Square Enix to Reform Development to Improve Game Quality - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 02 March 2024 / 3,037 Views
Square Enix is undergoing a review of its video game development structure wit the goal to improve the quality of its games, according to Square Enix representative director and president Takashi Kiryu who spoke during the company's earnings call this week and reported by Bloomberg.
"We are reviewing from scratch what the organizational structure is, and what the best way is to implement the contents of the pipeline," said Kiryu via a translation by VideoGamesChronicle.
Kiryu wants Square Enix to reduce the amount of outsourcing to external studios and wants to focus on in-house development for its higher profile games. The goal is to increase quality and profit margins.
More details on the new structure will be details in the Spring.
Several securities analysts, who attended the call, stated the new structure is planned to go in effect in April. This includes a new system of checks to judge the quality of games at earlier stages of development.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Reducing the amount of outsourcing of game development and focusing on in-house development is the change Capcom made, and it worked out in spades! It will take at least several years to really see the fruits of these changes though.
Please less ff16 Nd more ff7 remake or the olden style ff games
Can I have the next mainline FF be an actual RPG again. ARPG or Turn based. Either way just an actual RPG. I like 16 but it's loaded with issues. Keep doing stuff like SoP. Octopath. BDII and the remake of DQ. LIVEALIVE, Super Mario RPG and projects like that. Let's finish disc 2 of Xenogears with a remake that looks similar to Star Ocean 2R!
typically it pays off to let it cook.... high quality games, are usually the run away success stories.
As long as its managed properly, and they know how to go about makeing sure quality is higher, this is a win.
Start by doing some actual game design instead of wasting 100 million dollars on pretty graphics and androgynous men.
For now, I'm hopeful of what this restructuring infers for their bigger production, but I also hope this does not handicap the means with which they produce a lot of excellent more modestly budgeted games like Octopath Traveler, Mana series, SaGa, Bravely Default, HD-2D games, etc ...
For now, with the announcement of Visions of Mana, things are looking peachy but hopefully, we are to get new announcements for non-FF/Dragon Quest stuff
Thinking on this as at first it kinda made me think about what they actually meant. Regardless of certain games success, generally most of their games were good quality, some even superb games in their own right (even if they didn't appeal to me). Yet, looking back when comparing their western devs to eastern, comparing their output to say another Japanese publisher/developer like Capcom, you can see the issue.
Yet, otherwise, I thought they were doing okay. Game wise just weren't creating the hype they needed for their games. 2022 saw the release of Diofield, Valkyrie and Star Ocean, all middle budget games, all okay but nothing special. all 6-7/10s, all released within month of each other, competing with themselves.
Of course, not sure what that can do. Return to their Square roots prehaps. When their content was king?
This sounds like we might be on the crusp of a new ff golden age
16 is a great game
Just not a final fantasy game
Same as resident evil 6 being a great game but not a re game
FF hasn't been FF for me since prehaps X-2. I love FF12, it's one of my favourite games ever but always knew it didn't have the same feel as older entries. Having replayed many of them over the last few years, there to me is a staggering difference between the immersiveness of the stories, general worlds and gameplay of 6-9 compared to 13 and 15 and yes, even FF7R to me. Good games, but not good FF games.
Can't comment on 16. Demo didn't impress me enough.
I disagree. I thought re5 was a great game, but 6 wasn't near as good.
He's a tip. Totally ignore all those overly positive "reviewers". They are PR merchants.
Most importantly, and this really applies to almost all developers - dramatically improve your bad dialog, dramatically increase work in your enemy AI because it's 3rd rate, remove all filler and fetch quest nonsense, keep the action combat in your FF games because it's far more satisfying and has much greater widespread appeal, don't appeal the to masses on other areas of your game because that badly dilutes the quality and experience, release on all platforms possible at the same time and that will help "core" gaming audience that is your faithful base.
Oh and I don't even like FF. Want to know why ? read the above. It has potential though.
