Naoki Yoshida on why the Original FFXIV Failed and the Lessons Learned

[Squirrel Emperor]

Naoki Yoshida held a power point presentation earlier today at GDC 14 where he explained why the original FFXIV failed and shares what developers have learned from developing and redeveloping the title.
Why the original FF14 failed, from producer Naoki Yoshida

What the developers learned from developing and redeveloping FF14

Source: https://twitter.com/gamasutra

 

[yeah_93]

Good thing they learned and fixed their mistakes. I see A Realm Reborn is mostly praised.

 

[APZonerunner]

The guy is a god damned legend. Shame he'll be on MMOs forever and ever amen now, probably.

 

[masterlobo]

The guy is a god damned legend. Shame he'll be on MMOs forever and ever amen now, probably.

He should at least be given a spinoff to direct.

But yeah, he'll be busy with ARR for a very good while...

 

[Squirrel Emperor]

The things they've learned are rules that the developers should abide by when it comes to Final Fantasy. You don't do things like "ignore your roots" and "forget your fans" when it comes to an IP that is over 25 years old. There is a reason why Final Fantasy has lasted as long as it has.

"An unhealthy obsession with graphics quality" is something they've been obsessed with since the PSX days.

 

[Princess Lenna]

Yoshida was willing to scrap animations and a degree of the graphics for the sake of a more responsive gameplay. While I am sad to see them absent from A Realm Reborn, I have to give him credit for having the guts to do what he did. He has stated before that doing a single-player Final Fantasy is always a possibility, but as of now he has responsibilities with maintaining ARR.

 

[APZonerunner]

Even then, like Tanaka they'll probably just never let him go now. When ARR starts to get old, they'll put him on a new MMO. Which is a bit of a bummer, but alas. At least the MMOs are in safe hands.

 

[masterlobo]

I think this slide is very important, at least in the MMO context.

But yeah...I guess some hating is ok after all lol

 

[Princess Lenna]

It's up to the devs to constantly balance the economy, and they're being paid by the players to build a better quality of life in their MMO world. So yeah, they're pretty synonymous to a government running a country haha.