Link: https://automaton-media.com/en/news/young-gamers-in-japan-may-not-be-forming-the-same-attachment-to-final-fantasy-or-dragon-quest-because-modern-dev-cycles-are-as-long-as-their-childhood-users-theorize/

It's honestly kinda crazy how long some games spend in development. The Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy is a perfect example of something that should've been quick but ended up being so bloated and took forever to make.

FF7Remake was announced in 2015, got stuck in development hell for a bit, released 2020. The sequel released 2024. The third one still hasn't been teased yet. How many people are attached to a franchise if it takes 10 years to get the full story? I loved the first remake but dropped the second one, I just didn't care about the story as much as I did ~5 years ago.

Remember the FFVII tech demo they showcased during the PS3 reveal. Good chance FF7 remake has been in development since then, but got shelved because FF15 development became a train wreck

Maybe don't build your lives and identity around games?

What? What does that have to do with it? They're not engaging with once massively popular stories, not bemoaning how they can't be obsessed with them.

Why would you have an "attachment" to patterns of light on a screen?

... Because they tell a compelling story?

I can have a preferred color combination (turquoise and violet) without making that color combination my entire personality. You can do the same thing with video games.

What an odd thing to say with such a bold username.

I do remember it. And honestly, I was annoyed that it was only Part 1 of a trilogy.

During that time, I was already pretty sick of movies that push to be a trilogy. So I wonder how many gamers are like me who are waiting for the entire FF7 remake to be released before they play it.

Not sure why they'd think kids are the target audience for a remake of a 29 year old game.

Surely all the kids are playing the latest mobile slop pocket money sink?

Kids will abandon most pre-existing shit to find something they can call their own.

Being Japan, I suspect all the kids are sinking money into Gacha Impact or Honkai Gacha Rail or whatever else

Don't forget that FF13's development was a big hell, too, not to mention that the post launch reception was below what squeenix expected

☝️🤓 why do you have an emotional attachment to wavelengths of light?

I'm sorry, I'm not sure if you're satirizing the initial poster or not :(

Because I love wavelengths but it doesn't feel the same. It just goes through me. ☹️

The entire GTA series exists between 1997 and 2013.

They have the next one apparently coming out this year but who cares at this point?

Games from old series should be viewed the same way Hollywood reboots are. It's just hoping a name will help with advertising.

That's because Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest aren't making kids games anymore.

They're remaking old games for nostalgia value for old gamers like me who played those games as a kid.

NGL I'm still waiting on the dragon warrior monsters remakes because I'd always been a bigger fan of those than any Pokémon game. I doubt it's coming any time soon, but a guy can hope.

That's the whole issue though. None of these studios are putting out games for modern kids. There just rehashing their old IPs and pretending they're new games. Kids dont want spruce up 1990's games. They want games for them.

Also DQ remake characters creep me out.

The graphics and "the biggest game ever" races have led to this.

No, you do not need physically accurate bubbles flowing in the shaded beer bottle that you will at best appreciate for 3 seconds while looking to get on with the game.

Or realistic horse balls. Or 4K skin textures. Or ray tracing in every game. Or 40000 side quests on a map as big as Mars.

But also, what's wrong with having any of those things? I'd argue it's better to have those things with less developer crunch. We don't need children to form "attachments" to video game franchises. That just breeds loyalty to corporations. We need games that are developed with love and care by developers who treat their employees and customers humanely. Whatever that looks like, we want that.

A romantic attraction to something going through you? Lewd!

I think I buy this worldwide, honestly. Case in point: one of the most popular video game series for young people recently has been Five Nights at Freddy's, and that series dropped its first four games in eleven months, and its next four games in four years. Minecraft remains one of the most popular games in the world, and it's releasing full free content drops every few months. Pokemon is still insanely popular among kids, and there hasn't been a year without a new Pokemon game release since 2015.

So, yeah. Hey, kids like novelty. Who knew?

Oh, I absolutely am.

But also, what's wrong with having any of those things?

Nothing. I'd take more good games instead of fewer hyperrealistic ones, if I had to choose, but those features themselves aren't anything bad.

The compulsion that every game has to have them, that's what's annoying, particularly when it comes at the price of putting developers under pressure.

I'd argue it's better to have those things with less developer crunch.

If we are to have them at all, yes, less crunch is better.

We don't need children to form "attachments" to video game franchises. That just breeds loyalty to corporations.

The loyalty to corporations is a bad thing, absolutely, but I can also see how forming attachments can be nice. I very much enjoy my attachments to various movie or game franchises.

The shitty part is that these franchises are linked to corporations. I like Star Wars, but fuck Disney.

We need games that are developed with love and care by developers who treat their employees and customers humanely. Whatever that looks like, we want that.

Absolutely. Grand games should get the time and care they warrant. Commercial pressure is poisoning game development and has been for way too long already.

I prefer quality over quantity. Problem is we don't have quality, even for games that take a long time.

I used to care quite a lot about graphics, but as the years have passed, I find graphically beautiful games less pleasing than a lot of the older games. It all seems too rounded and smooth now. I've been playing a lot of Project Diablo 2 lately, but when the new character dropped for Diablo 2 Resurrected, I figured I should give that a shot. While the graphics are definately nice, and the gameplay is smooth, I prefer the older graphics, because the griddy, slightly pixelated world adds so much to the dark and gloomy theme.

I've also just absolutely had it with every single Unreal Engine game looking exactly the same. Did the devs just lose all individual artistry?

Sometimes less is just more.

I mean, when games take a long time to come out and then still have serious flaws (looking at you starfield) can you blame anyone for not feeling too attached to a franchise? God I remember when veilguard was first announced after Inquisition... Announced, cancelled to be reworked into live service, cancelled again only to completely change everything that really made it a DA game.

Yeah, that makes sense. Do they need to be forming attachments to the same series that we did though? Certainly stories told by contemporary writers are more likely to resonate with someone growing up in today's world, rehashing and up the stuff that resonated with us isn't necessarily the best move for getting the youths on board. Let the ones with interest in the history of gaming play dragon quest and final fantasy.

Games from 30-40 years ago aren’t popular anymore! The kids aren’t worshipping FFVII! It’s the collapse of gaming! People not liking the same things I grew up liking are ruining everything!

/s

Was that necessary for that one? Is anyone actually spouting shit like that in earnest?

Edit: Never mind, I just remembered reading that article…

I mean, you already got one downvote suggesting someone didn't pick up on it.

I miss satire…

Yep because they drove up expectations while gaslighting and pretending they had tech they didn't over and over and over and over to make "theoretical" money and used short sighted abuse of developers to milk all trust from all up because heretical insane hyper capitalist profiteering models are actively destructive and the owners are heartless fools lacking ethical compass because we bred and selected them to only be slaves to the megacorps and do its will without dying from the incurred emotional impact that is supposed to come to those morally corrupt traitors of human kind that rape their own species to serve idols of hyper capitalist delusional demonic entities that are a raw blight spawn from the greed of dying or dead sociopaths ego