This week for Video Game Tuesday I’m talking about something I participated in last week. It’s all about Proper Interactions!
Background: An In-Game Event started on August 27th this year to commemorate the 2nd Anniversary of the launch of Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn. This was the relaunch of a game that was universally criticized so badly that the director was replaced and the new director, Naoki Yoshida, strove to remake the game to be so much better.
What Makes This Event Special: Normally this would be a great time to show off some things, hint about upcoming things and just have fun with your player base. Instead Naoki Yoshida, or as he’s affectionately called by the FF14 community Yoshi-P, and his team at Square Enix took the time to not only do all that, but included an incredibly heartfelt letter to each player in the form of a special room where key staff members are all NPCs and talk to you about what they do and how they interact with you specifically. There are also lots of cool little in game nods to upcoming things, and teasers to unannounced content. However at the end of your time in this room you are treated to a scene where your character is surrounded by each of these staff members, including Yoshi-P, and they all thank you for continuing to give them the support and criticism that made A Realm Reborn so successful. This isn’t the first time I’ve been made to feel like the center of the story instead of some hapless lunk who get’s told to do the dirty work for NPC leaders too lazy or weak to do it themselves. However it’s the first time I’ve ever been treated this way by a game developer and been made to feel special not only in the continuing storyline of the game itself, but in the making of the storyline and many other things as well. It made me and many other’s cry at the simple honesty that we as a consumer so rarely get from the developers.
Why make a big deal about this?: Because it’s all too often that a game developer loses their connection with their player-base and starts to lose their faith. It’s been steadily happening to even giants in the field like Blizzard, who I still can’t believe is being this stupid about flying in their upcoming World of Warcraft expansion. Despite all this Yoshi-P and his team at Square Enix continue to make their customer’s feel appreciated in countless tiny and smaller ways and that’s why they’ll be getting my business for the foreseeable future. It’s why they’ve almost reached the same subscriber amount as World of Warcraft, who has continuously been losing subscriptions for years at this point.
Thank you Yoshi-P and your team for making us as the player feel special. a