Comments from the Devs

[Deuce]

3 million for an 8min. CGI trailer like the one SE made doesn't surprise me at all. If anything that would be expected for the level of detail and overall quality of the CGI.

[miokomioko]

Jesus Christ, that's crazy for something that wasn't all that nice.

I'm sorry, but that finale trailer turned a lot of heads.

[Churchill]

The heads of people playing FFXIV 1.0

[Rocl]

people who knew i played xiv asked me about it once end of an era came out but i decided not to talk to people who talk to me about video games in public

[Eagleheart]

Even folks who were playing only FFXI or TERA asked me about that trailer >_> Eye of the beholder I suppose.

*I* think it was damned awesome.

[Lucavi]

I'm sorry, but that finale trailer turned a lot of heads.

It turned the heads of those interested/invested in XIV, sure. To others, it was yet another feather in the cap of logic that states that, and I quote:

"Everyone knows that SE can make CGI. Not everyone knows if SE can make a decent game when the CGI is finished."

I'm not going to bash the action part of it, as it was nice. The ending was pointless, however. Completely pointless, as it was so similar to the beginning that it was a waste of time and resources to create. On a personal note, it reminded me of the exact same intro trailer from XI. Exposition featuring confidently-striding nameless adventurers with smirks that border on arrogance >> rising action leading to initial clash of good forces vs. evil forces >> night-time climax culminating in larger-than-life bad guys unleashing big bad spell (meteor, ect.), thus wiping out most good forces save for a few notables >> resolution featuring a new batch of rresh-faced and arrogantly-confident heroes in a brightly lit, clear sky summer day, posing together before the fade-out to the FF title screen.

I was impressed with this flow of images and predictable pacing - back in 2003, when I saw XI's trailer. Ten years and quite a few English and Literature courses later, I am underwhelmed by the sameness of it all.

[Pyree]

I know a lot of people that were previously uninterested and became interested after the trailer. I would say the trailer was pretty impressive, but of course this is subjective.

In any case, though, $3 million isn't really a lot of money when it comes to AAA games these days. I can't find a reliable source for how much they've spent on FFXIV specifically, but it's not uncommon for AAA MMO titles to cost more than $50-100 million. I'm sure FFXIV has racked up at least that much between both versions, $3 million is probably just a drop in the bucket for them.

The linked article says they were working on it for 1.5 years. If all of that $3 million went to employee salaries (which it didn't), then you're looking at 40 employees making $50k per year. Realistically, they probably had quite a few less employees working on it, and were getting paid more than that. But this is purely speculation. Still, that number doesn't surprise me.

[Spider-Dan]

@SD: What were XIV's initial box sales?

Looks like they were around 655,000.

Based on a sub model, the boxed sales are a firm foundation, but its the monthly fee that pays the bills and keeps the lights on. XI makes a profit because the monthly profit greatly outpaces what paltry little expenses it takes to keep their servers running. XIV, not so much.

I was only addressing the claim that XIV cost a great deal more to make than XI. XI was SE's first foray into MMOs, so I think that's not likely to be the case.

Whether or not 1.0's subscriber base could have ultimately sustained the game is anyone's guess. Given that sunk costs are sunk costs, the only real question is whether the subscriber base would pay for the server upkeep. I don't know what the servers cost, so that's hard to say, but there are a lot of MMOs out there with very small subscriber bases.

[Lucavi]

Thanks for the sales numbers. That wouldn't have been too bad of a number had SE managed to retain those subs even for 6 months at $15 a month.

The claim stems from the newly-designed engine, the cost of marketing to an entire global market instead of simply dropping a commercial or two and launching the game, the increased size of the team (assumed, as these teams become massive to create games, much less MMOs), ect. Then, you wind up doing it all over again due to ARR, which resulted in a "rebuilt" engine, even more marketing, the server costs (with no reimbursement considering we weren't paying for months upon months), ect.

Add all that up and I can't see it costing less to make than XI. Its speculation and nothing more, but I don't feel a particular lack of confidence with the statements.

[miokomioko]

I know you guys all keep saying "only those already interested" but I made a point to rummage around through the comments on any site that published that trailer to see how the average non-xiv-playing asshole responded and there really was a shit-ton of "I never cared about XIV but this looks awesome, when does it come out?."

[Elcura]

Don't care whether you love FFXIV or hate it, the End of Era trailer is incredible in so many damn ways. Shit's great.

[Lucavi]

Time will tell, Mioko. Time will tell.

[MutamixBubblypots]

The heads of people playing FFXIV 1.0

Actually I talked to a few people that never heard of FFXIV or never played FFXIV 1.0 become interested in ARR after seeing that trailer posted on gaming sites.

And I'm talking about people in real life, not online.

[Manako]

Seems crazy to think that 3 mil was spent on that video, especially considering it didn't really have VO. I remember seeing that Double Fine wanted 16 million to do Psychonauts 2, so I suppose FFXIV would be upwards of that number. Can't even imagine having to budget out that much money :X

[Lucavi]

I don't consider it the norm at all, but Star Wars had a budget surpassing 100 mil. Just something to remember.

The main point, of course, is that the budget doesn't matter so long as the return is worth the investment. SE could spend 500 mil, but if they captured 5 mil subs at $15 bucks a pop for the next 10 years, they made a brilliant move in the end. We just have to hope that SE can deliver on the apparent hype that people are talking about the trailer dredging up.

[Khrno]

The core team of ARR consists of almost 300 people, not counting outsourced stuff, like the EoaE video for example, since that's done by Visual Works who are SE's studio for all their CGI videos.

http://www.rpgsite.net/interviews/39...oper-interview

Yoshida: Currently, the in-house team consists of almost 300 members. We also have outsourced a fair amount of work to third-party companies, so all-in-all, the team is fairly large.

They also took people from other teams/projects which has caused many games to be internally delayed (Versus being the worst affected, as well as some 3DS games, and HD ports).

So it wouldn't be surprising at all that 14 has become the most expensive game in SE history, I don't know about ARR alone, but undoubtedly if we add all the development time of 1.0 and ARR.
I cannot find a source, but I do remember reading somewhere that there had been up to 700 people involved in ARR in some way or another since Yoshida took over.

[Lucavi]

Three hundred people?! Jesus, Joseph and Mary... yeah, too big to fail qualifies at this point.

Good luck, Yoshi-P; you've got a TON on your shoulders, but you'll be a savior to the masses if you can pull this off.

[Pooky]

Three hundred people?! Jesus, Joseph and Mary... yeah, too big to fail qualifies at this point.

Good luck, Yoshi-P; you've got a TON on your shoulders, but you'll be a savior to the masses if you can pull this off.

And he doesn't make it easy on himself, didn't he say (according to Rein's translation of Live Letter V) that he wanted the first content patch out 2.5 months after ARR launch? Slip of the tongue or not, the guy really is making a statement with just about everything he does.

[Khrno]

And he doesn't make it easy on himself, didn't he say (according to Rein's translation of Live Letter V) that he wanted the first content patch out 2.5 months after ARR launch? Slip of the tongue or not, the guy really is making a statement with just about everything he does.

That's true, but this comes from not too long after he took on the project. He wants 4-5 big content updates during a year, but to not make people wait too long, he ended up dividing the big updates in small patches that were out within a month or so from each other.

We could very well have the first content patch within 4 or 6 weeks from launch adding a few more quests here and there, while the meat of the update will be housing, crystal tower additions, and maybe pvp stuff at the 10-12 weeks mark.

[Pooky]

That's true, but this comes from not too long after he took on the project. He wants 4-5 big content updates during a year, but to not make people wait too long, he ended up dividing the big updates in small patches that were out within a month or so from each other.

We could very well have the first content patch within 4 or 6 weeks from launch adding a few more quests here and there, while the meat of the update will be housing, summoner, and maybe pvp stuff at the 10-12 weeks mark.

He's been extremely adamant that summoner will be available at launch.