I’m referring to Squenix’s habit of overspending on a franchise the moment it gets traction, and then not selling enough games to recoup cost, because there was never that much demand to begin with.
If they make money on this cross-over, then ok. But as someone with zero interest in MtG, but plenty in the new Final Fantasy games, this just feels like yet another expensive marketing stunt that will not get an actual return.
They lost money on Tomb Raider and Deus Ex, because they couldn’t stop themselves spending almost as much on marketing as they did development, expecting a fan base orders of magnitude larger to materialize out of thin air.
And then, instead of reducing scope to match the number of fans and thereby sales they could actually expect, they just axed the franchises.
Sure, but if they keep trying to go bigger, they WILL hit a ceiling. And they have yet to show a willingness to go smaller with a subsequent project when one ends up too big to pay for itself.
Squenix does not seem to know how to match a budget to the size of the market that actually exists, and only ever goes smaller in scope when something is a “side project” adjacent to a main product.
And the signs that they are finally starting to make the same mistake with FF are beginning to show.
Intergrade was not as big as main FF installments, but it was well received by a lot of players. As a result they immediately scaled up Rebirth to be as big, or bigger, than anything they’ve done. And lo and behold, players coming from Intergrade love it, but it didn’t magically mean a bunch more people bought it.