Anyone else tired of Square Enix's secrecy/exclusivity?

• Showing trailers months early at exclusive events that cost tons of money, and not disclosing if they'd release it to the public or not.
• Dropping games in Japan earlier than the rest of the world.
• Only Japan gets Final Mix versions of games
• Kingdom Hearts Chi & KH Coded were originally only for Japan.

For a game series that has both American and Japanese involvement, it sure does like to play favorites. And that's really annoying and unfair, in my opinion. What do you guys think?

 

Well.... they DO always release the trailers in public later, the Final Mix versions have been released internationally in the HD Remix packages, Chi and Coded have gotten much better-looking remakes which were/will be released internationally, and media is ALWAYS released in its home country before the rest of the world, so... nope, none of those things are really a problem. Just standard operating procedure... as much as there's anything "standard" about having to constantly remake and repackage your games.

 

Yeah, 5-7 years later. As a hardcore American KH fan, it's a bit of a slap in the face to think that Square Enix would assume that only Japan would want these improved versions.

Yeah...years later. Again, they're giving us the short end of the stick for whatever reason. And sure, this is developed by a Japanese company, but it also is a joint venture with an American company (whom's IP makes up almost half of the game), so it's a little crappy knowing that they're playing favorites with certain countries over others.

If it were a few days, maybe a week early I'd understand. But usually the release dates are several months apart, and then to add insult to injury, they usually drop a final mix version exclusive to Japan a few months after all the other regions get their releases. It feels like we're just an after-thought for them.

 

If you look at the way Square promotes FFXIV now, they're very open about their ideas and upcoming content. They're receptive to fan questions and issues with the game and have something like monthly events where they explain everything they're fixing and adding. Of course, that kind of transparency and those regular updates are sort of demanded by the genre being an MMO. They need to have and maintain an active player base, as well as draw new and old players back in. They also failed to listen to fans for 1.0 and that's one of the many reasons why the game went as badly as it did. There's now a great team behind FFXIV that strikes a good balance between being too open (which I'll get to) and letting people know what the deal is.

But for starters, that's in part dictated by the game's nature as an MMO. For a game like FFXV and KH3, they don't need to do a big marketing push until towards the game's release -- if anything it hurts them to promote too early, because then fans get invested and impatient (which is what's happening right now with Kingdom Hearts 3). And when something goes wrong with the project and something has to be scrapped (which happens more often than you'd think in gaming) or at least delayed, it looks bad on the company if they have already promoted it (see FFXIII Versus and Star Wars 1313).

I don't mind secrecy in game development, or in general for creative projects. It allows for a level of thrill and surprise when the thing actually comes out -- minimal details or promo images were released for The Force Awakens and that really added to the experience for me. I didn't enter into the movie with (too much) hype or expectation, two things that can slaughter a game (see The Order 1886). I think on some level it's necessary for the team to be secretive in order to maintain an objective and focused vision. Since Tabata took over FFXV, a lot of their Active Time Reports have been spent saying "fans want ______ so we're adding it in!" Of course they're not taking everything and listening to fan input is a good thing and it may just be a show of "look at how receptive we are now" but it makes me fear for the end product of FFXV, that it will perhaps feel as though things were haphazardly added to satisfy fans rather than maintaining the core team's vision.

Square also knows with KH and FF that they don't have to worry as much as someone with a new IP to build hype and interest early on. It's already there because they are established franchises with a large fanbase.

Of course it's about striking a balance. Square's exclusive theater events are a separate beast we talked about in another thread recently, how it's only really happening with KH and it's a Disney thing. Overall though people just need to calm the **** down, especially the KH fandom right now with all the trailer shenanigans lately. I understand they're hungry for information and it's partly Square's fault but if it's causing distress in your life to not have screenshots from a video game or whatever you need to reevaluate your priorities and learn to be patient and not so entitled. Give the team time to create the game and wait for them to release news in their own time. Go outside, play a different video game, I don't care. Compared to news cycles for other KH games (except maybe KH3D), that of KH3 has been very generous especially considering how far off it still is. Relax. The team knows what they're doing. You also have to consider the role of Disney in all this, who have say in what news comes out and seem to be taking a more active role in the promotion of KH3. They're not about revealing too much information or showing half-finished material. Also think back to the days before gaming news was all over the internet -- we had to wait for events and magazines to do reveals. It wasn't almost daily or weekly updates from fansites and other news sources.

I apologize if this is harsh but the entitlement of the KH fandom these days is a huge turnoff.[DOUBLEPOST=1450986000][/DOUBLEPOST]

Adapting and localizing a game takes a LOT of work. A few months is a reasonable wait, and anyway with the KH series right now they seem determined to close that gap. With the HD Remixes, it wasn't just "haha **** the Americans, only Japan wants pretty versions of these games," it was "I don't know if an HD collection would be financially viable in that market." Square is and always will be a business first. They won't do something unless they feel there will be a significant monetary return on it -- and they did eventually bring over the HD remixes.

The Final Mixes are also a way separate issue. What happened in each of those situations was that the game released in Japan. They tweaked some things, added some new bosses and other content, then released the games elsewhere. The Japanese audiences of course missed out on all that new content, and so they go back, add some more, and re-release as a Final Mix in Japan. It's not a **** you to Americans, it's a gesture to their Japanese audience (as well as a financial move). They must have reason to believe that few fans in NA or EU would purchase the game again or some kind of issue with Disney.

Furthermore, recall that there has not been a Final Mix since 2010 or 2011. Now that DLC and online infrastructure are a thing, content previously added to these games can be released to everyone as DLC. That wasn't on the table back in 2006 with Kingdom Hearts 2, and we eventually did get all that content in the HD remixes (albeit years later). Also when something really significant was added with a Final Mix -- Re:Chain of Memories -- they did bring it to NA at least.

 

This I disagree with. Square Enix needs pressure, or else KH3 is gonna miss ANOTHER console generation, just like it missed the last gen. All these KH3 trailers don't say "Coming Soon" at the end, but they say "Now in Development". Nomura is a known stickler for detail, which I appreciate him for, but unrest from fans is the kick in the pants I think he needs or else we won't get a release date until 2018 and KH3 won't be released until 2020. Hell, if it wasn't for Disney coming in and saying "Alright, that's enough, we need KH3" after KH3D came out, we'd be getting Birth By Sleep Volume 2 right now instead of KH0.2 and KH3.

The entitlement is reasonable. If it weren't for us, they wouldn't be making money, and KH wouldn't even exist if people hadn't shown interest in the original KH trailer when it came out.

There's no reason they can't do it simultaneously with the Japanese version and release them at the same time other than "Ok, let's take care of Japan first and then get to everyone else." Yes, Square is a Japanese company, but like I said, this game has heavy American involvement as well.

Spoiler

You sure about that? Because I'm pretty sure no one asked for this.

None of those reasons are apparent, so I can't think of it as anything other than a **** you to Americans. SE loves being exclusive with certain ****, so I can't give them the benefit of the doubt here, personally.

That doesn't change the fact that they gave it exclusively to Japan back in the day for a good amount of time. The modern day equivalent of that would be releasing DLC for a game only in Japan and then releasing the DLC everywhere else years later, after the initial hype of said DLC, and long after people stopped playing the game. Like I said, to Square, anything outside of Japan is an afterthought.

 

Except that it won't. It's in development for the PS4 and XBOX One and remains in development. KH3 didn't skip a console generation in the sense that FFXV did; there was never a PS3 KH game in development (that we know of I guess) that was pushed to next gen. FFXV was, but that's for a different reason (Square mismanaging the **** out of their FFXIII line of games). They would never push KH3 to next gen, even if another generation comes out before KH3 (which I doubt it will -- 2017 is a conservative release window for KH3).

There's no way KH3's release date would be anywhere close to 2020. That's just hyperbolic. Nomura (or maybe Tai Yasue, I don't recall) said in an interview that they released the announcement trailer for KH3 way too early and that it has built a premature fan expectation for news and release. By all means criticize them for that, but it's not as though they can magically accelerate game development because of it. And if they did, would you really want a rushed KH3? Whoever it was concluded by asking fans to be patient while they give the game its due time to cook and create the final product that they want. It's extremely disrespectful to the team to make these demands, especially when, for a game still in early or perhaps middle stages of development, we've had something like two or three KH3 trailers this year alone.

There's absolutely no proof that BBS Vol 2 was canned because Disney told Square to put KH3 out. Disney would be happy with any KH release because they'll make money even if it's not KH3.

You're speaking as, and represent the views of, an extremely marginal part of KH players and consumers. The average fan of KH certainly wants a Kingdom Hearts 3, but only a few of them feel entitled to news, trailers, and other information about the game this early into its development cycle. And I get it, you're a big fan of the series, but as a big fan you should have a level of gratitude and respect for the people who create it, even if you disagree with Square's business practices.

Which is what they are doing now and have been doing for a while. There was only a four month delay between Japan and worldwide releases for KH3D. That's totally reasonable, and it will probably be even thinner for KH3.

Nobody asked for it, but a hell of a lot of people still bought it. I'm sure a large number of people here did. Its sales figures certainly weren't great, but it still did okay and probably made Square some money. It is probably the worst selling game in the series (aside from the Final Mixes and Re:CoM, since that was only released to NA), but it was also probably one of the cheapest games in the series to develop.

You realize your thesis in all of this is "Square hates fans and especially Americans," right? Do you not see how absurd and unlikely that is?

No, it doesn't, but you're ignoring the point here: it's easier, cheaper, and more financially viable to release DLC than it is to do a physical re-release. It's why a lot of indie games release digitally and only see a physical release if they do really, really well. Digital is cheaper, and one doesn't have to drum up the resources to press and distribute a physical release. Square has the resources, but are more concerned about their bottom line. That's why it's more likely that any "Final Mix content" in the future would be released as DLC. Hell, Nomura even said that he's done doing Final Mixes. Again, Final Mixes being Japan only isn't just "we hate America." There's been rumblings over the years that the first Final Mix didn't leave Japan because Sony said no to it (whether because they felt it wouldn't sell, that it didn't perform to expectation in Japan, or both), and Japan is much more likely to buy multiple editions of a game than the NA market. The Final Mixes are a remnant of a different era of gaming that's no longer viable and that Square has moved on from. Continuing to invoke them when they're a thing of the past and when Square eventually did bring them to the rest of the world is just holding a grudge. There certainly won't be a Kingdom Hearts 3 Final Mix, but you can bet your butt there will be KH3 DLC.

 

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They weren't really, though. Dedicated superfans like the ones who lurk in KH communities, sure. But that represents only a subset of people who actually buy Kingdom Hearts games.

In my experience it's pretty easy to avoid spoilers for KH games, and that's coming from someone who ran a KH site for like five years. Like @libregkd said, there's no reason for them to hold back a finished game just for release date parity.

The development and release of FF games absolutely relates to and informs analysis of KH releases.

See but we've veered pretty far from your original post, which seemed to be upset with the news cycle for KH3 -- not the Final Mix releases over four years ago.

 

But those are the same people who bought the handheld games, which mostly did good. Non-superfans probably have only played KH1 and KH2 and think that they've played all of Kingdom Hearts, or think that the handheld games were unnecessary. Hell, I'd be even be pressed to say that most non-superfans probably haven't even played the remasters.

And even if there wasn't a big demand for it in the states, there definitely was an even smaller demand for KH V-Cast and Re:Coded, and they both got released here. Therefore the only reason for it to have not been released in the states, but in Japan instead, is: favoritism.

But that's you. Not everyone is like you. It'll be hard for me, as someone who watches tons of KH-related youtubers, to avoid spoilers for a Japanese game that came out months before the English version. And spoilers is a valid reason, just because you can avoid it doesn't mean everyone can, especially when there are trolls out there who's main purpose in life is to spoil things. So there is a reason. This reason.

I'm not discussing the re-releases (or lack thereof) of FF games, because I'm not informed in that and is completely independent of the fact that KH1FM, KH2FM and BBSFM all came out exclusively in Japan years before coming to the US in a HD remaster.

See how two of my original bullet points say

• Dropping games in Japan earlier than the rest of the world.
• Only Japan gets Final Mix versions of games

So, no, we're not veering pretty far from my original post.

 

The whole thing with the Final Mixes is that it's the same as the Ultra Street Fighter IV fiasco. Yes, people bought it, but many thought they should have just released THAT instead of Vanilla, then Super, then Arcade, then Arcade 2012, ending with Ultra. People constantly complain about how needless multiple releases are, and it's mostly America that does that as Japan gets the same game multiple times in arcades. They're used to it and they understand what's going on.

Yes, they're two different genres, but it's the same thing. Why would Americans be any more inclined to buy KH FM if they didn't wanna buy USFIV, which had slightly more content?

 

Well, KHFM and BBSFM aren't really worth being released in the US on their own. But KH2FM was definitely worth being released in the US, it had 14 extra bosses (not including the absent silhouettes and Roxas fight that was originally just a cutscene), a new difficulty, a new drive form, new missions and new collectibles. It was pretty much a completely new game, and they could've marketed it as such in the US.

 

Honestly, I don't care. Kingdom Hearts is such a great series and just having all these wonderful games, mostly in HD, is a great thing to have. Tetsuya Nomura and his entire team come up with crazy surprises to catch us all, and I'm sure he may have a plan to potentially release Kingdom Hearts III with a worldwide release.