wasn't able to work on it because they were working on Star Ocean.
Also worried about what this means for the FF14 team
I'm pretty sure SE has been surviving for years on 11 then 14. They'd be insane to slaughter their golden goose.
Nothing. Literally nothing.
😲😳
Maybe the should lower their goals
Put rebirth and 16 on PC asap, it’s simple as that. They’ll sell a billion copies
Very much agree on this
I agree!! FFXVI PC version was already confirmed to be WIP and it might release this year.
Hopefully, Rebirth will follow soon 🤞.
Thankfully, 16 is already well on its way to PC. Rebirth's port might get expedited now though.
They will, but even then not sure how many full priced sales they’ll be making. Most of the general public will still probably wait for sales to buy either game, they’ve waited this long already.
I was actually looking at this yesterday. Steam actually only has 120 million monthly active users. So, even if we assume a massive 5% of all active steam users want to buy those at launch (which is A LOT), that's 6-ish million more copies. And that's a best case scenario. That won't actually save things by itself.
Never thought I'd get excited about an earnings report, but yeah, I'm excited to see where this pivot will take games and their development, and I'm very happy to see their major titles not being trapped on a single platform. It seems like they want to put more thought, deliberation and focus on quality in future projects and that's just wonderful to see
I’m looking forward to this new multi platform strategy
On the multiple media thing, isnt an FF9 cartoon supposed to be in the pipeline?
This is actually the first time I've heard of this
@@BacklogBattle Cyber Group Studios is producing it
That thing has been in development for so long. I think it was a mistake to talk about it as early as they did as the initial hype is dead now. We're 3 years later and no knowledge of when it will air.
Sounds to me like the recipts have come for shooting themselves in the foot over and over. Id like to have hope that they (along with micro soft ) will actually learn from this but the people in charge won't...
This situation is very different from Microsoft
@BacklogBattle Different, but still as a result of their own actions.
What does this mean for ff7 remake?
I think they're in too deep to cancel it if that's what you're fearing. The story has already been written and they're working to release it within roughly 3 years I think they said.
I was going to answer this question, but @WaruiDeshou beat me to it!
@WaruiDeshou I mean yeah but they also announced losses due to canceled projects just a few weeks ago. Who's to say the Remake Trilogy isn't one of those games? I sure would hope not, but you never know with these companies...
@oOPrettywinxOo There's a lot of brand equity that's tied to Final Fantasy VII Remake that killing it off right when the last part is going to be made is going to lose a lot more fans than what you might think. I am absolutely confident that we'll be getting the last part of this trilogy.
@@BacklogBattle that's great, please be confident for the both of us (I'm a pessimist, I can't help it). 😂 I look at the state of this industry *coughMicrosoftamongotherscough* and I am not so sure anyone of the corporate higher ups even has any idea about how this industry works beyond the numbers lol
Will they still be doubling down on NFTs?
It looks like their blockchain revenue dropped YoY, but they didn't talk about it in the financials. Hopefully they'll back out?
@@BacklogBattleWe can only hope. I believe that this is the real albatross.
@@Lightspeeds I can see why you'd say that, but I think the problems at SE are pretty clearly laid out.
I want a Harvestella 2 👀
Thought it as a good 1st game and with a sequel, they can target what people had complaints with and refine mechanics
Unfortunately the creator of Harvestella left the company. So it's unlikely.
Great, it sounds like we're going to lose the smaller teams that gave us Octopath and Bravely. It's their own fault for making games exclusive for so long, even Capcom knew this a long time ago.
Team Asano will be fine
With the PS5 Pro and PS5 Portable I think FF7 trilogy and FF16 will sell well over time.
I'm tired of rhe doom and gloom. They're going to be fine.
Honestly? Same. This might sound like a negative thing based on the title, but it's actually a net positive. Can't say the same for the layoffs though, which I found out *after* I released the video...
@@BacklogBattle I made sure to watch before posting. I know your voice was not one of the doom and gloom ones
If they don't finish the FF7 Remake, I'll never buy a SQEX game again (after visions of mana). Never. Ever.
Edit: Haha, maybe I got it wrong. :P Hope they don't touch Creative Business Unit III tho! :O
They are
Im sure pt3 is so deep into production that it would be too expensive to stop it at this point
Is the Octopath franchise safe?
I honestly dont care about FF16, 17, 18 etc...
Yes
@@BacklogBattle that's good to hear.
honestly, putting FF17 in the bin might be good for Square Enix. 🤣
The smaller titles are the ones ive been buying and enjoying. Their AAA titles have been pretty bad for sometime. For me it was around KH3 that i started disliking their output.
Meanwhile Bravely Default, Octopath, LiveALive and TriStrat are my favorite games of this last gen cycle.
Meanwhile ive not purchased ff72 and dont intend to.
Square needs to stop with their exclusivity deals and they need to stop over-engineering their games to capitalize on unproven trends and just make good games. I love FF14 and Yoshi P, but his statement that FF isn't a "turn based" franchise anymore is wrong and pig-headed. Quit baiting and switching people on your remakes and actually bring back good turn-based games and make your games available on all platforms. FF16 was a decent game, but it wasn't worth purchasing a PS5 for.
The AAA comment was almost certainly about Forspoken and maybe to some extent FF7 Rebirth which while doing well is underperforming compared to FF16. Most of this is down to Square's own stupidity in locking themselves down to a single console that isn't heavily used in Japan. This is why their big push now is to get their AAA titles on all consoles. I don't think that means every game will be on every console (I highly doubt FF17 or FF7R3 will be on Switch) but very likely PC and PS5 as well XBOX if they can make it work. I think that would have been a huge bump for rebirth to have even been available for PC on launch.