Square Enix president Yoichi Wada was recently interviewed by Gamasutra, in which he made this statement concerning Final Fantasy XIII:
“When it comes to the customers’ reaction to the quality of the game, some value it highly and some are not very happy with it.“I think this is a product that was able to meet the expectations for those who know Final Fantasy. There are all kinds of games around in the market today. Should Final Fantasy become a new type of the game or should Final Fantasy not become a new type of game? The customers have different opinions. It’s very difficult to determine which way it should go.”
This has lead to some speculation as to the future of the series – where it will go, what the next game will be like or what elements the story will cover. But I don’t think this is the kind of discussion that should come about on the back of this kind of fan reaction. Why? Read on…
It’s all well and good listening to fans – they are your meal ticket, after all – but Squenix really should take into account the context of how they’re getting this feedback. Negative responses are always the loudest of the voices heard, with those who feel personally affronted by a game/movie/song/comic/whatever being the first – and angriest – to respond about it. In the past this would equate to some angrily-worded letters, or a complaint in person here or there.
Then the internet happened.
What this means is that any negative reaction – any – is magnified by about 3,485,239 per cent (roughly). The people posting the most on any discussion forums, blogs or wherever else are far more likely to be the naysayers than they are those supporting any game. Using FFXIII as the example, it received a Metacritic rating of 83 on PS3 – a very good mark (though that’s something else people need to be educated on, seemingly, as anything below 90 is deemed ‘bad’). As a result of this high score, the positives had already been stated, the good points covered and people were recommended to buy it (and five million people did) – meaning the only thing left to do for fans was to react with fury when those who weren’t completely taken with it found things a bit different from what they were used to.
Disagreements on the internet are a horrible thing, there’s a lot of anger and insults thrown around and it tends to be that negative reactions to well-received games are exacerbated to a ridiculous degree. As such, I honestly don’t think it’s the kind of thing Wada or Square Enix should be bothered about. By all means they should listen to fan feedback, but when it comes to making any major decisions they really need to ignore rampant internet criticism.
If the petulant, angry, adolescent voice of internet criticism directly influences how FFXV turns out… well, they’ve won. And that’s not a scenario I want to be in.
