I’m still getting Star Ocean on deep sale. Tri-Aces today isn’t the same as back on the PS2. Plus a lot of veterans RPG developers are creating their own indies RPG games and I would rather support those.
I'm not sure what exactly is happening in this scenario, but I'm reminded a lot of Stella Glow. The developers, Imageepoch, filed for bankruptcy the same year the game came out and there were signs of it happening. So whatever is happening with TRi Ace may not be unique. These new games were in development for years prior to what financial circumstances they find themselves in
What's so sad about Imageepoch is that they went bankrupt before Stella Glow even released so they didn't even receive any of the sales revenue... Which is tragic because the game sold surprisingly well and got praised as a hidden gem by so many
I'm thinking they vastly overshot their budget in an attempt to make a 'next gen' experience, even if it does come across as a space anime. In theory, they've used anime cut scenes in older games and spent a mint on outside studios for that, but compared to this game's actual budget, they clearly had no clue what they were getting into. It's like Witcher 2 to 3. The game would have crippled CDPR, if not for GOG, and it still causes crashes, system hangs, file corruptions, etc.. and that's years later. If not for the world class DLC (Blood and Wine is more substantial than most full games), we'd still be shitting on the poor bug testing and everything else I mentioned. But in comparison, this looks considerably higher quality than I&F, just like the Witcher 3 holds up better than Cyberpunk. And again, that's due to the perspective surrounding other releases. Whether the game can solve TriAce's financial woes through grit and sales is anyone's guess.
I already had my pre-order locked down before the news of Tri Ace's financial issues. Been with them since SO: The Second Story back on the PS1. It is sad to hear that Divine Force may very well be their last game! Let's hope it turns out to be a successful entry in the series for them. I know that I'm looking forward to it!
Kind of sounds like a similar situation to Square's when Final Fantasy was released. Also, the current state of the global market could be a big factor. Producing games under this level of inflation has got to be a bitch.
I preordered my copy of Star Ocean Divine Force because i want to support Tri Ace regardless if its Square Enix. I still have some hope left that Tri Ace survives and we get another Valkyrie Profile game like Hrist's story or something.
I personally think this is true. I think this has all added up over time because let's be honest, tri-Ace hasn't been doing brilliantly in terms of success with their games sales wise so over time, it has to have had an effect on them.
As much as it chagrins me to say it, this. To be honest they are still around after literally decades when many other famous studios have long since died, so the very fact they're still around impresses me. I think the last game of theirs I played, besides that VP mobile game, was Radiata Stories, which was incredible. They proved, after doing epic space operas and mythological fictions, they could do a cozy comedy-style romp. It takes a lot to create these things, they work in an industry that no longer favors unique products (sorry for offending, but tri-Ace made creations that totally took me in as a young person and enthralled as opposed to just merely doing what the industry demanded), and they probably feel they don't have the support they would need to produce stuff like they did 20 years ago. Thanks for attending my tedtalk.
Given their obvious issues, divine force is a great game anyways. They clearly have no budget, but they managed to make a rather charming and deceptively deep jrpg
Amen brother. Fantasian being on iphone only was such a heartbreaker. I have an iphone and I played and loved it but gave up halfway because I didn’t want to hold my burning hot phone for hours.
It was not Tri-Ace that announced their financial issues, it was a japanese news outlet called Gamebiz. I think that japanese news outlet wouldn't write that article if Tri-Ace was not facing financial issues, because as of right now, Tri-Ace is insolvent. This means that they can't pay their debts with their available cash and credits. This whole thing may have sparked interest from Gamebiz and they wrote that article...I would highly recommend people buying Star Ocean Divine Force if they want to have future games from Tri-Ace. And regarding the revenue of the game, if its a digital sale, 30% of the revenue will go to Steam, 30% will go to Square Enix and maybe 20% will go Tri-Ace, the rest is marketing costs. For a phisical copy, 30% goes for retailers and distribution, then 5 to 10% for marketing, 5 to 10% for phisical cost of goods, 20% for Tri-Ace, and the rest for Square Enix..
I feel like this could be a way for them to "encourage" bigger companies to aquire them. They are probably hoping a company like Sega or Nintendo picks them up.
i been so busy with life i didn't know. sad news i love the JRPG developer Tri-Ace . 1 of my favorite JRPG developer and 1 of the few great JRPG developer left. i buy most of their games if not all of their games. i did a little research. i found out that The studio's financial results for the last fiscal year are in, and they're not looking good, especially when compared to the previous year. Over on Japanese industry site Gamebiz (with additional reporting courtesy of RPGSite), a breakdown of Tri-Ace's fiscal year leading up to June 2022 shows that the studio's sales fell by 43% year-on-year. In the 2021 fiscal year, Tri-Ace made $1.67 million in terms of operating profit, but by 2022, that figure transformed into a $4.34 million loss. Overall, Tri-Ace's final figures for the 2022 fiscal year show a $4.75 million deficit, with Gamebiz declaring Tri-Ace "insolvent" (we're using machine translation for the article, which is in Japanese). This is definitely not a good situation for Tri-Ace to be in, so the studio will likely be hoping that lots of people buy the upcoming Star Ocean: The Divine Force.
The last time I remember genuinely enjoying a tri-Ace title was with Valkyrie Profile 2 and Resonance of Fate, and _maybe_ SO4. Then they kinda disappeared off the grid and did mobile crap. Was very close to checking out Anamnesis at some point, if only to see Dias in 3D (and Rena in a swimsuit lmao), but they closed the global version so I never bothered. I don't think SO6 will remotely come close to what SO2 meant to me, but I'll probably buy it anyway. If you ask me, they peaked with VP1. But that might just be the nostalgia talking...
It amazes me how common this is in the tech industry as a whole; Developer studios that are just barely making it by unless they find a scheme to exploit for easy profits. Making a good product is not enough. Too high costs I guess. Also too many people fixate on the name of a studio without realizing the changes it has had through the years. Take Blizzard and Bioware for instance, most of the people who made their legendary titles are gone. You also have your “genius directors” who go solo and they just produce “meh” results because the “whole gang” is what made great games, not a name.
Square Enix is publishing the title but they didn't provide the development budget. The game was likely created on spec meaning that there was no guarantee that SE was going to publish it. Only that SE had first look rights. It would be cool if Sony bought them but I don't see that happening.
If Tri-Ace games make money in the long run, that means that their games have legs and should negotiate better contracts. Or to start publishing their own games. It’s easier now in a digital world.
What baffles me is they decided to make another Star Ocean game even though the last one flopped. You would think they would tried another IP like Valkyrie Profile.
You guys say this like Star Ocean isn't their most known and recognizable IP. I hate to tell you but Valkyrie Profile is not a big property. The one that just released barely even existed hype wise. I remember seeing like 2 people streaming on release to small numbers and a week later it was no one. No hype, no marketing, literally no one outside the die hard niche cared.
One thought could be that mid development, they realized that they would be bankrupt and wanted to pull SO6. However, because they had a contract with SE, they were bound to complete the game. Also they could have been contractually prevented from releasing their bankruptcy publicly by SE until the product is done. Now that the game is ready, SE let them go public with their announcement.
ah i rly hope the best for tri-Ace 😓 bcs of them, i can meet "valkyrie profile" and "star ocean the second" which made my bitter life become sweet, i'm very thankful to them🌹
Well I was buying SO6 regardless...however the chance they are basically bankrupt wouldn't be surprised given their last console game that wasn't a remake was SO5 in 2016 with the only other means of possibly decent income being Star Ocean's Mobile game...and before SO5 their largest project ever was some sort of involvement in FF13 Lightning returns, not to mention apparently 13-2 as well (probably worked alongside SE). In fact when you look at Tri Ace's entire game portfolio they only have about 30 games since they were founded in 1996...at least a handful of them being remakes/remasters on top of that. That doesn't mean I believe Tri-Ace should be forgiven for that btw, imo that just means they've been far too passive in their game development as they NEED to put out more games per year (even small rpg maker style games at this point would likely make them a minor profit to work with...granted I think any game dev bigger than Indie/individuals can make a slightly better looking game than rpg maker assets even if they're 'PS2/3/Vita' era graphics) as for a nearly 30 year old company that's FAR too little work for even a small (but bigger than Indie) sized game company. And if Square Enix isn't offering them jobs/taking the games they pitch they need to go to other publishers like Namco, Sega, Koei Tecmo, hell even NISA (as they've release a shitload of stuff lately lol), Capcom, etc (no point of adding Konami as until the Silent Hill announcements they've barely done anything notable in gave development for a while...at least asf ar as Japanese/jrpg like games are concerned). Also gonna throw in since it's kinda relevant to your statements on SE getting most of the profits and not Tri Ace: same situation goes for Platinum which is why I found the whole recent Helena Taylor vs Platinum Bayo VA situation to be BS as they likely don't have the extra cash to pay her even if she wasn't paired fairly (which based off a Bloomberg piece by Jason Schrier she apparently lied and was offered 3 to 4x the VA Union standard price of $1K per 4 hour session per day for 3 to 5 days work (so about $12K minimum to $20K maximum for 3 to 5 half days/16 hours of work))...as for how this is further relevant to this story VAs are trying to push for more than this 1K per hour if they're in the Union (if they're not and it's far worse fine for them to complain I guess but Union VAs get more or less guaranteed 1K for 1 day's work of a gig as they seem to only work in 4 hour sessions now according to Yongyea's videos on the situation (granted he's a bit bias as he does VA work and has obvious self interest in the issue...granted he still at least covered the Bloomberg article and admitted Taylor was asking to be grossly overpaid so I'll give him that at least as far as his game new reporting on UA-cam goes)) to even ridiculous amounts like $100K plus residuals/a % of sales (that's what Taylor supposedly asked for during negotiations according to aforementioned Bloomberg article) which if they had to do for every single VA (which there could be dozens in a single game) would likely bankrupt the company (especially smaller companies like Tri Ace, Platinum, Falcom, etc)/cut into all of a game's profits drastically...and not even the game developers (writers, programmers, sound effects team, etc) even get royalties so why the fuck should VAs get them when they put so little work into the project in comparison (ya it's freelance work and you may not be guaranteed a job but that's some frigging high paying freelance work when maximum profit just for joining the VA Union is 1K per days work...if they can't get at minimum 50 days ($50K) of work than there's likely a laziness issue/pride issue (not taking smaller jobs for say npc dialogue) more so than anything...as as for anyone who's not a big VA...probably shouldn't even be a main source of income to begin and should be more of an on/off thing tbh...at least until they can get on par with names like Troy Baker, Laura Bailey, Jennifer Hale (Helena Taylor's replacement in Bayo 3), Johnny Young Bosch, etc. At best VAs maybe should be given a bonus for if the games the work in reach specific milestones (say a few hundred bucks for each 100K or a thousand or two per million...that altogether would be about 7K extra bucks if say the few hundred bucks was $500 (easier to calculate $100, $500, $1K...100 felt too low, 1K too high so settled on the middle) for a job that even gave them a single 1 4 hour day session (even for npc work). My point with this entire last paragraph though is there's too much already in place that makes a budget for a game, especially for smaller/indie sized devs tight...they don't need additional crap like VAs asking for magnitudes more to screw them over too...otherwise they'd go out of business or would need to cut out voice acting entirely in their games to cut costs which would likely cause a hit in sales as I can see some people not getting the game if there's no voices (personally i couldn't care less if a game's voiced or not as long as what's written is well written/has little mistakes...imo VA work is nothing more than an extra feature given to us by game devs and nothing necessary to a game like story, gameplay, side content, etc...it's nice but I'd rather lose it than a series/game company I like...games would be a lot quieter though, granted we should still have music and sound effects though (and to some degree some people may prefer not hearing grunts/yells in games as I remember people bitching a lot about that with Tales of Arise/other Tales games even though most jrpgs are like that lol).
From what I understand Tri-Ace just put out their financial report for the last year which is just something that companies do every year I don't see it as them trying to guilt people. As for them showing losses for the past year that's very common for video game companies (at least I've seen this kind of thing happen in the past) to report losses between major game releases. They haven't put out a new game in a while so naturally they haven't been making as much money. So hopefully next year with SO6 out on the market they'll have a better financial report.
StarOcean was one of the first JRPGs I had ever seen along with FF7, and Golden Sun. Star Ocean, and Golden Sun were the games that made me get into JRPGs
they told us to go and buy star ocean, what i can not understand!! why square enix didn't help tri-ace!!!! but i think i have the answer: because tri-ace make realy good jrpg they are better than square
I couldnt give a crap about SE but I am buying the divine force. Atlus and Tri-Ace are pretty much the only companies that I love and who are also still around.
yu got alot of jrpg fans who don't buy new day one priced games.they instead buy them used. Which is not good for the publisher. I'm a fan of star ocean so it's a day one for me. If yu like something and yu want to continue to see this game release than support it. And not wait for a review code or a supporter to buy it for yu.
I thought tri ace went independent years ago and one of the first things they did was the 4K remaster of Resonance of Fate. I don't understand what's going on with them.
@@the13thjoker They dont own tri ace *if that is what you are talking about* and they have literally been fucking them over like how star ocean 5 had no budget alongside shutting down their mobile game that was bringing them in some revenue Square enix only uses tri ace to boost their amount of jrpgs and dont view them highly compared to other devs like team asano
@@Radio_CosmicRay You right, square only publish it. But still, i dont remember tri ace making any great JRPG these days and age. Maybe they lost their key developer or something. But i still dont believe Square try to screw them over. Tri ace actually helping create FFXIII : lightning return (Square major title) and the game still crap. AS for their mobile game, it even doesnt release on US. I doubt it give them a lot budget compared to Fate grand order or something.
What I'm really wondering is why doesn't Square just buy up Tri-Ace? They would be a great addition and they got a great backlog of stuff to remaster and rerelease. This is why going indie these days is the way to go. Notice how the indie studios remain they can keep selling their stuff. You sell once to a pub and then they reap it all. But we don't need big compnaies anymore to get games, music, comics and etc out there anymore.
Just buy tri-ace ? You speak like game studio is cheap goods on flea market !?! Think about it ,remember the time Microsoft buy Bethesda or sony buy insomniac ? Why no one buy anything now ?!? That happen before pandemic and freaking war on russia vs ukraine. Thanks to this event everyone in the world are screw up. Gas price rising, bread and noodle rising and of course game development cost are rising.
There's not one particular way that developers and publishers interact. For all we know Square Enix didn't give them any money to develop the game or the development costs far exceeded what they were given. Also the Wild Arms & Arc the Lad mobile games had the same developer who also makes the Disgaea mobile game
I'm a fan of the Profile series and was a little disappointed with Elysium, I agree that there's a market for old school gamers that played the console games and they aren't tapping into an audience that would make them money. Definitely not a mobile game fan.
Regarding the comment on mobile game development, remember, these are all Japanese companies, and they cater their products to the tastes of the Japanese market before anything else. Mobile gaming is much bigger in Japan than it is in the US, and that's the market these companies care about. They don't cater their products to the tastes of western audiences. If western audiences like what they made and want to buy it, fine, but western audiences are NOT their primary, or even secondary, customers. Remember how Falcom had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, by Xseed into making a PC port of Trails in the Sky FC? That PC port was what finally established trails in the west, but Falcom dragged it's feet on it for years because PC ports don't do well at all in Japan. I don't think Tri-Ace's financial position has exactly been a secret, I heard about it sometime ago. I'm going to buy SO6 when it releases, but if someone didn't want to buy SO6, I doubt reports of Tri-Ace's financial situation would be what changed their mind. Money is tight right now, no one has any extra to go around to support companies that are having money problems. Also, I believe that Tri-Ace is the developer of SO6 and that Square Enix is the publisher, that means that Tri-Ace pays Square (or cuts them in on a percentage of profits), not the other way around. Publishing and distributing games is work, no one pays someone else to do that.
....Regarding your final paragraph that's not how it works. A publisher (Square Enix in this case) either pays a flat commission and the budget/costs of making a game at the start of a project to the developer (Tri Ace in this case) to make a game and that's all the developer gets unless the Publisher decides to pay them a bonus or the two make a contract that requires the Publisher to pay them a bonus (more likely) after the fact if it meets certain sales mile marks. Alternately the publisher may pay the costs/budget or commission a developer to make a game using their own cash as the budget without paying a commission for a developer to make a game which would allow the developer to negotiate at getting a % of all sales from a game. In both scenarios though either the publisher or developer can approach the other regarding a deal but regardless of who does the Publisher makes all the cash and then divides it at the end of the day depending on which of the 2 styles of contract above apply. The devs would be doing work for the Publisher either as the commissioned party or a partner party so no they're not paying the publisher anything. A similar situation is how Bayonetta is handled with Nintendo and Platinum. Nintendo commissioned Platinum in Bayo 2 and 3 to do the work, paid them a flat fee and budget costs (from what I heard), and Platinum took the job, made the game(s), and at best received bonuses after the fact but the commission was a flat rate so they didn't receive royalties unless the contract they made allowed them to get some (probably not as much as if they just made a deal to develop the game at their own costs and allow Nintendo to sell as the publisher which would likely end with a ~60% Nintendo ~40% Platinum cut in royalties...so it's probably something closer to ~20% Platinum and ~80% Nintendo in reality due to commissioned work at most).
@@ifrit1937 My mistake, I apologize for the incorrect theory. I figured game development/publishing worked the same as licensing and distribution agreements in other industries. Guess I was mistaken. Thanks for the information!
@@SuperSupersoda Probably too many people involved in the development team to do it the way anime/books/some shows do it...it'd put the development companies under if they had to pay publishers just to allow them to make games for them lol. In the case of say books/book authors what you mentioned is somewhat right as in some cases you may need to pay for the editorial work if you work completely as a freelance and pay some fee if you publish a book outside a classic book publisher but outside of maybe a fee to make a meeting with a large publisher about publishing your book even authors will for the most part not really pay anything to Publishers either as the entire deal more or less will be a split of all profits between said publisher (who's only job is to print the book at this point or make it available on the web and maybe edit the book if the author decides to use the Publisher's in House editors rather than a 3rd party editor (granted Publisher may still use them regardless for their own Quality and assurance purposes) and the book author more or less does all the rest of the work (writing, a run through or two to edit and add more to the story to fill in plot holes or cut out stuff if it feels too much/unnecessary to the story, and then another run through to make sure all is consistent before even giving it to an editor (after which he may get it back with recommended edits by said editor and need to go through things again and it will a be a back and forth of this between author and editor until both parties feel the work is marketable lol)). As for what you say the only place I can really think it'll apply to is stuff like trying to get TV shows onto a specific channel, especially for the prime time spots, as TV has a set amount of slots per day or a slot for the movie theaters (granted theaters may fall into the same situation as my next sentence). Books, dvd release of movies (maybe for Comcast's ON DEMAND or a streaming service...but even then I could see them wanting to pay the movie/TV show production firm to get more products to appeal to more people to get more sales tbh), and games on the other hand doesn't have the same issue as streaming services more or less let people browse and choose what they want rather than need to adhere to some time schedule like TV channels do. Basically 9/10 times the publisher is almost always on the customer side of these deals and need to pay the developer/writer/creator of the product for said product just to have something to sell or they're in a position where they're partners and likely won't take cash from the other side...it's only in specific situations like classic TV that I can ever think the product owner would need to outright pay the retailer to sell their own products (if that was the case it'd be more profitable for someone to just sell it themselves). Hell even in the cases of console owners like Sony, Sony doesn't really require a direct payment before the deal from what I can tell and instead it's always a % (a larger one than Sony deserves at that imo) of the profits from each copy sold of the game (likely movies too).
Tri-Ace is a subsidiary of a publicly traded company. We just entered the financial 4th quarter, which means they have a responsibility to report their earnings to Square Enix, which unfortunately means that information needs to be public and transparent. I think the timing is merely unfortunate. It’s not guilt, but IF this game doesn’t perform, they won’t be a company much longer…
We've seen stuff like this before, but I can't think of a time where the company was outed BEFORE release that they are in trouble. There have been games that were received well both critically and financially, but the company itself bombed and the success couldn't save them. From what I've read tri-ace owe some people money and haven't delivered. This could just be the media spicing things up for some clicks. Perhaps tri-ace will be able to pay back creditors after Star Ocean comes out and it'll be no big deal, but it could be other other scenario. Regardless, I think the game is coming out because at this point they have to deliver or else they'll be in even more hot water.
That announcement is unfair. I bought every Star Ocean game, but here in Europe Divine Force will cost 70€ and that’s too steep for me at day one, I’ll get it sometime next year. I’ve also a lot of backlog now. It’s confusing and tricky, I agree.
I loved SO3 but after the playing the demo for the latest game, it just didn't click with me. The only game I would buy from them would be Resonance of Fate/Edge of Eternity.
Square should buy them and dissolve them, or restructure them. Spread the employees around, shake the company up, get some new projects going, etc. Tri-Ace has been floundering but there's still talent at the studio
I heard that they need to sell at least half a million copies of SO6 just to survive. I hope they will be able to pull this off, but it's going to be an uphill battle. It's best compared to Tales of Arise, which sold 2 millions, but had much better presentation and advertisement. Compared to that, The Divine Force can offer only a cheesy music video. Still, fingers crossed, I believe in Tri-Ace.
Square Enix brings all these franchises back but don't give them the budget and help they need. Lame. The last star ocean game had barely any budget. I already preordeted the divine force. Hope they stay open.
I'm living inside a "cave" since 9 years ago so I don't know what's going on with Square Enix. Can anyone tell me what's going on woth SE? Why the vitriol, guys?
Too put it simple, square doesn't care for anything that's not Final fantasy or kingdom hearts. Back in the day they make wide variety of game like (parasite eve horror action, brave fencer Musashi action, Bushido blade fighting game?) Or sometimes they funding / publishing great game like sleeping dog, deus ex, or even tomb raider. But now,( not only square) most game studio have they own confront zone. 1. Capcom : remaking RE again and again. Never touch breath of fire (JRPG), Asura wrath, or even okami. 2. Konami : Pachinko or Yu-Gi-Oh. Thanks God they remaking silent hill. Say good bye for contra, zone of ender, metal gear, etc 3. EA. It's always that blasted fifa game, we never got stuff like mirror edge again
Here's how this works: The publisher (Square) agrees to finance the development and the money is paid upfront or in installments (i.e when milestones are reached). Included in the contract is how much profit sharing is involved per copy sold. Translation: Tri-Ace already blew through the budget and are operating in the red. The only time Tri-Ace independently developed a game, eating the full brunt of dev costs, and shopped it for a publisher was for Resonance of Fate (published by Sega). Otherwise, bide their time waiting for projects to drop in their lap. They've done this time and time again, which facilitated the need for Nepro to purchase them, and they do NOT layoff staff. They keep a full dev house when they got nothing going on. I think this is the beginning of the end of Tri-Ace, and they made thier own bed to a degree, and THE biggest reason for Star Ocean not doing well is because we already know how the series ends. They gave that away in Star Ocean 3 because they probably thought Square wouldn't come calling for a 4th game let alone a 5th and 6th. They've been "filling in the gaps" ever since, and it casts such a pall over the entire series that most of the gamers who cared enough for the first 3 Star Ocean games never bothered to stick around for 4 and 5. The series is doomed without the die-hard fans, but Tri-Ace and Square wrote themselves into that corner. Weis & Hickman wrote and published all 7 "Death Gate" novels in order for a reason. Had they given us Volume 7 right after Volume 1, and then filled in the gaps in a slipshod haphazard fashion, people would gradually cease to care with each successive volume, leaving only the die-hards by the end. It boneheaded ... 😒
@@drewtheunspoken3988 Where's Red Dead 3? Same place Valkyrie Profile 3 and Half Life 3 is. Let's not forget Legacy of Kain where Crystal Dynamics spent 3 games in that 5 game series delivering Raziel's legacy instead of Kain's despite us knowing full well how it's going to end for him: "the irritant is expelled". You can only breadcrumb people so much before they catch on and wake up, closing thier minds and wallets for good.
Technically they could continue the story after SO3...either by implying the SO 'Universe' became it's own independent thing knowing what happens in SO3's endgame...ah fuck it I'll just assume anyone reading this played SO3/all other SO games so here's your ONLY WARNING, SPOILERS AHEAD: They can easily make it so that the Universe of Fayt and all other SO characters becomes independent of 4D space OR have it so Fayt, Sophia, and Maria's powers somehow drew their entire Universe out of the Eternal Sphere game and into the 4D space to create 2 Milky Way galaxies (assuming 4D space is also supposed to be the Milky Way Galaxy and the Eternal Sphere's galaxies are based off galaxies in 4D space of course and not some completely different galaxies) which alone could easily lead to a conflict between the denizens of who used to live in the Eternal Sphere and those that live in 4D space. The above would've also been a better/clearer explanation than the philosophical BS that was along the lines of 'I think therefore I am' moment at the end of SO after Fayt/others awake from the 'destruction of the Universe' in the Eternal Sphere. Hell it's not like they didn't even try to continue the series regardless of 3's ending as during promotion/release of the game the devs kept saying that SO4 was a different continuity constantly but SO fans, for whatever reason, force it as cannon no matter what (ya it's left open enough to be cannon and outside of Stephen D Kenny being a Kenny and some adephagos references on Roak there really isn't anything connecting SO4 to 3...hell technically with how limited the references are with the series from SO3 to all other games (think it's the only one without a Kenny for example) they easily could've made it so SO 1, 2, 4, 5, and maybe even 6 all occur in 4D space while SO3 is the only one to occur in the Eternal Sphere but has a history based off the 4D space's history...the only real thing implying they're all in the Eternal Sphere at besides that would be Welch appearing in all games (and in SO 1 and 2's case only in the remakes, she wasn't in the OG games) and for the most part acting the same across all games...granted they can explain them as being separate people or SO 1 and 2 Remakes are in the Eternal Sphere timeline with SO3 while SO1 and 2 SNES are not and part of a separate timeline with other games...or she has time traveling capabilities or the ability to travel across space/dimensions (or even both) or is some sort of goddess or being that can do so and all forms of her aren't her real appearance (hell for shits and giggles they could reveal her as the series final boss and turn her into some horrific tentacle monster lol)).
@@TogonzoMedia If the game is good people will usually support it. I don't think the story of Star Ocean 3 killed interest. I think the fact that 4 was just okay and 5 being mediocre is what damaged sales. Star Ocean 6 doesn't have to be amazing but if it's a solid gaming experience it should do well.
How don’t you understand it was leaked they did not give the info. After looking a lot of info up also they put every last penny into divine force. The end of the game they made with 0 money . They said there was months people worked wit very low pay just because they love star ocean. It has me worried they may pull a xeno gears at the end cause they ran out of money but this is it for them Star ocean has to be a success or they are dead.
It wasn't a guilt trip, it was a financial report. Companies put them out every year, multiple times per year. All the claims that they are in trouble were not made by Tri Ace, it was analysis by people reading the reports.
Even thou i love jrpgs i dont remember a tri ace game i have played, so its not a company i am particularly fond of. i almost played the previous star ocean but since reception were bad i ended up not playing. i hope divine force comes out good and i intend to play it. i dont want tri ace to go down, i want them to be good finacialy by doing good games.
Studios like Mistwalker and tri-Ace BARELY market their console games and BARELY any gaming sites and UA-camrs talk about them, hence why they flop to a point they're jumping ship towards a much more profitable market for them aka mobile gaming. The only issue with mobile gaming, most of the time, is the short lifespan IF they make no money out of them despite bombarding UA-cam and gaming sites with ads to promote them. Like you said, not everyone wants to play on mobile and rather play on consoles or PC, but it's not OUR decision to have X game on Y platform, it's THEIR decision to make the most profit out of them. If mobile is more profitable than consoles for THEM, then tough luck for players. The biggest issue with console games, especially with most RPGs, is the release timing with the most highly anticipated titles out there; release it sandwiched between 2 big games and you risk being a flop; release it in close proximity from one another and the game with the most hype will succeed while the other will fail. Word of mouth for the most underrated RPGs is what eventually will make gamers buy them, but again it might be too late to make a profit with them as they might end up in bargain bins where developers/publishers make next to no money out of them anymore. There's also the issue with genre oversaturation that could cause some fatigue for gamers to even dare buy anything, RPGs included, cause there are metric fuckton of them released all year long with several games of the same genre/month. The industry need to go with the ''less is more'' mantra in order to give gamers some time to breathe in between each release. That's my own opinion cause I see all of the above every week for years and I even fell victim to gaming burnout at some point.
After so 4. SEnix seems like ignoring S.o as franchise from s.o. 5 under budget and stuffs. And 6 divine force animation of the lips and eyes seems to suffer the budget problem too.
They didn't ignore Star Ocean as the original plan was to end it after The Last Hope. Square-Enix then look at what they could do with the series if they wanted to continue it without one of its leading producers: the result was Star Ocean 5, a game that got blasted by pretty much everyone except its few defenders. Then came the mobile game, which didn't survive that long both in Japan and worldwide despite the unique concept it has because ''WAH WAH, IT'S A MOBILE GAME! I HATE MOBILE GAMES! WAH WAH!'' Then there's the remasters of SO1, SO3 and SO4, which didn't do so well each sales wise. Which leaves us to SO 6, which I hope it doesn't suck from what they showed us so far. The series as a whole wasn't as profitable enough to warrant high budgets for recent entries, which is why they look low budget with some jank here and there. If that were the case, then Square-Enix would have gone ALL OUT with everything from better animation to crisper graphics to lip sync that matches the voice actors' line delivery for each supported language like they did with the FF13 trilogy and beyond.
Pretty much why if Tri- Ace wants to survive they gotta look for work outside of SE's umbrella (at least 2 other jobs funded by other larger companies like Nintendo, Namco, Capcom, Sega, NIS, etc) even if it's just smaller, barely larger than Indie sized jobs (think of I am Setsuna, Lost Sphear, Oninaki, etc from SE). Ya they don't make too much money most likely but they also shouldn't cost too much either thus they will bring in a profit which is all that matters in the end tbh if a company wants to survive.
@@martinde-serres8724 then its pretty tough, it looked like it does not suck but its not like gonna be great either. i assume its gonna be around tales of arise level of story which is like 7/10. while personally for me star ocean stopped at 2. as for budgeting using subaru kimura as JP VA is pretty hefty idk they invest quite a lot on the VA instead of the actual game which is weird. I do not mind if they go like SO2 and SO 1 vibes where the protagonist did not talk much but the story is way more convoluted and even downgrading the graphics to something like diofield. or idk let sega acquire the IP. so far every RGG studios game has pretty high score average to me compared to recent FInal Fantasies or any recent square enix game. i believe with sega like story telling it could turn the star ocean back into its PS1/nintendo era.
Tri Ace has running financial issues, not raising money for projects directly. And I think the news of them having financial issues is meant to be private and for deters not for public news.
I hate to say this but something like this might seem unusual but unfortunately, it is not. We have seen some pretty good developers go up in smoke with a brand new release. It's highly likely that Tri-Ace knows that no matter how much they make on Star Ocean it won't be enough.
The sad thing is at the end of the day making games is a business and a business only job is to make money. I prefer 100hr RPGs but those take so much money to make and so much time and it's a huge risk if it doesn't sell well. Back in the day of PS1 only a few big games came out a year but now thousands of games come out and it makes it harder for companies to get your money
Some companies survived when they make gacha games but with good marketing. A lot of gamers feel cheated with gacha games and ruins some reputation but it is how business worked... People might hate Konami but then they survived the business so they can start to release remasters from their old games... Tri Ace is not lucky enough to partnered with Square Enix. Monolithsoft got saved by Nintendo (Xeno series). Both Xeno and Pokemon games are not unique in term of gameplay but their marketing were good.
So to be clear, again, this is a news story. Company about to release big game... meanwhile also about to go bankrupt. This will be of interest to gamers who care about the games and just the video game business in general. As for square enix, this isn't how it works. Square pays them upfront for development, they get a set amount, they don't get paid again on release etc. They will get some money from the sales of the game, but they just get a cut, not the whole thing. Even if there was a "bonus" system that can have catch 22's. Just ask Obsidian who lost millions of dollars in "bonuses" for Fallout New Vegas because they only got a 79 on metacritic and their bonuses from Bethesda were contingent on getting an 80+.
Okay FANTASIAN (Mist Walker) isn’t a gotcha game or free to play at all. It’s an Apple Arcade game, so it is a paid product in a way, apples games pass or whatever. They’re who funded the game. There is a big distinction between a game like FANTASIAN or the gotcha breath of fire, Star ocean, fire emblem, SMT, FF, etx
I heard about this last month on Reddit and the things people have to say about this is not pretty. Frankly, it's Tri-Ace's own fault for their lack of activity in the past decade and a half. Star Ocean: SS was amazing & well, but there were other amazing RPGs at the time that sold even better. SO3 sold slightly better but scored slightly worth than 2 and it was all downhill from there. TLH was a middling entry that sold okay but put the series on hiatus. Lastly, I&F was an embarrassing joke that sold pathetically, so much so that you can't find accurate sales numbers online. Now we're here where everybody's vocal about their concerns about Tri-Ace. It's a really sad story.
Here what i suspect regarding financial announcement from Tri-ace. Sale of upcoming star ocean will heavily affected because of few triple a game release near the Star Ocean release date. Call of duty MW2, God Of War Ragnarok, A plague Tales Requiem. Fan might buy newest the star ocean, but not on day of release day.
They could not have chosen a worse release date for this game and it also being the next one after the disaster that was star ocean 5 this is going to be a uphill battle for them.
All your mentioned are game from different genre. Doom come out at the same time with animal crossing and both of them sold really well since both of them complete different genre. However releasing horizon zero dawn a.k.a open world action game close to Zelda BotW and elden ring is just dumb
Atlus said the same thing years ago around the time they released Persona 4. They were supposedly on the cusp of bankruptcy and everyone was scratching their heads like "what? Persona series makes millions, how are you broke?" Tri Ace problem is that being as niche as they are, their releases aren't constant. People have been begging for a VP2 remastered for a decade now. Go back to the IP's that are successful
Yeap and look at where Atlus is now, a part of Sega. Hopefully Tri-Ace could find their footing. Four of these companies could buy them out: Nintendo, Sega, Capcom, or maybe Namco. If Nintendo buy them then they could help Camelot in making the Golden Sun series or help Mistwalker handle the Last Story, if they end up with Sega they could help improve the Phantasy Star series (a series with Sci-Fi space theme similar to Star Ocean), if they end up with Capcom they could help improve the Breath of Fire series, if they end up with Namco hopefully they could revive the Xenosaga series or make a spiritual successor to that series.
Large publishers usually screw over the companies that actually make the game. Think of it like how record companies screw over bands. If the band is really huge they can negotiate better deals but tri ace is definitely not big enough to do that Under the circumstances it's not at all unusual that they'd be hard up for cash just before a game got released
Its kinda their fault too, because they almost never had interest in releasing their games on another console platforms, now they are paying the price.
@@pedropelegrinialves9365 PlayStation has been the place to release RPGs pretty much forever. The switch is a recent contender but I don't think they can get their games running on the switch. The switch is massively underpowered and that's going to make it very difficult to program for. They're not a big enough studio to afford the kind of programmers they can get a game running on the switch That just leaves the Xbox and the Xbox is dead weight in Japan. Microsoft insists on having a presence there but the sales are in the tens per a week And they're porting to PC now
Tri ace is no longer owned by square they were acquired by NJ holdings, which is a mobile game company. Triace made a mobile game that was shut down so they lost money.
This is why I tell people if you are a Star Ocean fan, you need to buy the games. Many of our beloved franchises are always a step or two away from death. A company does not even need to go bankrupt either for a franchise to get the axe. In regards to Tri-Ace, they make a particular kind of game. They are not heavily polished titles, but neither are they amateurish. Their games are somewhere in the middle. That said, no one makes an RPG like Tri-Ace. I cannot explain it. I feel like fellow fans will understand what I mean. I have preordered The Divine Force on both PS5 and Xbox. Now, while I can admit that it is not our responsibility to keep these companies afloat financially, I cannot stress enough that if you love Star Ocean, you should buy Divine Force, because you never know when a series you love will cease to exist.
bad market decisions i assume. I really hope that wont happen i have all Tri-ace Valkyrie profile games a few star ocean games i even have Resonance of Fates a underated gem. They need to mainly focus on console games more than Mobile
Companies like Square Enix and Sony make it extremely difficult for an independent developer to compete in the console gaming market. Those two companies have a fucking stranglehold on the JRPG market . Sony in particular is infamous for being the biggest asshole in the gaming industry. There’s a well documented history of S.I.E. bribing third party developers to keep their games from going to Xbox,PC, and Nintendo consoles. In fact Sony has kept hundreds of games from going to Xbox GamePass, that’s why it’s hilarious that Sony is throwing such a bitch fit over the Microsoft-Activision buyout.
It's been forever since Tri-Ace made a new game since Exist Archive and the last Star Ocean coming out 7 years ago. Passing on making a new Valkyrie Profile game was a lost opportunity and even though Elysium is decent they KNEW what we really wanted and just let Square-Enix do whatever with it. The excuse of working on Star Ocean during Valkyrie's production is a crock because Valkyrie really belongs to THEM and not Square-Enix.
@@Dante_Sparda796 You are correct. Instead they got the budget for Covenant and that didn't sell enough. Infinite Undiscovery didn't do well either and for that I say because it was on Xbox and we both know that Xbox players are mostly shooter/adventure gamers with a small but decent rpg fanbase but not as large as PlayStation players. Resonance of Fate fell way under the radar as it was released alongside FFXIII and you will find there are a lot of people who don't even know about ROF even with it's re-release. Then Star Ocean 4 which for some reason people didn't like, failed as well. The next Tri-Ace game was Exist Archive and that had little announcement/promotion and fell under the radar. Now with SO6 we'll see if it will snap Tri-Ace out from under it's slumber or we will never see a TRUE Valkyrie Profile game ever again.
TBH I only liked VP1 and 2. I've bought their games but do not understand their creative output. They always seem to insert some confusing system into their games for the sake of it.
I want to support SO6, not only cause I want to support Tri-Ace, but I want SE to know, that there are still people who love anime style JRPGs, instead of turning everything into super realistic + grim dark. If you don't realize it yet, SO6 is one of the VERY few games from SE that is still using anime style designs.
This was a good informative video to be honest I love playing my videos games on a system or a handheld because it’s just better for me, I loved hearing the games mentioned for an example after watching a review for Exist Archive unfortunately I don’t have a PS4 but I do have a PS Vita so I was able to play the game, and one part about that is I can play it on the go! and that is a plus for me. I am a huge fan of Valkyrie profile and especially star ocean, I currently have and play Till the end of time and the last hope, I actually pre-order star ocean driving force for my Xbox One so the game is coming in the mail this Thursday the 27th so I hope the game is good?! I did enjoy playing the others games.
given the tri ace games are still somewhat niche and star ocean faithless thingy was a total dumpster fire.. and how the last VP installments were also bad.. it is likely they are kinda broke i would hate to see them go away though as i usually like most of the games they did in the past..
Yeah man I agree with you. I don't even consider mobile games as a legitimate platform so if they release these games on mobile I'm just not playing them.
Square Enix is quite dumb sometimes, like shadow dropping NEO the world ends with you on PC the same week as persona 5 and on sale, and then complains why the hell the game did not sold enough
The last Star Ocean was TERRIBLE. Basically: you can't jump so we'll force you to re-route in an attempt to unnecessarily pad this poor facsimile of a once, truly great franchise. Bankrupted themselves making a game with (supposedly) over 3x the budget of their previously most expensive game? Huh, I wonder how that happened 🤷
Xbox are supposedly looking to acquire more Japanese studios, i'd be intrigued to see, if Xbox were interested. Unfortunately jrpgs are pretty niche as opposed to CODs,Fifa's etc. So their games aren't going to have mass market appeal.
I bought the game already I even got the deluxe but this is def weird 😐 I hope the game is actually good and this inst a sign that it's gonna be shit with a bunch of cut corners like integrity and faithlessness
Maybe they should have put more effort into the stories of the recent Star Ocean games instead of just slapping in anime trope characters and annoying voices and calling it a day. I have a lot of fond memories about their early games, shame seeing the direction they're going.
I’m still getting Star Ocean on deep sale.
Tri-Aces today isn’t the same as back on the PS2. Plus a lot of veterans RPG developers are creating their own indies RPG games and I would rather support those.
I'm not sure what exactly is happening in this scenario, but I'm reminded a lot of Stella Glow. The developers, Imageepoch, filed for bankruptcy the same year the game came out and there were signs of it happening. So whatever is happening with TRi Ace may not be unique. These new games were in development for years prior to what financial circumstances they find themselves in
Don’t forget AlphaDream too
@@therealjaystone2344 Also a good example
What's so sad about Imageepoch is that they went bankrupt before Stella Glow even released so they didn't even receive any of the sales revenue... Which is tragic because the game sold surprisingly well and got praised as a hidden gem by so many
@@suzyocean7392 It was indeed a hidden gem of a game. A tragic release for sure
I'm thinking they vastly overshot their budget in an attempt to make a 'next gen' experience, even if it does come across as a space anime.
In theory, they've used anime cut scenes in older games and spent a mint on outside studios for that, but compared to this game's actual budget, they clearly had no clue what they were getting into.
It's like Witcher 2 to 3.
The game would have crippled CDPR, if not for GOG, and it still causes crashes, system hangs, file corruptions, etc.. and that's years later.
If not for the world class DLC (Blood and Wine is more substantial than most full games), we'd still be shitting on the poor bug testing and everything else I mentioned.
But in comparison, this looks considerably higher quality than I&F, just like the Witcher 3 holds up better than Cyberpunk. And again, that's due to the perspective surrounding other releases.
Whether the game can solve TriAce's financial woes through grit and sales is anyone's guess.
I already had my pre-order locked down before the news of Tri Ace's financial issues. Been with them since SO: The Second Story back on the PS1. It is sad to hear that Divine Force may very well be their last game! Let's hope it turns out to be a successful entry in the series for them. I know that I'm looking forward to it!
Kind of sounds like a similar situation to Square's when Final Fantasy was released. Also, the current state of the global market could be a big factor. Producing games under this level of inflation has got to be a bitch.
I preordered my copy of Star Ocean Divine Force because i want to support Tri Ace regardless if its Square Enix. I still have some hope left that Tri Ace survives and we get another Valkyrie Profile game like Hrist's story or something.
Im so hypped with this game, I will try to buy my copy once the game comes out
Game gonna flop bud
I personally think this is true. I think this has all added up over time because let's be honest, tri-Ace hasn't been doing brilliantly in terms of success with their games sales wise so over time, it has to have had an effect on them.
As much as it chagrins me to say it, this. To be honest they are still around after literally decades when many other famous studios have long since died, so the very fact they're still around impresses me. I think the last game of theirs I played, besides that VP mobile game, was Radiata Stories, which was incredible. They proved, after doing epic space operas and mythological fictions, they could do a cozy comedy-style romp. It takes a lot to create these things, they work in an industry that no longer favors unique products (sorry for offending, but tri-Ace made creations that totally took me in as a young person and enthralled as opposed to just merely doing what the industry demanded), and they probably feel they don't have the support they would need to produce stuff like they did 20 years ago. Thanks for attending my tedtalk.
Given their obvious issues, divine force is a great game anyways. They clearly have no budget, but they managed to make a rather charming and deceptively deep jrpg
Amen brother. Fantasian being on iphone only was such a heartbreaker. I have an iphone and I played and loved it but gave up halfway because I didn’t want to hold my burning hot phone for hours.
It was not Tri-Ace that announced their financial issues, it was a japanese news outlet called Gamebiz. I think that japanese news outlet wouldn't write that article if Tri-Ace was not facing financial issues, because as of right now, Tri-Ace is insolvent. This means that they can't pay their debts with their available cash and credits. This whole thing may have sparked interest from Gamebiz and they wrote that article...I would highly recommend people buying Star Ocean Divine Force if they want to have future games from Tri-Ace. And regarding the revenue of the game, if its a digital sale, 30% of the revenue will go to Steam, 30% will go to Square Enix and maybe 20% will go Tri-Ace, the rest is marketing costs. For a phisical copy, 30% goes for retailers and distribution, then 5 to 10% for marketing, 5 to 10% for phisical cost of goods, 20% for Tri-Ace, and the rest for Square Enix..
I'll buy it if the game is great or even good. I'm not supporting them just for the sake of tf outta here.
@@kian26master yeah i will totally buy it if the reviews are good, like at least 80 on metacritic and i will definitely buy it
@@kian26master based on demo it should be decent
@@statesminds hope the port is good on steam since that's the only way to play for me it right now
I feel like this could be a way for them to "encourage" bigger companies to aquire them. They are probably hoping a company like Sega or Nintendo picks them up.
Excatly what I was thinking.
I would love for sega or nintendo to grab them, wouldnt be bad for microsoft to grab them, they need more jrpg's on thier console
@@Will-qd2km hopefully microsoft, get those classics on gamepass!
I wouldn't mind seeing Bamco or Sega Aquiring them.
Yea, this makes most sense
So divine force is the last hope?
Lol
Yes! Lmao!!
till the end of time
@@burnt_ramen9757 omggg 😂😂😂
Probably should have released Star Ocean 2 remaster on modern consoles to help fill your coffers. I know I’d have double dipped and bought it again.
i been so busy with life i didn't know. sad news i love the JRPG developer Tri-Ace . 1 of my favorite JRPG developer and 1 of the few great JRPG developer left. i buy most of their games if not all of their games.
i did a little research. i found out that The studio's financial results for the last fiscal year are in, and they're not looking good, especially when compared to the previous year. Over on Japanese industry site Gamebiz (with additional reporting courtesy of RPGSite), a breakdown of Tri-Ace's fiscal year leading up to June 2022 shows that the studio's sales fell by 43% year-on-year. In the 2021 fiscal year, Tri-Ace made $1.67 million in terms of operating profit, but by 2022, that figure transformed into a $4.34 million loss. Overall, Tri-Ace's final figures for the 2022 fiscal year show a $4.75 million deficit, with Gamebiz declaring Tri-Ace "insolvent" (we're using machine translation for the article, which is in Japanese). This is definitely not a good situation for Tri-Ace to be in, so the studio will likely be hoping that lots of people buy the upcoming Star Ocean: The Divine Force.
I want to see if the game's actually great or even good then I'll buy
The last time I remember genuinely enjoying a tri-Ace title was with Valkyrie Profile 2 and Resonance of Fate, and _maybe_ SO4. Then they kinda disappeared off the grid and did mobile crap. Was very close to checking out Anamnesis at some point, if only to see Dias in 3D (and Rena in a swimsuit lmao), but they closed the global version so I never bothered.
I don't think SO6 will remotely come close to what SO2 meant to me, but I'll probably buy it anyway. If you ask me, they peaked with VP1. But that might just be the nostalgia talking...
It amazes me how common this is in the tech industry as a whole; Developer studios that are just barely making it by unless they find a scheme to exploit for easy profits. Making a good product is not enough. Too high costs I guess.
Also too many people fixate on the name of a studio without realizing the changes it has had through the years. Take Blizzard and Bioware for instance, most of the people who made their legendary titles are gone. You also have your “genius directors” who go solo and they just produce “meh” results because the “whole gang” is what made great games, not a name.
I pre ordered Star Ocean 6, because hope is what dies last….
Square Enix is publishing the title but they didn't provide the development budget. The game was likely created on spec meaning that there was no guarantee that SE was going to publish it. Only that SE had first look rights.
It would be cool if Sony bought them but I don't see that happening.
If Tri-Ace games make money in the long run, that means that their games have legs and should negotiate better contracts. Or to start publishing their own games. It’s easier now in a digital world.
I'm probably wrong, but I didn't think tri ace ever published any of its games, even on Japan, Enix, Square Enix and Sega did most of the publishing.
What baffles me is they decided to make another Star Ocean game even though the last one flopped. You would think they would tried another IP like Valkyrie Profile.
Exactly what I've been saying.
You guys say this like Star Ocean isn't their most known and recognizable IP. I hate to tell you but Valkyrie Profile is not a big property. The one that just released barely even existed hype wise. I remember seeing like 2 people streaming on release to small numbers and a week later it was no one. No hype, no marketing, literally no one outside the die hard niche cared.
@@DKarkarov the last Star Ocean game flopped on all aspects in terms of quality and sales that's what they meant but you make a fair point.
@@kian26master 4 did too to be honest. It is still their top property though.
I'm not surprised, Tri-Ace hasn't been doing well for a while. I already am getting SO6 though.
I agree that is why I was surprised there was going to be a star ocean 6 in the first place
One thought could be that mid development, they realized that they would be bankrupt and wanted to pull SO6. However, because they had a contract with SE, they were bound to complete the game. Also they could have been contractually prevented from releasing their bankruptcy publicly by SE until the product is done. Now that the game is ready, SE let them go public with their announcement.
No they actually worked with very low pay for the last few months. They did it cause they love star ocean.
I feel so sorry for tri ace, I hope this isn't the end for them.
ah i rly hope the best for tri-Ace 😓 bcs of them, i can meet "valkyrie profile" and "star ocean the second" which made my bitter life become sweet, i'm very thankful to them🌹
Well I was buying SO6 regardless...however the chance they are basically bankrupt wouldn't be surprised given their last console game that wasn't a remake was SO5 in 2016 with the only other means of possibly decent income being Star Ocean's Mobile game...and before SO5 their largest project ever was some sort of involvement in FF13 Lightning returns, not to mention apparently 13-2 as well (probably worked alongside SE).
In fact when you look at Tri Ace's entire game portfolio they only have about 30 games since they were founded in 1996...at least a handful of them being remakes/remasters on top of that.
That doesn't mean I believe Tri-Ace should be forgiven for that btw, imo that just means they've been far too passive in their game development as they NEED to put out more games per year (even small rpg maker style games at this point would likely make them a minor profit to work with...granted I think any game dev bigger than Indie/individuals can make a slightly better looking game than rpg maker assets even if they're 'PS2/3/Vita' era graphics) as for a nearly 30 year old company that's FAR too little work for even a small (but bigger than Indie) sized game company.
And if Square Enix isn't offering them jobs/taking the games they pitch they need to go to other publishers like Namco, Sega, Koei Tecmo, hell even NISA (as they've release a shitload of stuff lately lol), Capcom, etc (no point of adding Konami as until the Silent Hill announcements they've barely done anything notable in gave development for a while...at least asf ar as Japanese/jrpg like games are concerned).
Also gonna throw in since it's kinda relevant to your statements on SE getting most of the profits and not Tri Ace: same situation goes for Platinum which is why I found the whole recent Helena Taylor vs Platinum Bayo VA situation to be BS as they likely don't have the extra cash to pay her even if she wasn't paired fairly (which based off a Bloomberg piece by Jason Schrier she apparently lied and was offered 3 to 4x the VA Union standard price of $1K per 4 hour session per day for 3 to 5 days work (so about $12K minimum to $20K maximum for 3 to 5 half days/16 hours of work))...as for how this is further relevant to this story VAs are trying to push for more than this 1K per hour if they're in the Union (if they're not and it's far worse fine for them to complain I guess but Union VAs get more or less guaranteed 1K for 1 day's work of a gig as they seem to only work in 4 hour sessions now according to Yongyea's videos on the situation (granted he's a bit bias as he does VA work and has obvious self interest in the issue...granted he still at least covered the Bloomberg article and admitted Taylor was asking to be grossly overpaid so I'll give him that at least as far as his game new reporting on UA-cam goes)) to even ridiculous amounts like $100K plus residuals/a % of sales (that's what Taylor supposedly asked for during negotiations according to aforementioned Bloomberg article) which if they had to do for every single VA (which there could be dozens in a single game) would likely bankrupt the company (especially smaller companies like Tri Ace, Platinum, Falcom, etc)/cut into all of a game's profits drastically...and not even the game developers (writers, programmers, sound effects team, etc) even get royalties so why the fuck should VAs get them when they put so little work into the project in comparison (ya it's freelance work and you may not be guaranteed a job but that's some frigging high paying freelance work when maximum profit just for joining the VA Union is 1K per days work...if they can't get at minimum 50 days ($50K) of work than there's likely a laziness issue/pride issue (not taking smaller jobs for say npc dialogue) more so than anything...as as for anyone who's not a big VA...probably shouldn't even be a main source of income to begin and should be more of an on/off thing tbh...at least until they can get on par with names like Troy Baker, Laura Bailey, Jennifer Hale (Helena Taylor's replacement in Bayo 3), Johnny Young Bosch, etc. At best VAs maybe should be given a bonus for if the games the work in reach specific milestones (say a few hundred bucks for each 100K or a thousand or two per million...that altogether would be about 7K extra bucks if say the few hundred bucks was $500 (easier to calculate $100, $500, $1K...100 felt too low, 1K too high so settled on the middle) for a job that even gave them a single 1 4 hour day session (even for npc work). My point with this entire last paragraph though is there's too much already in place that makes a budget for a game, especially for smaller/indie sized devs tight...they don't need additional crap like VAs asking for magnitudes more to screw them over too...otherwise they'd go out of business or would need to cut out voice acting entirely in their games to cut costs which would likely cause a hit in sales as I can see some people not getting the game if there's no voices (personally i couldn't care less if a game's voiced or not as long as what's written is well written/has little mistakes...imo VA work is nothing more than an extra feature given to us by game devs and nothing necessary to a game like story, gameplay, side content, etc...it's nice but I'd rather lose it than a series/game company I like...games would be a lot quieter though, granted we should still have music and sound effects though (and to some degree some people may prefer not hearing grunts/yells in games as I remember people bitching a lot about that with Tales of Arise/other Tales games even though most jrpgs are like that lol).
From what I understand Tri-Ace just put out their financial report for the last year which is just something that companies do every year I don't see it as them trying to guilt people. As for them showing losses for the past year that's very common for video game companies (at least I've seen this kind of thing happen in the past) to report losses between major game releases. They haven't put out a new game in a while so naturally they haven't been making as much money. So hopefully next year with SO6 out on the market they'll have a better financial report.
StarOcean was one of the first JRPGs I had ever seen along with FF7, and Golden Sun. Star Ocean, and Golden Sun were the games that made me get into JRPGs
Starocean 2, legend of legia, and ff7 helped me get into jrpgs
@@stephentrader9142 It was actually the second one for me too.
I'm buying the game on the release date.
they told us to go and buy star ocean, what i can not understand!! why square enix didn't help tri-ace!!!! but i think i have the answer: because tri-ace make realy good jrpg they are better than square
It's just better if they just leave SE and start a kickstarter. Suikoden did that and people fund them under a new title.
I couldnt give a crap about SE but I am buying the divine force. Atlus and Tri-Ace are pretty much the only companies that I love and who are also still around.
yu got alot of jrpg fans who don't buy new day one priced games.they instead buy them used. Which is not good for the publisher. I'm a fan of star ocean so it's a day one for me. If yu like something and yu want to
continue to see this game release than support it. And not wait for a review code or a supporter to buy it for yu.
I thought tri ace went independent years ago and one of the first things they did was the 4K remaster of Resonance of Fate.
I don't understand what's going on with them.
Square enix has been trying to kill the tri ace brand for years
Probably
Why the god world they want to do that ? They own it. I think it do they more harm than good
@@the13thjoker They dont own tri ace *if that is what you are talking about* and they have literally been fucking them over like how star ocean 5 had no budget alongside shutting down their mobile game that was bringing them in some revenue
Square enix only uses tri ace to boost their amount of jrpgs and dont view them highly compared to other devs like team asano
@@Radio_CosmicRay You right, square only publish it. But still, i dont remember tri ace making any great JRPG these days and age. Maybe they lost their key developer or something. But i still dont believe Square try to screw them over. Tri ace actually helping create FFXIII : lightning return (Square major title) and the game still crap.
AS for their mobile game, it even doesnt release on US. I doubt it give them a lot budget compared to Fate grand order or something.
I thought they made Resonance of Fate too
What I'm really wondering is why doesn't Square just buy up Tri-Ace? They would be a great addition and they got a great backlog of stuff to remaster and rerelease. This is why going indie these days is the way to go. Notice how the indie studios remain they can keep selling their stuff. You sell once to a pub and then they reap it all. But we don't need big compnaies anymore to get games, music, comics and etc out there anymore.
Just buy tri-ace ? You speak like game studio is cheap goods on flea market !?! Think about it ,remember the time Microsoft buy Bethesda or sony buy insomniac ? Why no one buy anything now ?!? That happen before pandemic and freaking war on russia vs ukraine. Thanks to this event everyone in the world are screw up. Gas price rising, bread and noodle rising and of course game development cost are rising.
Maybe they are observing pre-order sales? It might depend on expectations of shareholders or Square Enix.
There's not one particular way that developers and publishers interact. For all we know Square Enix didn't give them any money to develop the game or the development costs far exceeded what they were given.
Also the Wild Arms & Arc the Lad mobile games had the same developer who also makes the Disgaea mobile game
Only 1 or 2 games flop than your company done.
I'm a fan of the Profile series and was a little disappointed with Elysium, I agree that there's a market for old school gamers that played the console games and they aren't tapping into an audience that would make them money. Definitely not a mobile game fan.
Regarding the comment on mobile game development, remember, these are all Japanese companies, and they cater their products to the tastes of the Japanese market before anything else. Mobile gaming is much bigger in Japan than it is in the US, and that's the market these companies care about. They don't cater their products to the tastes of western audiences. If western audiences like what they made and want to buy it, fine, but western audiences are NOT their primary, or even secondary, customers. Remember how Falcom had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, by Xseed into making a PC port of Trails in the Sky FC? That PC port was what finally established trails in the west, but Falcom dragged it's feet on it for years because PC ports don't do well at all in Japan.
I don't think Tri-Ace's financial position has exactly been a secret, I heard about it sometime ago. I'm going to buy SO6 when it releases, but if someone didn't want to buy SO6, I doubt reports of Tri-Ace's financial situation would be what changed their mind. Money is tight right now, no one has any extra to go around to support companies that are having money problems.
Also, I believe that Tri-Ace is the developer of SO6 and that Square Enix is the publisher, that means that Tri-Ace pays Square (or cuts them in on a percentage of profits), not the other way around. Publishing and distributing games is work, no one pays someone else to do that.
....Regarding your final paragraph that's not how it works. A publisher (Square Enix in this case) either pays a flat commission and the budget/costs of making a game at the start of a project to the developer (Tri Ace in this case) to make a game and that's all the developer gets unless the Publisher decides to pay them a bonus or the two make a contract that requires the Publisher to pay them a bonus (more likely) after the fact if it meets certain sales mile marks.
Alternately the publisher may pay the costs/budget or commission a developer to make a game using their own cash as the budget without paying a commission for a developer to make a game which would allow the developer to negotiate at getting a % of all sales from a game.
In both scenarios though either the publisher or developer can approach the other regarding a deal but regardless of who does the Publisher makes all the cash and then divides it at the end of the day depending on which of the 2 styles of contract above apply. The devs would be doing work for the Publisher either as the commissioned party or a partner party so no they're not paying the publisher anything.
A similar situation is how Bayonetta is handled with Nintendo and Platinum. Nintendo commissioned Platinum in Bayo 2 and 3 to do the work, paid them a flat fee and budget costs (from what I heard), and Platinum took the job, made the game(s), and at best received bonuses after the fact but the commission was a flat rate so they didn't receive royalties unless the contract they made allowed them to get some (probably not as much as if they just made a deal to develop the game at their own costs and allow Nintendo to sell as the publisher which would likely end with a ~60% Nintendo ~40% Platinum cut in royalties...so it's probably something closer to ~20% Platinum and ~80% Nintendo in reality due to commissioned work at most).
@@ifrit1937 My mistake, I apologize for the incorrect theory. I figured game development/publishing worked the same as licensing and distribution agreements in other industries. Guess I was mistaken. Thanks for the information!
@@SuperSupersoda Probably too many people involved in the development team to do it the way anime/books/some shows do it...it'd put the development companies under if they had to pay publishers just to allow them to make games for them lol.
In the case of say books/book authors what you mentioned is somewhat right as in some cases you may need to pay for the editorial work if you work completely as a freelance and pay some fee if you publish a book outside a classic book publisher but outside of maybe a fee to make a meeting with a large publisher about publishing your book even authors will for the most part not really pay anything to Publishers either as the entire deal more or less will be a split of all profits between said publisher (who's only job is to print the book at this point or make it available on the web and maybe edit the book if the author decides to use the Publisher's in House editors rather than a 3rd party editor (granted Publisher may still use them regardless for their own Quality and assurance purposes) and the book author more or less does all the rest of the work (writing, a run through or two to edit and add more to the story to fill in plot holes or cut out stuff if it feels too much/unnecessary to the story, and then another run through to make sure all is consistent before even giving it to an editor (after which he may get it back with recommended edits by said editor and need to go through things again and it will a be a back and forth of this between author and editor until both parties feel the work is marketable lol)).
As for what you say the only place I can really think it'll apply to is stuff like trying to get TV shows onto a specific channel, especially for the prime time spots, as TV has a set amount of slots per day or a slot for the movie theaters (granted theaters may fall into the same situation as my next sentence). Books, dvd release of movies (maybe for Comcast's ON DEMAND or a streaming service...but even then I could see them wanting to pay the movie/TV show production firm to get more products to appeal to more people to get more sales tbh), and games on the other hand doesn't have the same issue as streaming services more or less let people browse and choose what they want rather than need to adhere to some time schedule like TV channels do.
Basically 9/10 times the publisher is almost always on the customer side of these deals and need to pay the developer/writer/creator of the product for said product just to have something to sell or they're in a position where they're partners and likely won't take cash from the other side...it's only in specific situations like classic TV that I can ever think the product owner would need to outright pay the retailer to sell their own products (if that was the case it'd be more profitable for someone to just sell it themselves). Hell even in the cases of console owners like Sony, Sony doesn't really require a direct payment before the deal from what I can tell and instead it's always a % (a larger one than Sony deserves at that imo) of the profits from each copy sold of the game (likely movies too).
Thats is why divine force demo felt like Valkyria Elysium
Tri-Ace is a subsidiary of a publicly traded company. We just entered the financial 4th quarter, which means they have a responsibility to report their earnings to Square Enix, which unfortunately means that information needs to be public and transparent. I think the timing is merely unfortunate. It’s not guilt, but IF this game doesn’t perform, they won’t be a company much longer…
We've seen stuff like this before, but I can't think of a time where the company was outed BEFORE release that they are in trouble. There have been games that were received well both critically and financially, but the company itself bombed and the success couldn't save them. From what I've read tri-ace owe some people money and haven't delivered. This could just be the media spicing things up for some clicks. Perhaps tri-ace will be able to pay back creditors after Star Ocean comes out and it'll be no big deal, but it could be other other scenario. Regardless, I think the game is coming out because at this point they have to deliver or else they'll be in even more hot water.
Tri Ace is used to be good, I especially like most of their gameplay. It was visionary back in the day. Right now they kinda stuck.
That announcement is unfair. I bought every Star Ocean game, but here in Europe Divine Force will cost 70€ and that’s too steep for me at day one, I’ll get it sometime next year. I’ve also a lot of backlog now. It’s confusing and tricky, I agree.
I loved SO3 but after the playing the demo for the latest game, it just didn't click with me. The only game I would buy from them would be Resonance of Fate/Edge of Eternity.
I bought the divine force. I’ll play through it at least.
Square should buy them and dissolve them, or restructure them. Spread the employees around, shake the company up, get some new projects going, etc. Tri-Ace has been floundering but there's still talent at the studio
No SO6 isn't being funded by SE. If it was it would look better.
I heard that they need to sell at least half a million copies of SO6 just to survive. I hope they will be able to pull this off, but it's going to be an uphill battle. It's best compared to Tales of Arise, which sold 2 millions, but had much better presentation and advertisement. Compared to that, The Divine Force can offer only a cheesy music video. Still, fingers crossed, I believe in Tri-Ace.
Square Enix brings all these franchises back but don't give them the budget and help they need. Lame. The last star ocean game had barely any budget. I already preordeted the divine force. Hope they stay open.
I'm living inside a "cave" since 9 years ago so I don't know what's going on with Square Enix. Can anyone tell me what's going on woth SE? Why the vitriol, guys?
I too am confused.
Too put it simple, square doesn't care for anything that's not Final fantasy or kingdom hearts. Back in the day they make wide variety of game like (parasite eve horror action, brave fencer Musashi action, Bushido blade fighting game?) Or sometimes they funding / publishing great game like sleeping dog, deus ex, or even tomb raider. But now,( not only square) most game studio have they own confront zone.
1. Capcom : remaking RE again and again. Never touch breath of fire (JRPG), Asura wrath, or even okami.
2. Konami : Pachinko or Yu-Gi-Oh. Thanks God they remaking silent hill. Say good bye for contra, zone of ender, metal gear, etc
3. EA. It's always that blasted fifa game, we never got stuff like mirror edge again
Here's how this works: The publisher (Square) agrees to finance the development and the money is paid upfront or in installments (i.e when milestones are reached). Included in the contract is how much profit sharing is involved per copy sold. Translation: Tri-Ace already blew through the budget and are operating in the red. The only time Tri-Ace independently developed a game, eating the full brunt of dev costs, and shopped it for a publisher was for Resonance of Fate (published by Sega). Otherwise, bide their time waiting for projects to drop in their lap. They've done this time and time again, which facilitated the need for Nepro to purchase them, and they do NOT layoff staff. They keep a full dev house when they got nothing going on. I think this is the beginning of the end of Tri-Ace, and they made thier own bed to a degree, and THE biggest reason for Star Ocean not doing well is because we already know how the series ends. They gave that away in Star Ocean 3 because they probably thought Square wouldn't come calling for a 4th game let alone a 5th and 6th. They've been "filling in the gaps" ever since, and it casts such a pall over the entire series that most of the gamers who cared enough for the first 3 Star Ocean games never bothered to stick around for 4 and 5. The series is doomed without the die-hard fans, but Tri-Ace and Square wrote themselves into that corner. Weis & Hickman wrote and published all 7 "Death Gate" novels in order for a reason. Had they given us Volume 7 right after Volume 1, and then filled in the gaps in a slipshod haphazard fashion, people would gradually cease to care with each successive volume, leaving only the die-hards by the end. It boneheaded ... 😒
Knowing "The End" didn't hurt Red Dead Redemption 2, or any of the recent plethora of remakes.
@@drewtheunspoken3988 Where's Red Dead 3? Same place Valkyrie Profile 3 and Half Life 3 is. Let's not forget Legacy of Kain where Crystal Dynamics spent 3 games in that 5 game series delivering Raziel's legacy instead of Kain's despite us knowing full well how it's going to end for him: "the irritant is expelled". You can only breadcrumb people so much before they catch on and wake up, closing thier minds and wallets for good.
Technically they could continue the story after SO3...either by implying the SO 'Universe' became it's own independent thing knowing what happens in SO3's endgame...ah fuck it I'll just assume anyone reading this played SO3/all other SO games so here's your ONLY WARNING, SPOILERS AHEAD:
They can easily make it so that the Universe of Fayt and all other SO characters becomes independent of 4D space OR have it so Fayt, Sophia, and Maria's powers somehow drew their entire Universe out of the Eternal Sphere game and into the 4D space to create 2 Milky Way galaxies (assuming 4D space is also supposed to be the Milky Way Galaxy and the Eternal Sphere's galaxies are based off galaxies in 4D space of course and not some completely different galaxies) which alone could easily lead to a conflict between the denizens of who used to live in the Eternal Sphere and those that live in 4D space.
The above would've also been a better/clearer explanation than the philosophical BS that was along the lines of 'I think therefore I am' moment at the end of SO after Fayt/others awake from the 'destruction of the Universe' in the Eternal Sphere.
Hell it's not like they didn't even try to continue the series regardless of 3's ending as during promotion/release of the game the devs kept saying that SO4 was a different continuity constantly but SO fans, for whatever reason, force it as cannon no matter what (ya it's left open enough to be cannon and outside of Stephen D Kenny being a Kenny and some adephagos references on Roak there really isn't anything connecting SO4 to 3...hell technically with how limited the references are with the series from SO3 to all other games (think it's the only one without a Kenny for example) they easily could've made it so SO 1, 2, 4, 5, and maybe even 6 all occur in 4D space while SO3 is the only one to occur in the Eternal Sphere but has a history based off the 4D space's history...the only real thing implying they're all in the Eternal Sphere at besides that would be Welch appearing in all games (and in SO 1 and 2's case only in the remakes, she wasn't in the OG games) and for the most part acting the same across all games...granted they can explain them as being separate people or SO 1 and 2 Remakes are in the Eternal Sphere timeline with SO3 while SO1 and 2 SNES are not and part of a separate timeline with other games...or she has time traveling capabilities or the ability to travel across space/dimensions (or even both) or is some sort of goddess or being that can do so and all forms of her aren't her real appearance (hell for shits and giggles they could reveal her as the series final boss and turn her into some horrific tentacle monster lol)).
@@TogonzoMedia If the game is good people will usually support it. I don't think the story of Star Ocean 3 killed interest. I think the fact that 4 was just okay and 5 being mediocre is what damaged sales. Star Ocean 6 doesn't have to be amazing but if it's a solid gaming experience it should do well.
How don’t you understand it was leaked they did not give the info. After looking a lot of info up also they put every last penny into divine force. The end of the game they made with 0 money . They said there was months people worked wit very low pay just because they love star ocean. It has me worried they may pull a xeno gears at the end cause they ran out of money but this is it for them Star ocean has to be a success or they are dead.
This sucks, no Xenogears remake sucks even worse.
It wasn't a guilt trip, it was a financial report. Companies put them out every year, multiple times per year.
All the claims that they are in trouble were not made by Tri Ace, it was analysis by people reading the reports.
After terrible star ocean 5 I can see whey they struggle.
Even thou i love jrpgs i dont remember a tri ace game i have played, so its not a company i am particularly fond of. i almost played the previous star ocean but since reception were bad i ended up not playing. i hope divine force comes out good and i intend to play it. i dont want tri ace to go down, i want them to be good finacialy by doing good games.
I'd say that's the exact reason for the announcement opinion wise. They know all the collectors will go, "This might be the last one better grab it."
the last star ocean i buy and play was star ocean till the end of time....and i love it....
Unfortunately I'm not surprised not only are they a super small company but they only make one niche game every few years.
Studios like Mistwalker and tri-Ace BARELY market their console games and BARELY any gaming sites and UA-camrs talk about them, hence why they flop to a point they're jumping ship towards a much more profitable market for them aka mobile gaming.
The only issue with mobile gaming, most of the time, is the short lifespan IF they make no money out of them despite bombarding UA-cam and gaming sites with ads to promote them.
Like you said, not everyone wants to play on mobile and rather play on consoles or PC, but it's not OUR decision to have X game on Y platform, it's THEIR decision to make the most profit out of them.
If mobile is more profitable than consoles for THEM, then tough luck for players.
The biggest issue with console games, especially with most RPGs, is the release timing with the most highly anticipated titles out there; release it sandwiched between 2 big games and you risk being a flop; release it in close proximity from one another and the game with the most hype will succeed while the other will fail.
Word of mouth for the most underrated RPGs is what eventually will make gamers buy them, but again it might be too late to make a profit with them as they might end up in bargain bins where developers/publishers make next to no money out of them anymore.
There's also the issue with genre oversaturation that could cause some fatigue for gamers to even dare buy anything, RPGs included, cause there are metric fuckton of them released all year long with several games of the same genre/month.
The industry need to go with the ''less is more'' mantra in order to give gamers some time to breathe in between each release.
That's my own opinion cause I see all of the above every week for years and I even fell victim to gaming burnout at some point.
After so 4. SEnix seems like ignoring S.o as franchise from s.o. 5 under budget and stuffs. And 6 divine force animation of the lips and eyes seems to suffer the budget problem too.
They didn't ignore Star Ocean as the original plan was to end it after The Last Hope.
Square-Enix then look at what they could do with the series if they wanted to continue it without one of its leading producers: the result was Star Ocean 5, a game that got blasted by pretty much everyone except its few defenders.
Then came the mobile game, which didn't survive that long both in Japan and worldwide despite the unique concept it has because ''WAH WAH, IT'S A MOBILE GAME! I HATE MOBILE GAMES! WAH WAH!''
Then there's the remasters of SO1, SO3 and SO4, which didn't do so well each sales wise.
Which leaves us to SO 6, which I hope it doesn't suck from what they showed us so far.
The series as a whole wasn't as profitable enough to warrant high budgets for recent entries, which is why they look low budget with some jank here and there.
If that were the case, then Square-Enix would have gone ALL OUT with everything from better animation to crisper graphics to lip sync that matches the voice actors' line delivery for each supported language like they did with the FF13 trilogy and beyond.
Pretty much why if Tri- Ace wants to survive they gotta look for work outside of SE's umbrella (at least 2 other jobs funded by other larger companies like Nintendo, Namco, Capcom, Sega, NIS, etc) even if it's just smaller, barely larger than Indie sized jobs (think of I am Setsuna, Lost Sphear, Oninaki, etc from SE). Ya they don't make too much money most likely but they also shouldn't cost too much either thus they will bring in a profit which is all that matters in the end tbh if a company wants to survive.
@@martinde-serres8724 then its pretty tough, it looked like it does not suck but its not like gonna be great either. i assume its gonna be around tales of arise level of story which is like 7/10. while personally for me star ocean stopped at 2.
as for budgeting using subaru kimura as JP VA is pretty hefty idk they invest quite a lot on the VA instead of the actual game which is weird.
I do not mind if they go like SO2 and SO 1 vibes where the protagonist did not talk much but the story is way more convoluted and even downgrading the graphics to something like diofield.
or idk let sega acquire the IP. so far every RGG studios game has pretty high score average to me compared to recent FInal Fantasies or any recent square enix game. i believe with sega like story telling it could turn the star ocean back into its PS1/nintendo era.
Tri Ace has running financial issues, not raising money for projects directly. And I think the news of them having financial issues is meant to be private and for deters not for public news.
a shame, somebody should buy this studio, has interesting ideas
They have so many IPs, why not sub sourcing their games port to mobile, or do remakes.
I hate to say this but something like this might seem unusual but unfortunately, it is not. We have seen some pretty good developers go up in smoke with a brand new release. It's highly likely that Tri-Ace knows that no matter how much they make on Star Ocean it won't be enough.
The sad thing is at the end of the day making games is a business and a business only job is to make money. I prefer 100hr RPGs but those take so much money to make and so much time and it's a huge risk if it doesn't sell well. Back in the day of PS1 only a few big games came out a year but now thousands of games come out and it makes it harder for companies to get your money
Some companies survived when they make gacha games but with good marketing. A lot of gamers feel cheated with gacha games and ruins some reputation but it is how business worked... People might hate Konami but then they survived the business so they can start to release remasters from their old games...
Tri Ace is not lucky enough to partnered with Square Enix. Monolithsoft got saved by Nintendo (Xeno series). Both Xeno and Pokemon games are not unique in term of gameplay but their marketing were good.
So to be clear, again, this is a news story. Company about to release big game... meanwhile also about to go bankrupt. This will be of interest to gamers who care about the games and just the video game business in general. As for square enix, this isn't how it works. Square pays them upfront for development, they get a set amount, they don't get paid again on release etc. They will get some money from the sales of the game, but they just get a cut, not the whole thing.
Even if there was a "bonus" system that can have catch 22's. Just ask Obsidian who lost millions of dollars in "bonuses" for Fallout New Vegas because they only got a 79 on metacritic and their bonuses from Bethesda were contingent on getting an 80+.
I feel bad they always broke. But I will buy their game. I enjoy Star Ocean💖💕
I love them so much but let us face it they only made 4 good games
Star ocean 2&3 and Valkyrie profile 1&2 and maybe Star ocean 6
Radiata Stories
I really liked Resonance Of Fate. It was more ambitious than most titles, and had a very unique combat system.
Star Ocean 2 was their best game in my opinion. I wish they would release a nice , polished version for modern system
Hopefully this near-bankruptcy isn't a sign that Star Ocean ends up falling apart near the end or is buggy as hell because they rushed it out.
They guilted me, I'll be honest. Preorder is in
Okay FANTASIAN (Mist Walker) isn’t a gotcha game or free to play at all. It’s an Apple Arcade game, so it is a paid product in a way, apples games pass or whatever. They’re who funded the game. There is a big distinction between a game like FANTASIAN or the gotcha breath of fire, Star ocean, fire emblem, SMT, FF, etx
I heard about this last month on Reddit and the things people have to say about this is not pretty. Frankly, it's Tri-Ace's own fault for their lack of activity in the past decade and a half. Star Ocean: SS was amazing & well, but there were other amazing RPGs at the time that sold even better. SO3 sold slightly better but scored slightly worth than 2 and it was all downhill from there. TLH was a middling entry that sold okay but put the series on hiatus. Lastly, I&F was an embarrassing joke that sold pathetically, so much so that you can't find accurate sales numbers online. Now we're here where everybody's vocal about their concerns about Tri-Ace. It's a really sad story.
Here what i suspect regarding financial announcement from Tri-ace.
Sale of upcoming star ocean will heavily affected because of few triple a game release near the Star Ocean release date.
Call of duty MW2, God Of War Ragnarok, A plague Tales Requiem.
Fan might buy newest the star ocean, but not on day of release day.
Bro Bayonetta is coming out just one day after Star Ocean's release lol
They could not have chosen a worse release date for this game and it also being the next one after the disaster that was star ocean 5 this is going to be a uphill battle for them.
All your mentioned are game from different genre. Doom come out at the same time with animal crossing and both of them sold really well since both of them complete different genre. However releasing horizon zero dawn a.k.a open world action game close to Zelda BotW and elden ring is just dumb
Atlus said the same thing years ago around the time they released Persona 4. They were supposedly on the cusp of bankruptcy and everyone was scratching their heads like "what? Persona series makes millions, how are you broke?" Tri Ace problem is that being as niche as they are, their releases aren't constant. People have been begging for a VP2 remastered for a decade now. Go back to the IP's that are successful
Yeap and look at where Atlus is now, a part of Sega. Hopefully Tri-Ace could find their footing. Four of these companies could buy them out: Nintendo, Sega, Capcom, or maybe Namco. If Nintendo buy them then they could help Camelot in making the Golden Sun series or help Mistwalker handle the Last Story, if they end up with Sega they could help improve the Phantasy Star series (a series with Sci-Fi space theme similar to Star Ocean), if they end up with Capcom they could help improve the Breath of Fire series, if they end up with Namco hopefully they could revive the Xenosaga series or make a spiritual successor to that series.
Large publishers usually screw over the companies that actually make the game. Think of it like how record companies screw over bands. If the band is really huge they can negotiate better deals but tri ace is definitely not big enough to do that
Under the circumstances it's not at all unusual that they'd be hard up for cash just before a game got released
Its kinda their fault too, because they almost never had interest in releasing their games on another console platforms, now they are paying the price.
@@pedropelegrinialves9365 PlayStation has been the place to release RPGs pretty much forever. The switch is a recent contender but I don't think they can get their games running on the switch. The switch is massively underpowered and that's going to make it very difficult to program for. They're not a big enough studio to afford the kind of programmers they can get a game running on the switch
That just leaves the Xbox and the Xbox is dead weight in Japan. Microsoft insists on having a presence there but the sales are in the tens per a week
And they're porting to PC now
What's the difference between Tri-Ace & Tri-Crescendo?
Tri ace is no longer owned by square they were acquired by NJ holdings, which is a mobile game company. Triace made a mobile game that was shut down so they lost money.
This is why I tell people if you are a Star Ocean fan, you need to buy the games. Many of our beloved franchises are always a step or two away from death. A company does not even need to go bankrupt either for a franchise to get the axe.
In regards to Tri-Ace, they make a particular kind of game. They are not heavily polished titles, but neither are they amateurish. Their games are somewhere in the middle. That said, no one makes an RPG like Tri-Ace. I cannot explain it. I feel like fellow fans will understand what I mean.
I have preordered The Divine Force on both PS5 and Xbox. Now, while I can admit that it is not our responsibility to keep these companies afloat financially, I cannot stress enough that if you love Star Ocean, you should buy Divine Force, because you never know when a series you love will cease to exist.
Na minha opinião eu acho que a Tri Ace escolheu um caminho, nesse caso, mobile, mas não deu muito certo para eles.
Eu joguei tanto o Valkyrie Profile quanto o star ocean mobile, cara, tristeza nmrl
@@sunseeker1888 quem sabe a Microsoft não se interessa em adquirir a Tri Ace?
bad market decisions i assume. I really hope that wont happen i have all Tri-ace Valkyrie profile games a few star ocean games i even have Resonance of Fates a underated gem. They need to mainly focus on console games more than Mobile
Companies like Square Enix and Sony make it extremely difficult for an independent developer to compete in the console gaming market. Those two companies have a fucking stranglehold on the JRPG market . Sony in particular is infamous for being the biggest asshole in the gaming industry. There’s a well documented history of S.I.E. bribing third party developers to keep their games from going to Xbox,PC, and Nintendo consoles. In fact Sony has kept hundreds of games from going to Xbox GamePass, that’s why it’s hilarious that Sony is throwing such a bitch fit over the Microsoft-Activision buyout.
They not "bribing", it's called funding. Making games is not cheap.
That star ocean for the ps2 was pretty good
There goes my hopes of seeing a port for Radiata Stories. Unless that's owned by Square Enix and they'll have someone else "fix" it up
At this point they should just become part of SE to be honest.
It's been forever since Tri-Ace made a new game since Exist Archive and the last Star Ocean coming out 7 years ago. Passing on making a new Valkyrie Profile game was a lost opportunity and even though Elysium is decent they KNEW what we really wanted and just let Square-Enix do whatever with it. The excuse of working on Star Ocean during Valkyrie's production is a crock because Valkyrie really belongs to THEM and not Square-Enix.
tri ace WANTED to make VP3. SE refused.
@@Dante_Sparda796 You are correct. Instead they got the budget for Covenant and that didn't sell enough. Infinite Undiscovery didn't do well either and for that I say because it was on Xbox and we both know that Xbox players are mostly shooter/adventure gamers with a small but decent rpg fanbase but not as large as PlayStation players. Resonance of Fate fell way under the radar as it was released alongside FFXIII and you will find there are a lot of people who don't even know about ROF even with it's re-release. Then Star Ocean 4 which for some reason people didn't like, failed as well. The next Tri-Ace game was Exist Archive and that had little announcement/promotion and fell under the radar. Now with SO6 we'll see if it will snap Tri-Ace out from under it's slumber or we will never see a TRUE Valkyrie Profile game ever again.
I want to support it but it comes out around so many other games I want to play I might not pick it up until the end of november
TBH I only liked VP1 and 2. I've bought their games but do not understand their creative output. They always seem to insert some confusing system into their games for the sake of it.
I want to support SO6, not only cause I want to support Tri-Ace, but I want SE to know, that there are still people who love anime style JRPGs, instead of turning everything into super realistic + grim dark. If you don't realize it yet, SO6 is one of the VERY few games from SE that is still using anime style designs.
Square ruins everything.
This was a good informative video to be honest I love playing my videos games on a system or a handheld because it’s just better for me, I loved hearing the games mentioned for an example after watching a review for Exist Archive unfortunately I don’t have a PS4 but I do have a PS Vita so I was able to play the game, and one part about that is I can play it on the go! and that is a plus for me. I am a huge fan of Valkyrie profile and especially star ocean, I currently have and play Till the end of time and the last hope, I actually pre-order star ocean driving force for my Xbox One so the game is coming in the mail this Thursday the 27th so I hope the game is good?! I did enjoy playing the others games.
given the tri ace games are still somewhat niche and star ocean faithless thingy was a total dumpster fire.. and how the last VP installments were also bad..
it is likely they are kinda broke
i would hate to see them go away though
as i usually like most of the games they did in the past..
Yeah man I agree with you. I don't even consider mobile games as a legitimate platform so if they release these games on mobile I'm just not playing them.
Square Enix is quite dumb sometimes, like shadow dropping NEO the world ends with you on PC the same week as persona 5 and on sale, and then complains why the hell the game did not sold enough
Maybe if you actually bought games at full price instead of gloating about not paying full price tri ace would be better off.
For real
The last Star Ocean was TERRIBLE.
Basically: you can't jump so we'll force you to re-route in an attempt to unnecessarily pad this poor facsimile of a once, truly great franchise.
Bankrupted themselves making a game with (supposedly) over 3x the budget of their previously most expensive game? Huh, I wonder how that happened 🤷
alphadream went under, you would think nintendo would help them stay afloat with the mario and luigi series but nope
Xbox are supposedly looking to acquire more Japanese studios, i'd be intrigued to see, if Xbox were interested. Unfortunately jrpgs are pretty niche as opposed to CODs,Fifa's etc. So their games aren't going to have mass market appeal.
They are interested (and I'm sure a lot of Xbox owners are also interested) the thing is they do that little by little so they don' t do mistakes.
I bought the game already I even got the deluxe but this is def weird 😐 I hope the game is actually good and this inst a sign that it's gonna be shit with a bunch of cut corners like integrity and faithlessness
Exactly if this 6th Star Ocean game does NOT sell well it could bankrupt Tri Ace so that another game won't be made.
Maybe they should have put more effort into the stories of the recent Star Ocean games instead of just slapping in anime trope characters and annoying voices and calling it a day. I have a lot of fond memories about their early games, shame seeing the direction they're going.