Quote Originally Posted by Andromeda View Post
The Japanese market has changed a ton, which sadly has gone mobile. As a business they have to do things that are going to make them profitable like you said. It's a common topic these days, but games are the cheapest that they have ever been when comparing against inflation. They're still only $60, I remember buying FFX for $70 on the PS2. But $60 has been the price for years, the likelihood is that the price of games needs to increase to probably $90-100 maybe even more, but gamers would throw a fit over something like that.

But when you say Square, are you talking about everyone in the company, the Corporate heads or the dev teams? Square is a broad generalization. Corporate Square like you said only is interested in profits, because that keeps the company running. The dev teams that's a completely different sort of beast. They get dictated in the end by the Corporate heads, but they're the ones with the passion and heart still. Those people aren't trying to make bad games, but circumstances beyond their control can create bad environments or poor games. One thing that Square has suffered from is the transition to the modern space. If you notice, the younger and fresher blood that's leading the dev teams these days are doing things completely different than things in the past. People like Tabata and Yoshida know the value of the fans and community, you can see in the way that they interview and reach out.
In Australia, new games are still released for $99 (you might be able to pick them up for around $85 from competitors). I guess what im trying to say can be summarized as such;

One man had a dream to make video games.
It was not proving as lucrative as he had hoped and he was quickly running out of money.
He decided to make one final game before quitting and getting a 'real job'.
He created this game exactly how he wanted it to be, albeit using what was available to him at the time.
he crafted a game that would be a testament to a story he needed to tell, and would be told time and time again in various forms in the years to come.
he followed his dream and made his final fantasy transition from game to film
it failed, he was shamed and forced to resign from the company.
Now the company makes decisions based on what they think people want instead of being creative and trying something new
its a shell of its former self and very few original staff remain who understand what it means to be passionate about telling a story.
The result?
Over-dramatized, soap opera cliche's riddled with boring mechanics both from game-play and technical standpoints as well as convoluted story lines and pretentious terms.

This is precisely why we are seeing so many remakes.