Square Enix increasing its inhouse development team

[Pixel]

It seems SE are hiring to increase its inhouse team for the remake

http://www.jp.square-enix.com/recruit/career/group/1bd/

Translation from Siliconera

Kitase
Business Division 1 is the section that is responsible for producing Mobius Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy VII Remake. In 1997 we completely changed the gaming scene at the time with the worldwide hit that is Final Fantasy VII. And the remake of said masterpiece is Final Fantasy VII Remake.

For this project, we aim to surpass the original work in terms of quality by increasing the number of staff to strengthen the core company development as we head into the development progress phase.

In addition to myself, we have director Nomura, scenario writer Nojima-san, and more from the original Final Fantasy VII staff lineup that continued working as staff on the production of past Final Fantasy titles, and they are now joining the team one after the other.

How would you like to join us, together, in the Remake of Final fantasy VII?

We are looking forward to receiving your applications.


Nomura
I believe that many of us developers share the same feeling that Final Fantasy VII is a special title.

Twenty years have gone by and the number of generations that aren’t familiar with Final Fantasy VII is increasing, so we must remake the game using today’s technology and systems in order to make it into a title that can last several more decades.

Reproducing the world of Final Fantasy VII in high-definition requires an extraordinary amount of time and resources, so we’ll need all the help we can get to shorten that.

As those of you concerned with the industry may already know, the number of domestic staff is significantly lower compared to that of foreign high-definition developers. Therefore, in order to further strengthen the development of this title, we must urgently recruit as much staff as possible.

By all means, please join us in delivering the world of Final Fantasy VII, once again.


Hamaguchi
With the strong backing from producer Kitase and director Nomura’s thoughts of wanting to make Final Fantasy VII Remake into the best possible product for the fans, it’s been decided that I would step into the role of development leader in order to strengthen staff structure.

From the pursuit of a new Final Fantasy game experience that can only be made through this remake, to the graphical challenges that come from the possibilities of evolving technologies—yes, we have everything that a creator needs to create in this here environment.

I promise you that now is the best time for creators to display experience and abilities, for this title with high expectations from around the world.

The emotions I felt from playing Final Fantasy VII twenty years ago, that’s what I want to revive, as new emotions for the present generation.

I’m very much looking forward to receiving applications from those of you who feel the same way.

 

[Tetsujin]

Worth a front page article if we can get a translation/summary or something imo

 

[Pixel]

Yeah, we need a proper translation.

 

[Claymore]

The fact that it's taken them this long to realise this has me a little concerned I have to say.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Don't worry. The lessons they're learning now will make it all worthwhile when they have to scrap everything they've built so far and start over on the PS6 with Hajime Tabata's child at the helm.

 

[Lulcielid]

Siliconera.Com provided translations.

 

[Flintlock]

Are we waiting on a translation of our own before FPing this? I don't see why we can't report on Siliconera's translation.

 

[Lex]

Yeah I'd be happy to roll with a summary and link to Siliconera

 

[Tetsujin]

Currently writing a summary.

 

[Cthulhu]

The fact that it's taken them this long to realise this has me a little concerned I have to say.

It's really not uncommon for a game to spend several years in pre-production before they open the floodgates and hire an army of modelers and such. The footage we've seen so far has probably been a tech demo (and pretty much all they had done so far), also to gauge interest with the community - which was pretty overwhelming I'd argue but I may be biased due to the people I hang out with online .

What are the positions anyway?

 

[Lulcielid]

I wouldn't worry too much about this, (for me) this just seens a normal scenario where the practice was far more complicated than what the theory was anticipating (i.e: during pre-production they though xxx devs would be enough to carry out the project but xx months later it was made clear that they would actually need xxx+yyy devs to carry out the project smoothly).

 

[Ryuman]

What are the positions anyway?

I heard the positions included Battle Planners and Background Designers, but I can't confirm. Not sure I would really consider it that unusual though. They more than likely have those positions filled already, and are just bolstering their staff to give the project more steam.

Given the potential scope of the product, multiple parts and all, it makes sense to me that they'd increase staff like this, however I'm no expert.

 

[ChipNoir]

In my mind, this is what they should have done when XIV looked like it was going to be a disaster, rather than shoving EVERYTHING into the background while they focused on Realm Reborn.

How different the decade would have looked in terms of FF. Maybe even a finished XV from day one.

 

[ForceStealer]

I mean...they may well have even planned out when they were going to need to hire someone and that's now. It doesn't necessarily mean that they suddenly don't have enough people. It's not like it would be hard to find people in Japan who would want to work on an FF7 remake.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

In my mind, this is what they should have done when XIV looked like it was going to be a disaster, rather than shoving EVERYTHING into the background while they focused on Realm Reborn.

How different the decade would have looked in terms of FF. Maybe even a finished XV from day one.

They couldn't let XIV be a failure, though, or a project like this would have never been possible. Investors into XIV's development wouldn't accept their money going to something else had XIV been written off as something that couldn't be salvaged.

Besides, they turned that game around in a really cool way, made it into something beloved by so many, and avoided a blemish on the franchise's history. What's not to like?

 

[ChipNoir]

In my mind, this is what they should have done when XIV looked like it was going to be a disaster, rather than shoving EVERYTHING into the background while they focused on Realm Reborn.

How different the decade would have looked in terms of FF. Maybe even a finished XV from day one.

They couldn't let XIV be a failure, though, or a project like this would have never been possible. Investors into XIV's development wouldn't accept their money going to something else had XIV been written off as something that couldn't be salvaged.

Besides, they turned that game around in a really cool way, made it into something beloved by so many, and avoided a blemish on the franchise's history. What's not to like?

What I meant was that I wish they had made a mass-hiring move like this, rather than cannibalize all the other projects. Versus could have tracked a lot faster, and all the KH remasters and X remaster could have been finished sooner as well if they had allowed the crews that made them to continue working on a normal pace.

 

[Lex]

Thanks for putting that up Tets <3

 

[Lulcielid]

What I meant was that I wish they had made a mass-hiring move like this, rather than cannibalize all the other projects. Versus could have tracked a lot faster, and all the KH remasters and X remaster could have been finished sooner as well if they had allowed the crews that made them to continue working on a normal pace.

But who would have wanted to be hired to work on a "failure" of game that was XIV 1.0 other than Square-Enix in-house devs?

 

[ChipNoir]

What I meant was that I wish they had made a mass-hiring move like this, rather than cannibalize all the other projects. Versus could have tracked a lot faster, and all the KH remasters and X remaster could have been finished sooner as well if they had allowed the crews that made them to continue working on a normal pace.

But who would have wanted to be hired to work on a "failure" of game that was XIV 1.0 other than Square-Enix in-house devs?

Just being a Square employee alone is probably a goal for a lot of game designers in Japan.

 

[Cthulhu]

There's not that many game designers out there though, that's only a small (albeit important) part of the process. Most work in modeling / texturing, the visual work; scripting, etc. Programming seems - according to the credits of a lot of games - to not take that many people in total, which was a bit surprising. But then, most of the work is scripting and modeling.

 

[Fangu]

What Yop said. Standard development procedure is arguing over graphix, user experience, content, marketing plans, products, colors and font sizes and shit for 7 months. And then expect the programming to be done i 6 weeks

I love being a programmer

 

[ChipNoir]

I've seen one or two people claiming the full article has a note somewhere that its like, 8 positions they want to fill. So the word "Urgent" is more of a "We really want you guys, so hurry up and join before the position is filled."

Can anyone verify?

 

[Shademp]

I've seen one or two people claiming the full article has a note somewhere that its like, 8 positions they want to fill. So the word "Urgent" is more of a "We really want you guys, so hurry up and join before the position is filled."

Can anyone verify?

The bottom of the page has 7 links, each one apparently referring to the respective position they wish to fill in.

[Google Translate]

Wanted jobs

Planner
- FFVII REMAKE / Battle Planner
- FFVII REMAKE / Level Planner​

Designer
- FFVII REMAKE / BG Designer
- FFVII REMAKE / VFX Designer
- FFVII REMAKE / Motion Designer
- Mobius FF / 3DCG Designer (character)

Programmer
- FFVII REMAKE / Programmer​

Each article about the position they wish to fill in are what you would expect: Details on what the job will entail, tools involved, work conditions, employment type, skills they desire applicants to have etc.

 

[hian]

This by all accounts probably just means that the production work over at CC2 is nearing completion and that it's time for SE internal team to take over the reigns, and start working over all the contracted material.

I See some people fretting, thinking this game hasn't been in proper development up until now - just no. Again, assets and systems have been in the pipeline for quite some time now.
However anyone thinking SE were going to let CC2 do all the work, satisfied only being in a concept and directorial role are kidding themselves. Obviously, everything will be slapped together and run through on the SE operating table.
If anything I consider this good news. It means that 1.) SE is allocating a lot of resources to the project, which is a good thing since lack of resource allocation has been a primary issue in early stages of the other major Nomura productions such as KH3 and Versus XIII, and 2.) that the heavy lifting on CC2's end has probably born fruit.

Some people will undoubtedly read this news in light of the recent fiscal year report, but notice how that report and indeed all of SE's press statements have avoided specifics pertaining to the fact that the game will be released in parts.
SE are not saying Part 1 is slated for 2018, or for the next three years. They're saying the remake period.
This can be taken to mean anything or nothing, but I think people should really reserve judgement til E3.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Along similar lines, do you think CC2's work is nearing completion on just Part 1 or more than that?