Tabata resigns from Square Enix

Lex

Administrator
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As discussed in the XV thread, the upcoming 2019 DLC's for FFXV have also been cancelled. Episode Ardyn and the Comrades standalone will still release next month, marking the end of FFXV content (this may be a blessing in disguise).

Tabata leaving for reasons not wholly known is monumental. He was working on a project (that some assumed was Type-next) and SE announced a colossal profit loss not too long ago, which is most likely related to his project being canned.
 

X-SOLDIER

Harbinger O Great Justice
AKA
X

Claymore

3x3 Eyes
What a mess. Eurogamer are adding further details to the drama, citing that:

Eurogamer understands that Tabata was presented with the option to have Luminous Productions turn into one of Square Enix's regular business divisions, a course it now seems set on, or spin it off as his own company with Square Enix investment, though he chose to leave altogether. The departure was confirmed internally towards the end of this summer.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...ts-square-enix-final-fantasy-15-dlc-cancelled
 

Tetsujin

he/they
AKA
Tets
Why would you make this a livestream and not just a press release? Pretty sure if you announce a live thing people get excited and expect something more along the lines of "let's announce/talk about upcoming shit, yo!", not "everything's cancelled, go home."

Honestly man, this company sometimes.
 

The Twilight Mexican

Ex-SeeD-ingly good
AKA
TresDias
Why would you make this a livestream and not just a press release? Pretty sure if you announce a live thing people get excited and expect something more along the lines of "let's announce/talk about upcoming shit, yo!", not "everything's cancelled, go home."

Honestly man, this company sometimes.
I was fully expecting to hear about some cancellations -- just not of major DLCs. I was thinking the "Comrades" stuff was all canceled since we're way past when some of it was due to be out.

It seems that some of that stuff still might be canceled (they didn't mention the previously announced raid bosses or multi-boss battle challenges at all), but it definitely seems to have come out better than the "alternate grand finale" DLCs that were planned.

It also stood out to me that the level editor for the Windows Edition went conspicuously without mention.

I'm stoked about "Episode Ardyn," though. So glad that is still coming.

Episode Ardyn and the Comrades standalone will still release next month, marking the end of FFXV content (this may be a blessing in disguise).

Only the "Comrades" update is next month. The target release for Ardyn's DLC is March.
 

X-SOLDIER

Harbinger O Great Justice
AKA
X
The way that they covered it all in the live stream made sense, though. They opened letting everyone know that there were project changes, Tabata had left, and that as a result of that and other business changes with Luminous that only Episode Ardyn was being continued as DLC. Then they showed off the Ardyn trailer and addressed that the other DLCs stories were going to be told via a different medium to be addressed at a later time. They moved on to Comrades' standalone and the FFXIV crossover to wrap things up to show what they're putting out in a month.

They HAD to address cancellations, while also showing that they hadn't just abandoned everything. Plus, the message from Tabata was dated a week ago, so it really made the most sense to address everything all at once, since it seems like it all came together in close enough proximity.



X :neo:
 

Blade

That Man
AKA
Darkside-Ky/Mimeblade
This is making me ponder whether or not "Season Passes" as a concept are actually profitable for game companies... if there are financial risks involved they can't promise stuff further down the road to people if stuff blows up in their faces.

Where FF is concerned I never had issue with Season Pass DLC, but I think in this case they made too many promises they couldn't keep.
 

Lex

Administrator
Only the "Comrades" update is next month. The target release for Ardyn's DLC is March.

My bad, thanks for the correction Tres. Symptomatic of how solidly I follow XV stuff (read: not at all :P)

They HAD to address cancellations, while also showing that they hadn't just abandoned everything. Plus, the message from Tabata was dated a week ago, so it really made the most sense to address everything all at once, since it seems like it all came together in close enough proximity.

They didn't HAVE to address anything though - particularly during a livestream of this nature. They could have gone the way of other devs or even their past selves and just ignored it into oblivion. The fact that they outright clearly said something about it - and even gave detail - is a positive thing, but it's also surprising IMO.
 

Lulcielid

Eyes of the Lord
AKA
Lulcy
This is making me ponder whether or not "Season Passes" as a concept are actually profitable for game companies... if there are financial risks involved they can't promise stuff further down the road to people if stuff blows up in their faces.

Where FF is concerned I never had issue with Season Pass DLC, but I think in this case they made too many promises they couldn't keep.
But in this scenario they never promised the cancelled DLCs with a Season Pass.
 

Claymore

3x3 Eyes


I'm going to be as diplomatic as I can here ... as a lot of things need to be placed into some form of perspective.

Firstly, fans have rarely, if ever, been able to actively force a change on an issue via online petitions. Even the most rabid and outspoken fandoms have been unable to resurrect cherished television series via the platform ... and we are talking here about expensive single-player DLC for what is now a 2 year old game. For many years now, it has been known within the gaming industry that single player DLC simply does not sell very well. It is only multiplayer, and special stand-alone editions created down the line, that have managed to securely recuperate costs involved with their development. That SE continued with their roadmap for single player DLC for this long was a miracle* in itself. Cancelling this shouldn't come as any real surprise.

Second, with so many new and interesting games to discover, the percentage of players who actually fully complete a game, let alone return to it at some point in the future, is incredibly low. Far from being a distinct metric, but trophy analysis has proven that this is the case. When a massive player in the industry like Rockstar won't even develop any new single player portions to their games because of the massive, and easier, revenue avenues via online and multiplayer components, despite a massive amount of fan outcry, that should tell you a lot. If there is no continuous multiplayer or online component within a game constantly bringing players back into a 'world', then gamers have already moved on. Monthly multiplayer maps and events can return them for a short time (especially with the added hope of them also spending during the event), but unfortunately, single player DLC does not hold any similar weight here.

There is actually a really interesting discussion about all of this going on right now over at ResetEra:

https://www.resetera.com/threads/ko...-story-dlc-often-doesnt-sell-very-well.79850/

Third, the notion of Nomura delaying development on the VII: Remake in order to concentrate on bringing these DLCs back to life is simply an insane notion. Regardless of how far along anyone believes that the game actually is (or even how far along those DLCs might have been), stopping work on such a massive project in favour of DLC for XV makes absolutely no financial sense. VII: Remake is a massive AAA product, any meaningful and impacting delays would render it in exactly the same predicament that XV was in. Why would you want them to be in that position?

Fourth, though the amount quoted might seem like a lot, a company like SE can more than shoulder the financial burden of this and restructure their efforts elsewhere ... which is exactly what they are doing. They do not need crowdfunding or players trying to throw money at them (though I'm sure any company would love that) in order to develop a product. But again, you need to put things into perspective here. What you could amass would be a minor drop in the ocean for what would be required to continue work on these DLCs. It is both unneeded and unnecessary. Setbacks can happen in game development. SE do not need any form of charity from fans either.


TLDR - it is always great when fans feel strongly about a product that has touched them on a deep level, but we also need to be realistic here. Whatever anyone's thoughts concerning XV, your petition, and money, certainly won't affect anything I'm afraid. And look at it from the other perspective, you got a heck of a lot out of XV, including the CGI movie, the Brotherhood anime, several mini-games, the DLCs, regular hunts and events added to the main game, and also multiplayer Comrades. And they have stated that the discontinued DLCs will most likely be wrapped up in some way.

XV has had a good run man, no doubt about that.

* Or exchange the word 'miracle' for 'outright surprise', 'mismanaged' or whatever other word you'd prefer really. SE is confusing and hard to decipher at even the best of times
 

Blade

That Man
AKA
Darkside-Ky/Mimeblade
^As far as getting changes made to how a work is created, it really depends on how big the developer team is.

I said this before, but ARC System Works listens to its fans and have been taking requests for some time now. We've been pretty happy with the results, but it all is determined by profitability and fan demand.
 

X-SOLDIER

Harbinger O Great Justice
AKA
X
Well, it's an ARPG that keeps the same feel of the JRPGs that it's a spiritual successor of (like Crisis Core did). Really what I meant is that his games have all had that underlying aesthetic and design that are very Japanese-game-specific, such that the company name would make sense if those are the kinds of games he's wanting to continue making.



X :neo:
 

Lulcielid

Eyes of the Lord
AKA
Lulcy
https://gamestalk.net/post-114600/
https://twinfinite.net/2018/12/fina...-games/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Tabata says his new company is self funded and he never asked for investors to help fund him, and he says that they have a few employees right now.

He talked about wanting to change the way the development process works, where he mentions regarding XV how a typical part would be when development got busy at SE they'd get external help from outsourced studios in Malaysia/Vietnam and also would have to provide high spec PCs and the security protocols they'd have to make themselves. He said that was a really difficult time and wants to try a cloud based development pipeline, and was actually going to try something like that before he decided to leave SE. He says he thinks they can still make a AAA game despite having only a few employees. He mentioned platforms they'd target being for the game include home systems, PC and phones. He says he wants to make a large scale game but doesn't want to hire a lot of developers at one place.

He also again reaffirms that he resigned from SE on his own descision and that he wasn't fired, he states that there was no bad blood or soured relationship with him or SE, and that the XV DLC cancellation had no relation to his decision to leave SE, he said he decided to quit SE to try his own thing without being a burden on the company or anyone there. He also says he was also sad to hear about the cancellation about the XV DLC and is sorry to the fans who were looking forward to those.
 

X-SOLDIER

Harbinger O Great Justice
AKA
X
@The Twilight Mexican & I had a good time bashing around in Comrades for a couple hours last night. Got through all the new content, and did the little things to re-claim the trophies that I had already... with the one exception that I'm waiting for RNGeezus to have Kenny make me some fries after a mission. Overall, the new stuff's a lot of fun. A quick bash if you're still rocking an optimal build from earlier, and a good way to dive in for some extras if you're new to Comrades, or even just only played a little bit of it before.

There are little bits where you can see that they got some development cut short (only 3 new things get lore documents), but I'm not really too bothered by it. I'm hoping maybe we get some in a patch or something. It still feels a little gutting knowing that everything that happened, and the kinds of things that they wanted to do but didn't. It still feels like him leaving and the XV cancelation are a bit connected, but it would be nice if they weren't TOO closely connected and this wasn't just a "playing nice for PR" kind of statement.



X:neo:
 

Makoeyes987

Listen closely, there is meaning in my words.
AKA
Smooth Criminal
Now Tabata can go and off his main characters at the end of his stories in peace! :awesome:

No, but seriously. His games were good, if a bit predictable in how he treated his protagonists. Kinda strange how they sent him off, but given what's been revealed about how much investment was sunk into FFXV's DLC in order to clean up its loose ends, I can see why... They got antsy and were willing to "cut their loses" so to speak. FFXV was an ambitious undertaking but it was only fully fleshed out like a year after its release. That's a problem. I thankfully never played it day one of its release. I heard it was pretty hollow, to say the least.
 

X-SOLDIER

Harbinger O Great Justice
AKA
X
I really enjoyed all the versions of XV, but I also understand the criticisms, and will definitely agree that the final version of the game is a marked improvement on the release version, because of everything that they've managed to add in and detail. (I will always be glad that I got to play the original Chapter 13 though, because I did genuinely enjoy it for the ways in which it was slow and frustrating).

I'm really excited to see how he thrives outside of the SE umbrella, though.



X:neo:
 
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