FFXIV Greatly Damaged the Final Fantasy Brand

Posted by on September 27, 2011 - No Comments »

At a Tokyo press conference today, Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada gave a few very candid statements about FFXIV stating, “The Final Fantasy brand has been greatly damaged.“, adding “We’ll continue with our reform work, which basically amounts to fully redoing the game, and hope to revive the FFXIV that should have been released.”

Wada of course was referring to the horrible release of FFXIV when it launched last year back in September chock full of bugs, crashes and game-play issues. The one month trial offer has been extended indefinitely, making FFXIV in essence a free-to-play title for the time being as Square Enix continues to completely revamp the game. Then of course there’s the PS3 version which has also been delayed until further notice.

However I don’t agree with Wada’ statement about FFXIV greatly damaging the Final Fantasy series, if anything the damage was done to Square Enix itself. Launching a title prematurely, especially a MMORPG title, is no way to win fans over and make players think twice before buying another MMORPG developed by Square Enix.