All I know is that Tomb Raider is amazing and is definitely GOTY quality.

Tomb Raider, Deus Ex and Sleeping Dogs disagree.

Tomb Raider isn't really a good example, it's just female Uncharted.

Said like someone that never played it. In respect, Uncharted is just male Tomb Raider made casual. So I guess the new Tomb Raider would be a female Uncharted...if Uncharted was a slightly open world survival game with upgrades and weapon crafting, but well done on the third person platform comparison though.

@elincoln said:

It's because those games don't exist in a vacuum and the fact is: a LOT of Square games have been underperforming, which necessitated much, much, MUCH higher-than-realistic expectations from games like Deus Ex, Tomb Raider and Hitman to account for the losses elsewhere. There are MUCH better ways of framing that, though, as Square is essentially using its Western devs as scapegoats rather than saying the hard truth: Final Fantasy is underperforming sales wise.

The Montreal office was seemingly the only part of S-E that had their heads on straight. Too bad.

Maybe someone with more knowledge about this can answer this question, do the sale numbers count at all digital sales or does it still only count the copies sold at retailers? Everyone I know who bought played Tomb Raider and Deus Ex played those games on PC.

You're telling me to calm down while you made like a little internet rant.

Deus Ex: HR is one of my favourite games this gen annnnnd i have no follow up to this

Wuh oh..

Still Really looking forward to that Thief..

My position on the thief game was dubious when they revealed that certain aspects were being 'redesigned' to fit a 'console' audience. DXHR was a great game, there were some issues with it, but it was a pretty good first attempt for a studio to make a game.

Square Enix is just making dumb choices and that's all there is to it. I think the MMO market is just a little too flooded at the moment to even consider making a new game. They should have done a new KH game long before, and perhaps tried a new Chrono game.

@undeadpool said:

I don't think it's quite that simple. Final Fantasy 14 is certainly bleeding money, but other games in the franchise aren't doing so badly. 13-2 was the only real Final Fantasy game that launched last year, and while it did sell about a million less copies than Tomb Raider or Hitman, it wasn't in development for as long, and recycled a lot of assets from 13. So when you factor in the investment, its success is probably pretty close to the other two games. I think they're just spending far too much money on development, because they have a reputation for good looking games, and the cost of asset generation has ballooned since the ps2 days.

Edit: My 13-2 sales numbers were wrong. That was only for playstation 3. 360 had .7 million as well.

FFXIII sold only 7 million worldwide across both consoles. For such a giant, established behemoth of a franchise, it's been going steadily down from VIII, the spin-offs in particular aren't doing well. It only seems to have outpaced XII due to it being on two consoles.

@paindamnation said:

@leebmx said:

@paindamnation said:

@leebmx said:

Unless Patrick knows something we don't that first sentence is mighty confusing. Someone needs to make a list of Patrick typo's, kind of like a Brad time to death in QL's we could have a Patrick time to typo.

In other news, I still can't get my head around what all the problem is here. They have made some pretty decent game over the last few years which seem to have sold quite well. Deux Ex and Tomb Raider have been among my faves of the last few years. I get that Square aren't doing so good but if someone could explain how releasing highly-regarded, good selling games is a strategy which isn't working I would love to hear it.

@patrickklepek Do you know of any good articles that go into a bit of depth about this whole affair? I would greatly appreciate a link if you know of any.

They have made some pretty decent games* I get that Square Enix is not doing so well*, but it someone might explain* how releasing highly regarded and good selling games; is a strategic failure which is not working. I would love to hear it.* I could have a wikipedia article in and of itself with your typo's and grammatical mistakes in less then a paragraph. Before you cite someone else's failures, count your own mistakes. Thanks for the read @patrickklepek.

Fuck's sake mate, calm down a just a touch I was merely having a bit a of fun. I think Patrick is capable of withstanding my poor attempts at humour, and if he doesn't want his typos to be a running joke, then maybe he should read his work before pressing SEND (just another joke, don't get tense)

As for typos I am merely some ignorant forum lurker hammering out my vitriol with my big hairy keyboard mashing hands. I give myself the right to misplace apostrophes, mizspelll words or even just go smsx,xx'[s;/sa,.a,áam,szmzxmjzk,zzxjk zn with my big fists. Last time I checked Patrick is a journalist. People actually sign in, or even pay money to read his writing.

And (yes I know its grammatically incorrect to start a sentence with and, but i've done it and it feels soooo good) I don't give a shit about his ever more thundering typos because most of the time he has something pretty interesting to say/report but when it gets to the point of subverting the entire meaning of the opening sentence of your article, I say its time to get a copy checker.

You're telling me to calm down while you made like a little internet rant.

Who is the guy in the picture?

So 13 sells double what Tomb Raider sold, but it's Final Fantasy's fault they're in trouble? Sure 13 probably cost more to make, but I highly doubt it was a financial failure. You can totally blame 14, but 13 and 13-2 did well for them, even if they wanted them to do better.

that's too bad, I really liked the Uncharted feel to Tomb Raider

@hunter5024: But that assumes all games exist in a vacuum. Tomb Raider or Hitman do not have the same public cache of Final Fantasy as a brand, and yes, FF almost certainly cost a great deal more to develop. Also XIII-2 only sold 2 million, and yeah it was an expansion, but that's less than a third of what the original did. Square will NEVER admit that Final Fantasy sales were disappointing, even with XIV. They will say it was subpar, even that it damaged the brand, but never that it undersold.

I agree that it's wrong for them to place sole blame upon their western games, that's pretty classless, but blaming Final Fantasy for all of their problems isn't any better. Of the last 3 Final Fantasy games two did well, and one did terribly. If you look at the western side it's not all successes either, Tomb Raider was in development for a very long time, and it's clearly an expensive game, so to say that 3 and a half million is disappointing for such a huge franchise isn't actually that far fetched, Hitman did well, and Sleeping Dogs did terribly. The issue isn't that either half isn't holding up their end of the bargain, it's that they are investing way too much in these games and expecting unreasonable results across the board.

Also 13-2 sold a little over 3 million if you factor in both platforms, its development was far shorter than any of the other games, and it reused a ton of assets from the last one. There's no arguing that it was successful.

It's pretty funny to me that Square is placing the responsibility for their troubles on Eidos, when they're actually performing far better than I ever expected them to. Meanwhile, the parts of Square Enix that are actually Square Enix are a disaster. If they jettisoned all of their Japanese development except for studios working on numbered, single-player sequels to Final Fantasy, they'd be back on the road to profitability. But, nope, let's blame those dang western developers to save face.