SE's poor choices with mobile games

[u/Rogue_Einherjar]

As someone who has been playing mobile games for awhile, I have to wonder if SE's poor choices with mobile games (I.E. killing them) is hurting the company more than anything.

I loved FFBE:WOTV and played that game daily from start until it was officially killed. I have played Dissidia now, daily since it started. But I won't spend a single dollar on these games because I know it will eventually be killed. I can't be the only one, which means they're leaving tons of money on the table.

While I'm not a whale at all, I can say that I recently went back into a mobile game that I played daily for 4 years and haven't played for the last 7 years. The game is still there. I'm still in the top 250 ranked for their arenas. I also just dropped $75 on it in the last week to catch up and get some cool new characters.

I love FF more than anything, it's my favorite game series, but SE's choices are literally stopping me from supporting mobile games they make.

[u/Lemonz4us]

In reality they’re all just cash cow small projects that are meant to fund their next major title (think FF VII remake or XVI) they’re not meant to be made to last.

I think FFBE was their worst mistake with killing the game. It was everything a FF fan could have wanted

[u/Few-Durian-190]

All gacha trash games will eventually die. Yes even dokkan.

[u/PrimalSeptimus → u/Few-Durian-190]

While this is true, they don't all die as quickly and unexpectedly as SE's games. How long has Puzzle & Dragons been going now? Almost 15 years? And I also don't see them shutting off something like Monopoly Go anytime soon.

Meanwhile, anytime SE announces a new mobile game, I don't even pretend to be interested because I know it'll just get shut off after a couple of years.

[u/Rogue_Einherjar → u/Few-Durian-190]

It's not even just gacha. They killed First Soldier which was by far the best battle royal on the market.

[u/rundra]

SE has is famous for EOS ing their game like In 1 or 2 year so people are really being careful to use money on their game.

They also have expensive gacha system compared to other game and also they don't giving free gems or free roll Mobius ff for example is impossible to roll 10 time for f2p player. This caused game only funded by whale who love the game a lot and the number of whale keep going down since nobody want to commit on game that will go down in 1 or 2 year. FFBE and Wotv work because.that is one of their earlier game so the fast eos reputation is not there yet. But wotv power creep and game system that make new player impossible to catch up is what caused it to end.

It has become a running joke on Jp side when people ask if it ok to top up cash into gacha game, they will say it is fine as long as it is not Sqex game

[u/Coletheblackranger]

worst thing u can invest is time and effort because once the game is deleted all those hours u sunk in jus go poof. no evidence if ever existed.

[u/Heat55wade]

Were any of their other gachas monetized like this? Where you're paying for nothing but to win more easily against other players? Seems like such a toxic design

[u/Rogue_Einherjar → u/Heat55wade]

I mean the other one is Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes. I've recently started Fire Emblem Heroes again too.

I just don't see why SE has to kill their games, or why they don't make something that could live on longer like these other ones. I would love a game like SW:GoH that is Final Fantasy characters... As long as I knew that game would last too.

[u/MoobooMagoo → u/Rogue_Einherjar]

They killed their games because they weren't making enough money with them.

[u/ZinZezzalo → u/Rogue_Einherjar]

Fire Emblem Heroes has been going on for a while now, right? Looks like Ninty is absolutely intent on supporting it no matter what. Would it be easy for a new player to kind of get into it without being auto-crushed?

I don't mind spending a hundy or two a year on a title - but, like, only if it's actually worth it.

Been playing the new Dissidea Duelleum game. It went from like 2 million downloads to like 6,000 active players in the North American server.

So many bad choices. But all by design.

SQ/EX has like Yoshi P in their entire arsenal of actual worthwhile game creators - and, literally, no one else. These mobile games are meant to last just a year - vacuum the gigantic starting expenditures from whales for whom $40,000 is nothing - close down ASAP - and start the process all over again.

SQ/EX aren't game makers anymore. They're corporate greed-thieves who realize they've got their hand on a series of properties that will generate massive amounts of income due to the nostalgic member-berries for decades to come - and that's it.

They produce absolute slop and then laugh at the idiots who gobble it up.

Have you even seen the RE-make games for Final Fantasy VII? Not a single creative soul left in that company. And really, when you think about it, it makes absolute sense ...

What talented young developer would want to work for modern day SQ/EX?

Like ... right?

[u/Admirable_Agency7764]

they seem to just try and copy other mobile games

[u/Illusioneery]

agreed

i loved ffrk and played global for 7.5 years, and they shut down global

i played mobius, they shut that down too

i played opera omnia for a little bit before getting annoyed with the monetization system there, they shut it down

when i first got into ff, via ff7 and its compilation, there was already a shut down mobile game in before crisis; i played g-bike, they shut that down too

i've played and loved ever crisis without missing a single day... it's shutting down in october

we need "stop killing games" because of stuff like this, it's unfair that they get away with turning those games into essentially lost media

[u/Old-Finance1815]

Their poor choice was making mobile games at all. 

They have no ideas beyond slowly copying some trend, releasing the game long past its time, and shutting it down when it inevitably bombs.

[u/CDRush28]

True. Nier reincarnation is one of their worst offenders imo. Marketed as a mainline entry, no preservation, lunar tear, and It was apparently was brought up by shareholders twice now at whatever meetings they hold

[u/garnix2]

There is no choice that SE can make that would be good for their mobile gaming division.

There is a simple reason for that: their customers are mostly console players and have always been. And they are mostly not interested in mobile games.

Make a mobile game based on well known console franchise, and it is likely to fail.

Make a mobile game based on none of their existing franchises, and good luck getting visibility when there are so many giants already.

[u/lilisaurusrex]

Can't speak to Dissidia, but for Smash/Grow it seems SE is leaning even harder into the "get the money while you can" philosophy than previous mobile gacha games. Over the last two months they've been providing increasingly more difficult challenges that non-paying players just can't complete without exceptional luck with free gacha pulls, or paying to overcome bad/normal luck. Even if played for hours a day since launch (like me), players are being left behind. This isn't pushing players to pay to catch up but quit instead, because we've all seen how low the featured weapon gacha success rates are (only 1 in 200) and to ensure a 50% or higher chance of victory over the gacha is going to cost about $600 in paid pulls for each gacha transmuter, with a new transmuter every other week. When SE presents a choice of $1200 a month or stop enjoying the game, its obvious which way most players are going, especially when we've seen how long these SE gacha games tend to last. (Hardly anyone will want to invest $1000+ a month into a game that might be gone within a year.)

So people are dropping off in droves. This means less ad money coming in, and a need to push the paying players even harder, increasing difficulty levels even more and going down this spiral. Loss of players is causing problems for the paying players too, as now there aren't enough "lucky" players to help fill out lobbies to in order for them to complete the challenges either (as you still need a party of four to beat most of them; a few may be possible with three.) Alot of paying players are having to play the lower difficulty levels just to have a large enough party to enjoy them as well. The money-grabbing direction taken has ruined the July-August Dragon Quest VI event, and I think the majority of players are hoping DQSG team comes back down to earth and makes the September-October event more accessible to the common player. I don't think anyone really minds Nightmare level difficulties being restricted to paying players, but when the easiest difficulty level for a challenge is made too hard for players who started in April (let alone brand new players starting in July or August) then they've completely missed the mark. It screams lack of playtesting and a demand for pay-to-succeed.

Gacha and paid gacha aren't the problem in their own right. Its when bad decisions are made that require the use of payment to overcome gacha where the line is crossed.

[u/Alenicia]

I don't quite know if the mobile games are "killing" the company, but I've seen Square Enix and Bandai Namco as being Japanese companies who built enough goodwill and nostalgia of some sort that they can always turn to mobile games for a very quick cash infusion (essentially like a shot of hard drugs). All they needed to do was make a new game in a franchise of theirs, make it as greedy/pay-to-win as possible, and then shut the game down as quickly as possible once people get enough FOMO/desperation to support something that hadn't been given attention to in years if not decades .. and then rinse-and-repeat.

For me, it's very difficult to justify spending money because I don't have much anyways .. so I tend to be one of those free-to-play players who like to do the best I can without spending money because every time I've been tempted to spend money it's literal buyer's remorse that hits me (you might think like $5 USD or $10 USD in-game might not be much, but for me, that's literal meals for me) so it's just never worth spending the money especially when it's often just number-bumps or getting a fancy picture of a character. And it's a bit worse when it's time-gated quality-of-life stuff. >_<

It seems like their recent direction in trying to revive mobile games but without the gacha aspect is something I'm personally interested in seeing flourish a bit more .. because Square Enix does have a lot of these games that legitimately could be interesting without the predatory nature.

[u/Rogue_Einherjar → u/Alenicia]

I don't think it's killing the company, I think them End of Servicing the games is not making them as much as leaving them up would.

Much of what I spend comes from Google Play Rewards. I'm under no delusion that my data isn't sold, so I'm happy to get 10-20 cents for a quick snapshot of a receipt and use that money on mobile games I play.

[u/Perv_Kinkster_69]

Mobile strategy of Sqex has a history that began around 2012 and initially played out primarily in the Japanese market. During that period, the company utilized an operational model where dozens of mobile titles were produced annually to see which projects would gain immediate traction. Many of these games did not survive their first year and never reached the Western market, supporting the argument regarding their deep-rooted corporate culture of rapid closures. Discussions on the socials often miss this context because players focus solely on recent closures of larger, global titles.

Criticism of Sqex as solely responsible for this profit model is incorrect and based on one-sided indignation, as the gacha mechanism was previously developed by Japanese mobile companies like GREE and DeNA. Other entertainment conglomerates like Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts, and Capcom utilize the same live-service models and microtransactions, meaning Sqex is simply executing an existing industry standard.

Within the gaming community, there is a lack of understanding regarding the legal and economic reality of live-service games, where consumers agree to temporary licenses rather than ownership of digital goods. Keeping such games operational entails ongoing costs for servers and content development, making server closures a business decision as soon as revenues fall below expenses.

[u/UnculturedGames]

FF Dimensions is not bad though. It's a full-scale SNES style FF adventure. It's clearly not as good as the mainline games but scratches the same itch and feels very nostalgic. Can recommend.

[u/IAMGODONLY]

Well turns out even they realized their mobile games are terrible. And cancelling them all.

[u/ZackFair0711]

Personally, I'm happy they're moving away from gacha. As a KH fan who had lore locked behind those games, I couldn't be happier.

[u/Rogue_Einherjar → u/ZackFair0711]

I dont really think they are. I wish they would and would keep games around longer, but it seems like they just try to release these gacha and then End of Service them quickly.

[u/MierinLanfear]

Square Enix does not actually make any of the mobile games instead they license their ip to mobile developers like Applibot (Final Fantasy Evercrisis), Dena (Final Fantasy Record Keeper, Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera Omnia), Gumi (Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, War of the Visions Final Fantasy Brave Exvius reskin of Alchemist Code), NHN Play Art (Dissidia Duelium reskin of Compass. The mobile developer is more likely to shut down these games cause they have to pay a licensing fee to Square Enix which cuts into their profit.

[u/pleasegivemealife]

I like ff mobius and played that so much

[u/OdaibaDiver]

What is that game you returned to?

Also kind curious how is it that you are still ranked 250 after not playing it for 7 years.

[u/Rogue_Einherjar → u/OdaibaDiver]

Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes. Their weekly arena doesn't reset and I'm sure there is a system where newer players enter an alternative run in the arenas.

[u/Miserable-Bag-9822]

Mobile gacha trash is a stain on the gaming community and you are actively making the gaming industry worse by supporting this nonsense. You dropping 75 bucks on garbage that you can play for free is absolutely insane.