Poll of the Day > Final Fantasy creator: If you try to appeal to everyone you can only be average.

(+) Yeah! (+)

On the subject of when games are being designed, localized or censored to fit a "wider audience", the games lose uniqueness, resulting in games that are more average.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vu1IN1E9s6E

Entire Interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FE76bAQDzjc
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Pretty sure most devs would rather release average games that consistently sell 10 million copies
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Gotta steal more from DnD then :P

While it's certainly true to some extent, there's the issue of marketability where a lot of unique visions don't have enough appeal to pay back the dev costs. Plus it's hard to make something broadly generic enough to appeal to everyone while still being popular.

Mead posted...

Pretty sure most devs would rather release average games that consistently sell 10 million copies

This, tbh.

shadowsword87 posted...

Gotta steal more from DnD then :P

tbh, SE should have just bought TSR.
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I'd rather hate a lot of games and love the rest than feel general apathy most of the time.
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Zeus posted...

tbh, SE should have just bought TSR.

Oh hellllll no, the second the late 90's hit and RPGs started to tank, SE would have dropped DnD so hard into the dirt it broke into a billion pieces and buried it with everything else.
WotC isn't the best, especially for electronics, but they still actually make stuff.

Mead posted...

Pretty sure most devs would rather release average games that consistently sell 10 million copies

It depends on their contract but most developers don't directly benefit from sales, it's the publishers who do, which is why it's the publishers or those making decisions on their behalf who often are the ones who make the requests for games to be changed to "fit a wider audience".

Naughty Dog for example, were so upset about the changes they were asked to make to Tawna in Crash Bandicoot, they practically removed her in subsequent games because they felt she was no longer the character they created and wanted her to be.
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This is exactly Blizzard's problem. WoW used to be absolutely amazing, until the casual armada tears got their attention. Now Blizzard won't even show their sub numbers.
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He's not wrong. At least creatively, it's better to settle on a niche for a game to be really good at than to try and be good at everything and just end up being mediocre at best in most of them. The problem arises in that low-key appealing to everyone is often better for sales than stronger appeal within even a large niche, so there's often pressure from publishers to try for broader appeal rather than quality.

Granted, Final Fantasy has become notorious for radically changing between installments in an apparent attempt to attract people who weren't interested in prior games, often pushing existing fans away in the process, so maybe he's not the best person to be making this observation.
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WaffIeElite posted...

This is exactly Blizzard's problem. WoW used to be absolutely amazing, until the casual armada tears got their attention. Now Blizzard won't even show their sub numbers.

WoW was always casual.
It was built on making everything (especially leveling) easier.
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shadowsword87 posted...

Zeus posted...

tbh, SE should have just bought TSR.

Oh hellllll no, the second the late 90's hit and RPGs started to tank, SE would have dropped DnD so hard into the dirt it broke into a billion pieces and buried it with everything else.
WotC isn't the best, especially for electronics, but they still actually make stuff.

I meant during the 90s *when* things tanked. Right when Square was blowing up, TSR was capsizing. But sure, I guess they wouldn't necessarily know what to do with it but the deal would make for some decent D&D video games instead of so-so PC exclusives.

WaffIeElite posted...

This is exactly Blizzard's problem. WoW used to be absolutely amazing, until the casual armada tears got their attention. Now Blizzard won't even show their sub numbers.

A lot of that is natural fatigue and decline. Not to mention that, among MMOs, WoW has always been fairly casual.
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