http://www.polygon.com/a/final-fantasy-7

So, I've only just started the mid-section about the actual game (this is a multi-day read, for sure), but there's a lot of great quotes in here. If you were reading gaming magazines at the time or just developed an interest in this period of time in game development a lot of it will likely sound familiar but it's interesting to have so many influential people on the record about a lot of things I've mostly just seen attributed to sources or memory rather than names and faces.

I'm also a big fan of the format Polygon went with here; there were a lot of amazing oral histories on Grantland, for example, but they would drop people's names and titles after the first time they were quoted in favor of a first or last name only or some shorthand like that, but Polygon here includes not just the full name and not just the job title (often what title they held at the time of the game's production) but a photograph next to every single quote. It's a nice touch that helps you read along and follow who's who a lot easier, especially since I'm American and, while many of these names are infamous to me, a lot of the smaller actors in this play would bleed together without the photos and job titles.

My favorite bits up to where I am is just how much the Square team grew from FF6 to FF7 (internal players think it was anywhere from 20/60 to 200/300, while credits say 65 and 350, respectively, with over 200 of the latter's coming from outsourcing studios) and how a lot of the U.S./marketing teams used to refer to Sakaguchi as "king" behind his back, and Sakaguchi attributes this to his renown for drinking champagne among his friends at the time that led to the name of an email address but he just let his staff go ahead and call him king anyway.

Obviously even though we all know the story it's also fun to read about 10 different decision makers walk us through the steps Square took toward the realization they couldn't develop for the Nintendo 64 and had to align with Sony to see their vision forward.

Plowed through the whole thing yesterday, definitely a great read. The first half is the definitely the highlight, IMO, but there's still some good stuff later on (they got John Riccitiello to talk about FF7? lol).

I really liked how candid most of the interviewees were willing to be about potentially sore topics, even former top executives. It was interesting to hear all of the first-hand accounts of Square's switch away from Nintendo, too.

Speaking of Riccitello, I'd completely forgotten how complex Square's publishing was in the PS1 era; honestly, I'm not sure I ever knew Eidos put their games out in Europe or managed/produced/built? the PC port of Final Fantasy VII (calling all @zombiepies). Makes the eventual merger with them in the 2000s seem even more inevitable.

Incredible read with a lot of interesting history. Thanks for the share.

So is there anything in this article for someone that hates JRPG'S and FF but does enjoy learning about the inner workings of game development?

Lots, that's what they are talking about

@owack6: Absolutely. It's basically a dozen high profile Videogame developers talking candidly about their experience in the mid-late '90s.

It's a really cool article that must have taken months to write. I'm very impressed with the work that the folks at Polygon put into this thing.

Some of the people explicitly talk financial numbers right after other people say they're not at liberty to discuss it, there is a lot of talk about the tech Square and Nintendo were purchasing in the early 90s and how those deals were made, and why Square pivoted to Sony, as well as what game development at Square was like in its earliest days, during the production of FFVII, and afterward at Square, Microsoft's Japan Studio and Mistwalker, Sakaguchi's dev house after he left Square.

Also a lot of insight into the corporate structure of Square (and folks' opinions of Sakaguchi vs. Kitase vs. Nomura) before and after the Spirits Within film.

Honestly there is actually very little discussed about the actual game - story, mechanics and so on - other than the end of Disc 1 involving Aerith and some of the translation issues regarding Barrett and Don Corneo - and the translation discussion leads to a slightly larger discussion about translation in the 90s versus now as well.

@nodima: @rejizzle: Thanks for the input duders!

Some very interesting stuff, thanks for sharing.

An interesting read for sure, actual tangible numbers to really flesh out just how much Square was focused on graphics and just how much the sales meant at the time. Although I would like to hear about what they did or expect differently from VII onward in regard to the FF games, but perhaps that's a little beyond the scope of this as a FF7-centric piece, and I guess a lot of people did left after the movie. They talk briefly about making spin offs like X-2, but there are 3 other games in between there! There was a brief mention of focusing on graphics and network which would have been a interesting jumping off point for some XI talk.

Funny thing looking back they were trying to compete in the same space as Disney/pixar yet they eventually made Kingdom Hearts.