Strong Final Fantasy Tactics Sales May Lead To More Remasters And Sequels

Pro tip: Don't release it on game key card, or worse, code in box, if you want better sales, Square Enix!

You know, I get their point, but something feels really bad about an AAA publisher like Square-Enix (or Capcom, since they’ve done this too) basically blackmail fans into supporting them if they want to see more games released. I really don’t like being told “if you want to see more of things you love, you need to buy the things you don’t.”
Not that I’m implying there isn’t a reason for this to exist, or that it’s bad, or that people don’t actually want this.

I'm a Square-Enix mark and have bought most (if not all) of their Switch physical releases. Skipped The Adventures of Dai and Dragon Quest X Offline though.

I've done my part, already pre-ordered on both Switch and Steam. It's one of the best games ever made.

Ultima's explosion sent Ramza and co. to a post-apocalyptic Ivalice and he has to save its people from despair WHEN

@Pillowpants Yeah, this. If it were a true physical release on Switch 2, I'd gladly pay $60 or $70 for it. As it is, I'll see how much space the Switch 2 upgrade pack takes up before deciding whether to buy a Switch 1 physical copy now or a digital copy in a year or two.

EDIT: Looks like both the Switch and Switch 2 versions take up 6.8 GB, so hopefully the "upgrade pack" will just be a tiny unlock code of some sort.

Chrono Trigger please

@breach187 I agree. But I also think people have gotten TOO used to waiting for games to go on sale and not supporting them at release.

People seem to have forgotten if a product doesn't do well it doesn't continue.

So, to a degree, I think it's fine to remind gamers of the realities of business.

Just as long as they don't pull a Capcom and say "We cancelled MegaMan legends 3 because YOU didn't want it enough!".

@Metazoxan "People seem to have forgotten if a product doesn't do well it doesn't continue."

The problem is that sometimes they take the wrong lesson there. It's perfectly plausible that this will fail due to Game-Key Card shenanigans, but they'll think people don't want TRPGs.

A full-phyiscal Switch version with a free upgrade pack should go a long way toward mitigating that—as long as the upgrade pack isn't over 5 GB or some such.

If they wanted strong sales they shouldn't have cut content for it then. It never feels good when the newest version of a game has less than an older version. I'd like more Tactics games from Square (also another crack at Explorers), but I can't get behind paying full price for game that is missing things.

@Metazoxan I can understand that sentiment to an extent, but I also don’t want a company that is led by someone like the current Square Enix CEO, who continuously makes poor decisions and is causing the company to flounder financially, basically begging fans to support his bad leadership under threat of losing potential games they may want, rather than correcting the problems internally.

Edit: I was thinking of the previous Square-Enix CEO when I made this comment, though the situation hasn’t exactly improved under the current CEO.

More overpriced barebones ports? Hahahaha, no.

Vagrant Story deserves a remaster or even remake.

"Buy this game to get the game you actually want!"

Translation:
"If you cough up your money for this game, than we will make more of it so you can cough up more of your money!" 🤣

Jokes aside, this game looks pretty good, so I hope it does sell well.

I can't imagine it costs them much to develop these.

@breach187 I was thinking the same thing it’s like by our overpriced remaster or were never gonna give you what you want again.

I've always been a big Square fan, so ok, bring 'em on! This will be my third copy of FFT.

@Jade37 Agree. The fact that this isn’t the Definitive version of the game, and the possibility of it being a game key card, turns me off to supporting it. Then they go and throw strong-arm coercion tactics into it which makes me want to support it even less. If it DOES do well, it just opens up the possibility of them releasing a definitive version years later and getting people to buy it again. This whole thing leaves a metaphorical bad taste in my mouth.

@LastFootnote 100% agree. I was only saying that I don't ENTIRELY blame companies at this point for feeling the need to remind people they need to actually buy games if they want them to continue.

The fact companies can take the wrong lesson from failure is certainly an issue and aside from them giving a physical release, the other way to deal with that is for people to buy digital instead of keycards if true physical isn't offered.

At least they'd know people wanted the game then.

But on the topic of this article I was just playing a little devil's advocate for square enix.

I'm good. I'd just as soon stick with the classics than see modern Squeenix manhandling and milking them. Especially with them having the gall to call this the definitive FFT. We all know these usually stand for Definitively the Least Amount of Effort spent to make money on an old game.

Yes please. I'm still waiting for a true remake of the original version of Chrono Trigger. No re-writes. No anime cutscenes. No "Dream Devourer." No alluding to Chrono Cross. Just the SNES version remade. Make it HD-2D, make it FFT-style, just keep Chrono Cross out of it.

@breach187 It’s sleazy emotional manipulation and I feel less inclined to give them any money now. Not that the remaster looks good anyway.

I thinks Square-Enix’s thinking and Nintendo Life’s sub heading are toxic for the gaming industry.

The thought process should be that Square-Enix set out to make the best game possible knowing that such excellence would bring about enough sales to continue their desire to create more games of higher and higher excellence.

The deciding factor should not lay in the consumers banding together to “get it done” by throwing money towards SE. The deciding factor should be in SE mindset of excellence breeds success.

As for SE being unsure if strategy games sell, and that being a deciding factor on future strategy games. Over the last 8 years, the Switch has enjoyed high sales from SE own strategy games as well as Nintendo’s Mario & Rabbids and Fire Emblem games, and do forget all the other SRPG’s on Switch, which have done well enough.

The messaging from SE and NintendoLife sound destructive and encourage rewarding a games company before the game is even proven to be worthy of your money.

@Whyarewestillhere For this one in particular it probably did, because they never saved or archived the source code, so this had to be created from mostly scratch.

Wait a minute.
What happened with Final Fantasy Tactics Remake that I knew from from PS1 version?
Why they changed the content into more mature until got rated CERO C / PEGI 16 / still ESRB TEEN?
I saw Blood mentioned from ESRB descriptor. What was going on with this change?
Final Fantasy Tactics that I knew from PS1 didn't even have that inappropriate contents.
Which part from the remake that should I aware?

Holy crap I must have missed this bit of (big) news, had no idea this was on the horizon

I know it’s emotional blackmail but Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift is one of my favourite games of all time.

@breach187 True, but from what I read they've used sources from various sites so to help put it together so it's not all their work.

I'll wait for a review before diving in. But I'll be happy to support it if it's a good port.

@Anti-Matter for the record they lost the source code. So this was a from scratch remake. They didn't just update the code.

It's a mostly faithful remake from what I've seen. But some details will be a bit different for one reason or another.

@Ulysses That's a very fair comment to make. I did think this was the usual Squenix stakeholder pep talk on reading the headline but this is a dawg who clearly cares (and probably knows he needs sales to convince the stakeholder overlords for future projects).

I'm somewhat interested in getting this remake, but probably not for full price.
If they want me to pay that, make a new game and make it good. This kind of comment just makes me not want to support the business - spend money on this (IMO) lazy looking remake just to potentially have to spend more money for a new game?

If you just want to test the waters, and see if there is an appetite, I would have much preferred new content, even if it was a smaller project for half the price.

I'm genuinely excited for this one (on Switch 1). I've never owned a platform that I can play this game on before. Sure, it may not objectively have the most content compared to previous iterations, but I'll take it.

@Ulysses Exactly. I can see how these statements can be interpreted in more than one direction, but to me he seems genuinely excited to potentially revitalize the series. They don't come off as coercive to me.

Some seem to forget that game companies are, in the end, businesses. Devs, at least at larger companies like SE, often don't have much say in what they work on since profits are very influential regarding where resources are directed. As awesome as it is for devs to explore new ideas, remasters, and remakes, that doesn't mean every single one will bear fruit. There is always some amount of risk, especially with new IPs. This isn't to say I don't want studios to experiment and try new things; quite the opposite! But there are limits.

One of my favorites ever ever. If you've not played it, I hope you pick it up. The music alone...

In the interview he was asked specifically about the possibility of tactics advance and A2 remakes and gave a completely reasonable answer. Pretty hot takes here to frame that as blackmail or guilt tripping consumers. It wasn't an unprompted statement.

Let's all join forces and not buy this so they will start focusing on making more original games....

@Ganon821
I would like to get Remake / Remastered of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and A2 for modern console with bigger display on screen.

Ogre Battle. That is all for my off topic.

"it shows the business viability of the strategy RPG genre." lol what? There are a lot of strategy RPGs and some sell well. Square Enix might have forgotten releasing quite a few of them in the recent past. That's what happens when you spend all your time snorting quarterly reports. Rots the brain.

This game isn't going to define the viability of the genre. It's viable. Make your games good and see what happens.

aww no Extra PVP content
will this ver. get new game+ this time

New games yes please. GBA titles remake eehhhh not for me.

@Metazoxan I'm really sorry that I prefer to get a better game for a lower price later instead of betting my money on a "promising" release.

@snil4 Your acting like I condemned sales in general. Everyone likes a good sale, but if that's the only time anyone buys a game then don't act surprised when a game studios shuts down because of lack of profits to keep the lights on.

Of course that's hardly your sole responsibility, so no need to defend yourself. Again everyone likes a good sale, I buy games on sale all the time.

Just be self aware that companies do actually need people to buy full price to make a profit. That's just the nature of business, it's not a personal attack.

@Metazoxan Your argument doesn't really hold water. Sales increase profits by selling a higher volume of units. That's the entire concept - and it wouldn't exist if it wasn't profitable.

Ah yes, Emotional Blackmail.

Gonna flip it around on ya. My future purchases are highly dependent on the quality of this release. Better make it good or those future purchases are going away.

(Haha just kidding I'm not gonna buy them anyway)

@Fazermint There is a limit to how beneficial lowering price to increase sales is. Increased sales numbers only help if you actually still make a profit per sale and overall only if total profits surpass development cost. Game studios that produce games people like and yet still go bankrupt just proves this point. You can sell plenty of units and it won't matter if actual profits aren't enough.

And again, It's not like I'm condemning sales. But if people really want to encourage a franchise or developer to grow then buying full price helps. Especailly at release as publishers and investors tend to make decisions pretty quick based on those initial numbers.

of course you're free to not care about any of that, it's certainly not your responsability alone, but that's still the reality of buisness.

@Fazermint Sales increase revenue, not necessarily profit. The other important calculation is Cost of Goods Sold. It's way too simplistic to assume that increased sales always lead to increased profits.

@Metazoxan Again, you're conflating decision making with economical concepts.

Don't think you should use the phrase "the reality of business" when you lack a fundamental understanding of it.

@breach187 There's no "physical" release for FFT on Switch 2 anywhere except for in Japan, where it will be a code-in-a-box.

On the bright side, it is getting a real physical release on Switch 1 and a free Nintendo Switch 2 Edition upgrade pack. So this is the most consumer-friendly Switch 2 release from Square Enix so far. I think this is worth supporting over the upcoming Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D and Octopath Traveler 0, which are on Game-Key Cards on Switch 2 and have no upgrade path.

@jsty3105 Unless we're literally talking about selling physical units for less money than producing the cartridge and case, plus transport and whatever, sales will always contribute towards your profit margin.

The cost of production for software is static. The vast majority of sales are digital, and the cost of sale is virtually zero unless you want to factor in the licensing cost for selling the game on the storefront (which also is a static amount). Sales fee is based on a percentage of the unit price at the time of purchase.

And physical sales only reflect on the profit margins of the stores that carry them.

Like what am I simplifying?

I’ll be honest, I would have preferred it in HD2D like Triangle Strategy. So this is a bittersweet remake for me.

@Azileron I'm frankly shocked and disappointed at the number of comments claiming blackmail etc (then again, we're living in an age where outrage has been pretty normalised). Squeenix chose to spend money on developing and launching this title - it's perfectly natural business to use it as a way to test interest in future titles and they gave clear reasons why they chose this instead of others.

Whether you're personally interested in this title or not, the basic truth remains. If we want to see more titles, it's much much more likely to happen if this particular one sells well. Of course, there are many different ways to finance titles - seems like Square Enix may fund future title development from the sales of this one.

“But, at the same time, it shows the business viability of the strategy RPG genre.”

Is this something that needs to be proven at this point?

I kinda miss the days when this went without saying.

@Fazermint You're oversimplifying that increased sales automatically means increased profits. Revenue of course contributes to the profit margin but there are so many things at play (plus profit margins and profits are different things). I also fundamentally believe that deep discounting and race to the bottom pricing is more harmful than good though that's not the main topic here.

Ultimately, you have a vastly different position and I don't find it useful to quibble over whether sales leads to profits when the key item is something quite different. I'm not saying you're really wrong after all.

@Synecdoche unfortunately, yeah. I think he's right. There needs to be more examples to prove that turn-based strategy RPGs without big budget animations or characters are viable (as in, you can reasonably sell enough at the right price to turn a decent profit within the first month).

Pro tip: dont take content away, i was gonna buy it, but ive heard that there is no conent from wotl, its a pass for me, will continue to play the mobile version.

Are we supporting a publisher that has to collect data from a fans website? 😹

Why even a cheap port when they can let the fans enjoy a total recreation of this game. It would be an entirely new experience. The old game should be a bonus with the new recreation.

@AnDa would've taken much much longer to reverse engineer the systems. I'm in favour of this method.