Elder Scrolls Online and Final Fantasy XIV directors muse on how to maintain a 'forever game'
And plenty of other stories from this week's events at Melbourne's International Games Week.
Compare the pair: Both are mass-multiplayer online role playing games. Both launched within a year of each other, based on popular video game intellectual property. Both also have huge player bases that have grown over the past decade.
And both the Directors of Elder Scrolls Online and Final Fantasy XIV presented on their past 10 years at Melbourne International Games Week, painting similar pictures, but with a few interesting differences.
While neither is cracking NewZoo's current top 10 monthly most played games, both behemoth titles are part of the broader 'forever games' trend. These are games that launched nearly a decade ago and have retained their player base for so long that it's now starting to raise questions as to whether they are stealing player time from other newer title launches. Elder Scrolls Online has a player base of 24 million, and Final Fantasy XIV has 61 million according to MMO Populations.
There's also an interesting dynamic here where both games are walking an increasingly narrower tightrope of attracting new players while also satisfying their existing player base. These companies are walking a fine line of addressing player feedback, essentially giving their customers what they want, while also making decisions that are in the broader interest of the game as a whole, as opposed to individual categories of players.
While there were plenty of similarities, there was one key difference in the talks between Elder Scrolls Online's Game Director Rich Lambert and Final Fantasy XIV's Producer and Director Naoki Yoshida (also known as Yoshi P). They both have different mindsets on how they intend to expand their games going forward.
Lambert's talk was closed off to the public, given as a keynote at this year's Game Connect Asia Pacific conference, an event run by Australia's video game peak body Interactive Games and Entertainment Association.
When asked about the game's future plans, Lambert voiced concern that the Elder Scrolls' expansions (which it calls "chapters") had become "formulaic" and that was something they were looking at changing going forward. He pointed to the fact that each chapter had a set number of dungeons, bosses and quests that had become somewhat typical. "We want to surprise players again," he told the room. Interestingly, Lambert inadvertently ended up addressing one of the criticisms levelled at Final Fantasy XIV's latest expansion in discussing this point.
Asked a similar question at a public event run as part of Melbourne International Games Week, Yoshida gave a more conservative answer. In fairness, Final Fantasy XIV is producing new styles of content too: introducing a new 24-player raid series in November. But Yoshida hasn't expressed any broader notions on shaking up what the game is already doing in terms of the structure of its story quest, raid and dungeon content. Yoshida explained, via a translator, that content for Final Fantasy XIV is planned two years ahead of time, with that guideline changing based on player feedback.
He pointed to during the last expansion — Endwalker — where a form of already-planned exploration content was cut due to poor player feedback. Now, a year on, that feedback has changed and new exploration content is expected to be introduced next year as part of the game's 7.2 patch. It's a perfect analogy demonstrating the yo-yo effect of trying to cater to the whims of a broader pool of people.
Both directors emphasised player feedback in their talks, saying that it was fundamental in shaping earlier iterations of their titles and guiding future decisions. But as the number of voices in the rooms grows, both games are now trying to cater to broader categories of players with each change.
Something else the pair had in common: Both strictly said nothing new about the future content of their respective games.
That makes sense given every utterance on content is usually a headline. Games this big sustain their own news sites and Discord channels. The talks, however, were an interesting glimpse into the intricacies and decision-making that goes into remaining a top game. Ten years on and both are going strong, with intentions to last another decade.
Notes from the first half of Melbourne International Games Week
Conscript wins Game of The Year. Fresh off the press, Conscript — Jordan Mochi’s solo-developed game featured in my past two editions — picked up Game of The Year at last night’s Game Developer Awards. The game won awards in two more catagories: Excellence in Art and Excellence in Emerging. Chaos Theory Games in New South Wales won Studio of the Year and Ross Symons, the founder of Big Ant Studios, won the The Adam Lancman Award — a career achievement prize.
Don't reveal the name of your game in your first early teaser videos. That was the top tip from Fat Alien Cat co-founder Julian Beiboer at his talk on market-led game design. He elaborated that once the name is out, that essentially becomes your launch trailer and media outlets and influencers may refuse to cover it down the line, preventing a much sought-after boost in attention closer to the game's debut. More broadly, he advocated that indie game developers release up to 10 videos of very early builds or mock-ups of their game online to see if they catch and generate traction well before committing resources to building them.
A gamer goes to a game dev conference. I felt very much like a fish out of water at this year's Game Connect Asia Pacific conference. It was a bit of a Jon Snow moment: Yes, I know about games, but I really do not know as much about the games industry. I was impressed by just how sharp and savvy audience questions were at the event. To reference the two talks I mentioned earlier with Lambert and Yoshida: Lambert was peppered with questions from the game dev audience regarding player engagement, challenges in retention and introducing new players to the game. Yoshida was asked much simpler questions about games he enjoyed or whether he’s had a chance to reflect on Final Fantasy XIV’s success. Hats off to Australia's game dev community: I could trust that at any talk they were present in, they'd ask way better questions than me!
Australia's game dev job market has fared a bit better than the UK. That insight is brought to you by Scotland's Colin Macdonald, the director of Game Jobs Live. He made the over 30-hour journey to Australia to present the latest dataset on Australia's job market for game devs, using screened data from game developer job advertisements. He found that while Australia suffered a decline in the number of advertised jobs, it was a magnitude less than what was seen in the UK, pointing to some resilience within the Australian game development sector. It's a powerful dataset that I'll explore in more detail in a later edition.
Yoshi P's top tip for game developers: Play bad games. In his closing remarks, Naoki Yoshida told the crowd that if they aspire to be game developers, they should aim to play games they don't like to completion and then assess what they would change to improve them. Refuse the urge to “put down the controller," he said via translator. He also mentioned that his favourite game, and go-to example of good game design, is a 1990s title Tactics Ogre. That's coincidental for me. I've played Tactics Ogre Reborn — the remake — and didn't enjoy it, but kept playing to the end regardless. That’s largely because it's one of my mate's favourite games.
Lots in today’s edition. Anything caught your eye in the wrap up of news and thoughts? Let me know in the comments below. I’ll be covering Australia’s largest game expo PAX in the next edition.
What I'm playing: Final Fantasy XIV Savage Raiding
I once described savage raiding in Final Fantasy XIV to a friend as being like brain surgery with seven other people.
The analogy holds water. To overcome a savage raid in Final Fantasy XIV you need a combination of expertise, patience, precision, teamwork and dedication. This is the kind of video game content that feels oh so rewarding to clear, but oh so frustrating to master. I’d say its harder than all of the souls-likes I’ve ever played. Why? Because not only is it tough, it's co-operative. When you aren't getting it wrong, it's likely someone else in the party is.
Let me explain. In Final Fantasy XIV you conduct raids — essentially a very tough boss fight — with seven other players online. You play as either a tank, a healer or a DPS — short for damage per second, basically meaning a role focused on dealing damage. Tanks protect the party, healers heal, and the DPS do the lion's share of work in chipping down the boss's life total. Fights last for about 10 minutes, in which you have to navigate a maze of mechanics and traps laid by the boss in real-time designed to wipe the party.
It's an on-rails fight, so the boss will do roughly the same thing, at the same time, every time you face it — hence why you can learn it. And you do this while performing your role to the best of your ability. And if you don't, well, you won't do enough damage to the boss and at the end of 10 minutes it will cast an ability that outright kills the party and you have to start again — known in gaming jargon as an 'enrage'.
Each 'tier' of savage has four bosses of increasing difficulty. Even clearing the first is an achievement for newer players. There are no hard figures, but players online estimate that around a quarter of Final Fantasy XIV's player base of over 61 million players attempt this style of content.
Many form groups — called statics — to try and clear these fights, meeting anywhere from two to five times per week online to practise them. It's similar to being in a sports team. It's a commitment that you need to keep if you sign up to one. That said, from experience, its a difficult one to explain to family and friends if there’s a clash: 'Sorry I need to go home to beat a video game boss'.
This time, I decided to do this tier at my own pace, at the cost of being matched with strangers through party finder — a system used to form up player groups — each time I wanted to attempt a fight. That sounds fine in theory, but the problem with it is that everyone learns at a different pace and skill levels vary. That lack of consistency means you may queue up for a run at a boss, spend hours on attempts, and not actually make any progress on it.
Eventually, after enough tries and — I kid you not — detailed study of the boss's mechanics, you will clear. After two months of work, I recently beat this savage raiding tier. This was the fourth that I've cleared. My first one took nearly four months' worth of practice. I guess I'm improving?
After taking a break from savage raiding, I was also surprised to find how far the local ecosystem had progressed since I last played. The local server now has its own set of strategies, guides and a culture on how to undertake this style of content. That was lacking when the Oceania server first launched in 2022.
As for this raid tier, they've borrowed themes from WWE wrestling and other fighting games in the tier's design and stylings. You fight each boss as part of a broader tournament. It's easily one of the most engaging and interesting tiers they've released to date with some very unique bosses. I'd also argue this series of four fights are the most accessible for new players looking to try out savage raiding for the first time. Not because it's easy, but rather because the mechanics are clearer and it's easier to know who is at fault if someone gets them wrong. (Not great for party social dynamics and inevitable blame games, but great for progression of the fight).
My broader feelings towards savage raiding are mixed. I get a lot of satisfaction out of undertaking this style of content, but it's also incredibly draining. There's a real sense of relief when you actually clear the tier. Not to mention, dealing with other players online can be taxing at the best of times.
On the Oceania server you do feel like you are on a clock with it too. Take too long to clear the tier, and due to a lack of players attempting high-end content, it becomes too hard to get seven other players to commit to helping you progress on fights they've cleared. It does, however, lead to some interesting stories and experiences in gaming that I've never had before, and that, at least, keeps me coming back.
Worth trying if you like: Really difficult games that require teamwork. Raiding on World of Warcraft? As far as I know, there’s not much else like savage raiding in gaming.
Available on: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Windows, Mac, and Steam.
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Interesting that both games have the same issue as long-running bands. Do you keep playing the greatest hits or try new material?
On an aside, good to see Conscription win awards. I hear it could be selling better.