Jibber Jabber

Before we begin, your homework for today is to read Jeremy Parish's account on why the seminal Atari 2600 failed miserably in Japan. A lot of evidence near the end is sort of anecdotal, but it's no less compelling to read because, really, after the hard numbers, a lot of what he says is as good an excuse as any.

Now, here's an image that should look familiar. That's part of the problem, but we'll get back to that:

Yesterday morning, I received a PS3 message from one Square Enix telling me how lucky I am that I can download and play the newest beta for Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. Mildly interested, I clicked on the attachment which led to a PlayStation Store page that auto-filled a code to download the application to launch the game. After an alarmingly short download (because I had forgotten that the first thing you grab for an MMO is the client launching software, not the "game" itself). It was the usual stuff after opening: make a new Square-Enix ID (because my old one wasn't good enough or something), read some terms of service, agree that I live in the United States. So far so good. At this point, I had to enter a beta key code for the game to begin downloading the actual client. A little confused because I was under the impression that Square had kind of already done that for me with the email, I attempted to reread the message that I had originally received to see if there was another code inside. No dice, though, because the download application I was forced to use blocked the PS3's XMB, so I couldn't read any email. So there I sat, exhaling in frustration, staring at something I had to close just so I could go back and read something else just so I could start it all over again. I shrug my shoulders. In true Square-Enix fashion, things are finally unnecessarily difficult.

While I concede that it was my own fault for not reading the entirety of PS3 message, let's just say that this wasn't my only problem. For the sake of brevity, I'll just briefly list them:

1. I had to recreate yet another SE account and password
2. The One-Time password stymied anything I wanted to do, mostly because I wasn't sure what it was and was even less convinced SE did either judging by the instructions on their site
3. The roughly 5G download of the client was proceeding last night at an alarming slow rate; think .47 MB/s at its peak
4. I don't have the time or patience for that shit, so I typically set it up before I go to bed to let stuff that size download. Not this time, because the client download wouldn't auto-shut off the system after it was finished and installed
5. Early this morning I decided to try it again, and it downloaded at a much more manageable 1.49 MB/s speed, which only took roughly an hour to complete.
6. But that didn't matter, because I was given an error and couldn't log in to play. Why?
7. Because all of the servers have been down for maintanance since early yesterday evening

People, from what I understand, have been playing this beta since before the weekend started, and I was a little confused why I was just getting a code for it now a few days after this phase its testing had already begun, but I don't really care that much about that. What I care about is a company that's had its head in its ass for years now, and my experiences over the last 24 hours are simply indicative of Square-Enix as a developer and publisher.

Really, I thought I'd hit my breaking point with all of the fallout of Final Fantasy XIII -- a mess of a game that was a product of a development cycle that resulted in twice the amount of work necessary that ultimately, by many accounts, was just pasted together with spit and bubble gum just to get it out of the door. The good of the game was far outweighed by the bad, and judging by what we can surmise of the company and their absurd sales expectations over the years, we can safely say the same thing of the hands that built it. So full of hubris, they announced in 2006 that FFXIII would be the nucleus around which spinoff games would come: VersusXIII for the PS3, a PSP/ Mobile game called Agito XIII, and a DS release that never materialized outside of conference jibber jabber. Only one of these had actually appeared in real life, Agito, and under a changed name to separate it from the now reviled XIII universe. Oh, and only in Japan. Sequels to XIII have and will be released in the near future, XIII-2, being a mediocre game intended to "solve" some of the problems of its predecessor. Clearly, these are people that put the cart in front of the horse.

People, this cycle of idiocy is just about to begin anew. While I'll give them credit for having their best E3 showing in maybe a decade, everything said about what they presented has been par for the Nomura-caddied course. Yes, its swell that there's going to be a new Kingdom Hearts game, but for all intents and purposes, the company needed to put a bullet in that franchise years ago. The original plan of mashing up the combined Final Fantasy franchises with various Disney properties is long since dead creatively, and the obvious use of idiotic and barely playable portable spinoffs over the years (which many rightly speculate were used to fund a KHIII to begin with) has diluted its fan base. Plus, from what we already know of development --which isn't much, of course-- the game won't arrive for another few years. And by "few," I really mean "several." Don't get your hopes up that this game will be released any time soon and will clean up the dump truck of a mess that previous KHs have made.

Final Fantasy XV, though, is beginning to give the impression that it will once again set itself up for failure. Given that it's the renamed VersusXIII, one would assume that after a nearly 10 year production cycle that was birthed from the prospect of another game doing well that the company has learned from its mistakes. Total baloney. Divisive character/systems designer Tetsuya Nomura has already stated that XV is planned to have multiple releases surrounding it, so they're right back to thinking that not only will this game sell like gangbusters, but that people will like it well enough to shell out for other games in its capsule-franchise. That's awfully familiar. On top of that, there's still no guarantee that we're going to see it in the immediate future. In an interview with Nomura conducted by Famitsu (via Polygon) this very morning includes a few choice nuggets: First, he states that about two years after the original announcement of VersusXIII that it was suggested that they move the game to an official core entry into the franchise and divorce it from its attached predecessor. This should surprise no one since we only saw very brief, random showings of the game at conferences, but not since this decision was made (in 200-fucking-8). If the game hadn't become vaporware at the point, the only logical conclusion is that it became FFXV. The other thing to mention in the interview is a real doozy, though. Observe:

Nomura and his team also found themselves hitting a wall graphically with the PS3 and 360. "With current-gen systems, we couldn't fully express what we wanted to do in this project," he said. "There were more and more things that we would've had to change the form of. However, the assumption was that we'd go ahead with a current-gen release, so went through a trial-and-error process to do as much as we could. So we built an alpha version about a year ago, and the company response was 'If you remained bound to the current generation, will it will be the product you envisioned?' They suggested shifting fully to next-gen, and that was the spark that led to the move."

An alpha build of the game was made only a year ago. For a game announced in 2006. If this isn't a sign that this company's not flailing around shitting money into a sewer I'm not sure what is.

I'm really too old to be angry about this stuff. After observing the last console cycle and how the games-making business has shifted so wildly, I really can't be. Still Square-Enix, a once and future juggernaut of development and publishing has turned into a fascinating case study for arrogance, poor leadership, and listless development. I really hope to god I'm proven wrong and that Final Fantasy XV can be favorably compared to sliced bread. History, though, seems against it.