"'Clair Obscur: Expedition 33' utterly destroys Square Enix's gaslighting over Final Fantasy turn-based combat"-Windows Central

[MeachTheMonster]

The premiere franchises in gaming today usually crack that 10 million number on the low end and long term do better than that. That's where I got that number. Being real thought it's doubtful the game has even moved much more than a quarter of the low end. I absolutely believe that Final Fantasy should be in contention with God of War, Resident Evil. It should do way better than say Persona. It's more like what Halo is today than competing with any of those.

Crazy thing is Halo sells way better than FF and reaches way more people, but somehow that’s a flop, in decline, or dead depending on which one of you is talking about it.

Starfield sold 3 mill BEFORE its official release date and that’s a “flop” too.

FF16 at 3 mill is a smashing success tho

 

[Fatboi1]

The premiere franchises in gaming today usually crack that 10 million number on the low end and long term do better than that. That's where I got that number. Being real thought it's doubtful the game has even moved much more than a quarter of the low end. I absolutely believe that Final Fantasy should be in contention with God of War, Resident Evil. It should do way better than say Persona. It's more like what Halo is today than competing with any of those.

FF sells more than Persona actually, it's just the lack of numbers making it appear that way. Persona 5 including royal as of 2023 sold over 7 million copies which took about 7 years with the latter years it releasing on Switch, PC and Xbox.

FFVII remake on PS4/PS5 in 3 years sold over 7 million.

I wish FF was even bigger than it is, it's a very well known IP but outside of the XIV, FF games are games that sell over time. They're not as big as say Mario or Pokemon.

 

[Black Magisterialness]

Within what context?

FFX which is considered the best selling FF game, sold 20 million after 20 years.

FFXV which came out last gen has sold 10 million, half of that number in 6 years.

FFXVI was said to sell over 3 million in one week on one platform.

FFVII Remake has sold 7 million lifetime since 2020 so that's in 3 years.

We don't know Rebirth's sales numbers, it's just people going "Oh but they didn't say anything so it means it flopped." and then incorrectly pointing to a sales report where they misinterpret their HD games subsection not meeting expectations and attribute that to Rebirth/XVI specifically when the "HD games" also include Foamstars, Visions of Mana, Dragon Quest spinoffs etc.

If you compare the years to which some of the past FF games have been said to sell X amount of copies, you'll notice they're not that different. What people are doing are comparing debut numbers from Japan and incomplete data(e.g. no digital data) and making a conclusion that the games are selling terribly now. FF games have long legs, they don't just stop selling after 1 month. Only way to know if these games "flopped" is if by 2027, Rebirth sells less than 7 million which Remake did on PS4.

"Success" is relative to cost and profits point blank. Nobody knows how much the games cost to make and how much it's profited from that.

The best selling FF game is XIV at nearly 35 Million sold units with something like 1.1 million active subs. It's literally keeping the lights on at Squeenix

 

[Black Magisterialness]

Crazy thing is Halo sells way better than FF and reaches way more people, but somehow that’s a flop, in decline, or dead depending on which one of you is talking about it.

Starfield sold 3 mill BEFORE its official release date and that’s a “flop” too.

FF16 at 3 mill is a smashing success tho

Different markets and different expectations. This is like expecting hockey attendance in Arizona to be the same as Soccer attendance in Spain.

Both are sports, but the games and markets for those games couldn't be father apart.

JRPGs have been and always will be niche compared to action games, shooters and sports games. So making a game in the style of a JRPG is coming with the expectation of sales around 5-10 million. You get that for a turn-based RPG and you crushed it.

Hell, Persona 5, one of the best RPGs of the past decade, sold like 7 million copies. And that was a genre, gen-defining game.

The rubric IS different. Same for fighting games, racing games and 4X games too.

 

[MeachTheMonster]

Different markets and different expectations. This is like expecting hockey attendance in Arizona to be the same as Soccer attendance in Spain.

Both are sports, but the games and markets for those games couldn't be father apart.

JRPGs have been and always will be niche compared to action games, shooters and sports games. So making a game in the style of a JRPG is coming with the expectation of sales around 5-10 million. You get that for a turn-based RPG and you crushed it.

Hell, Persona 5, one of the best RPGs of the past decade, sold like 7 million copies. And that was a genre, gen-defining game.

The rubric IS different. Same for fighting games, racing games and 4X games too.

Yall gotta get your story straight.

Supposedly FF games are expected to be huge sellers which is why they have to move away from RPG mechanics.

But now you say FF was never supposed to compete with the large AAA sellers.

All the article says is that clair obscure proves a turned based rpg style final fantasy could be successful.

Don’t even know why we need 10 pages of arguing. That shouldn’t even be a controversial take.

 

[Black Magisterialness]

Yall gotta get your story straight.

Supposedly FF games are expected to be huge sellers which is why they have to move away from RPG mechanics.

But now you say FF was never supposed to compete with the large AAA sellers.

All the article says is that clair obscure proves a turned based rpg style final fantasy could be successful.

Don’t even know why we need 10 pages of arguing. That shouldn’t even be a controversial take.

My first post was about the actual sales of JRPGs and that FF moved away from turn based the only reason they did it was because they didn't have the tech to do other wise.

10m+ in sales is AAA levels. Regardless of genre. However, it's simply the truth to say that XVI and Rebirth didn't meet sales goals. Hell the president of Square Enix said so himself. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Final Fantasy 16, and Foamstars All Failed to Meet Square Enix’s Expectations - IGN

And the article, isn't a hot take at all. It would be. I'm just chiming in to all the people saying that turn-based FF is some untouchable holy grail. It's not, and never was. Not even to SquareEnix.

 

[Half A $]

Crazy thing is Halo sells way better than FF and reaches way more people, but somehow that’s a flop, in decline, or dead depending on which one of you is talking about it.

Starfield sold 3 mill BEFORE its official release date and that’s a “flop” too.

FF16 at 3 mill is a smashing success tho

Halo is a flop, there's a reason they bought COD.

 

[Brief Keef]

FF7 Rebirth did a great job in the combat category. Yes, they could've done like Clair Obscur and have parry/dodging mechanics with a turn-based system, but FF7 Rebirth was fine. Don't think it would've changed the gaming experience for the better.

Square's problem is final fantasy that's it not because its turned based or it isnt...ppl are burnt out on final fantasy....just like most people are with AC/Madden/COD....if there were 16 mainline installments of Claire 33 they would be going through the same shyt square is with FF...

 

[Gizmo_Duck]

Square's problem is final fantasy that's it not because its turned based or it isnt...ppl are burnt out on final fantasy....just like most people are with AC/Madden/COD....if there were 16 mainline installments of Claire 33 they would be going through the same shyt square is with FF...

Thats precisely the reason they switch it up every game, I don’t see how people can be tired of final fantasy when tehy specifically go out of their way to completely tell new stories and and invest in new game mechanics every entry.

i think the problem is people just hate new things and want to keep getting the same shyt in a different casing like Taco Bell. I’ve never heard of anyone getting tired of Yakuza and they’ve made like 7 games with the same graphics, city, and characters and animations

same thing for the last 3 persona games, its literally the same shyt.

 

[MeachTheMonster]

Yet we constantly get PR that a game on gamepass hits a million players like a month later or don’t get any PR at all about player numbers.

it Wouldn’t be a surprise if more people on playstation and steam combined sold more copies than people played on Gamepass.

Expedition 33 publisher: "Elder Scrolls: Oblivion didn’t seem to harm us at all"

35% of Expedition 33 players also played the Elder Scrolls remaster | Publisher Kepler hails Xbox

www.thegamebusiness.com

Xbox was the No.1 platform for both games because of that Game Pass inclusion. 45% of Expedition 33 players were on Xbox,

Do the Gamepass shuffle

 

[rdj]

Expedition 33 publisher: "Elder Scrolls: Oblivion didn’t seem to harm us at all"

35% of Expedition 33 players also played the Elder Scrolls remaster | Publisher Kepler hails Xbox

www.thegamebusiness.com

Xbox was the No.1 platform for both games because of that Game Pass inclusion. 45% of Expedition 33 players were on Xbox,

Do the Gamepass shuffle

"According to Ampere, and tracking players worldwide, the average playtime for Expedition 33 on Xbox was 2.2 hours, while it was 4.4 hours on PlayStation and Steam. Meanwhile for Oblivion, average play time was 3.6 hours on Steam, 3.8 hours on PlayStation and 2.2 hours again on Xbox."

 

[Gizmo_Duck]

"According to Ampere, and tracking players worldwide, the average playtime for Expedition 33 on Xbox was 2.2 hours, while it was 4.4 hours on PlayStation and Steam. Meanwhile for Oblivion, average play time was 3.6 hours on Steam, 3.8 hours on PlayStation and 2.2 hours again on Xbox."

With the way meach plays games, this absolutely tracks

 

[MeachTheMonster]

"According to Ampere, and tracking players worldwide, the average playtime for Expedition 33 on Xbox was 2.2 hours, while it was 4.4 hours on PlayStation and Steam. Meanwhile for Oblivion, average play time was 3.6 hours on Steam, 3.8 hours on PlayStation and 2.2 hours again on Xbox."

you acting like 4.4 hours is much of a difference.

Yes more people will try a game on gamepass that’s the whole point.

You think devs are disappointed more people tried their game than would have without gamepass

 

[Black Magisterialness]

Thats precisely the reason they switch it up every game, I don’t see how people can be tired of final fantasy when tehy specifically go out of their way to completely tell new stories and and invest in new game mechanics every entry.

i think the problem is people just hate new things and want to keep getting the same shyt in a different casing like Taco Bell. I’ve never heard of anyone getting tired of Yakuza and they’ve made like 7 games with the same graphics, city, and characters and animations

same thing for the last 3 persona games, its literally the same shyt.

FINALLY someone gets it!

Why the fukk do you think FIFA/Madden/2k still sell tens of millions despite being recycled dogshyt every year. Call of Duty ain't been good since Black Ops 3...still selling millions. GTA V is a decade old...still making millions.

Meanwhile, games that are taking chances and pushing the medium forward like Hades, Disco Elysium, Celeste gotta deal with selling 1 or 2 million because innovation requires effort and thought from the player.

 

[Gizmo_Duck]

FINALLY someone gets it!

Why the fukk do you think FIFA/Madden/2k still sell tens of millions despite being recycled dogshyt every year. Call of Duty ain't been good since Black Ops 3...still selling millions. GTA V is a decade old...still making millions.

Meanwhile, games that are taking chances and pushing the medium forward like Hades, Disco Elysium, Celeste gotta deal with selling 1 or 2 million because innovation requires effort and thought from the player.

Gaming is like comfort food for people now a days. They just want to log on and turn their brain off doing another routine. new innovative games means you gotta go out of your way to learn shyt and find shyt.