14 DAY TRIAL // Yosuke Matsuda, president of Square Enix, has expressed his desire for the company to focus more on core gamers and on titles moving forward, citing the success of Bravely Default as an inspiration for the change in policy.
During an interview with Siliconera, he suggested that it was the attempt to make Hitman: Absolution more globally appealing that caused developer IO Interactive's difficulties with the title.
"In the past, when we developed console games with a worldwide premise, we lost our focus, and not only did they end up being games that weren't for the Japanese, but they ended up being incomplete titles that weren't even fit for a global audience," Matsuda confessed.
He pointed out that in contrast to Hitman: Absolution, games like Bravely Default, that was made as a classic JRPG catering to the Japanese audience, ended up selling well all around the world, due to them having the proper elements to appeal to core gamers.
The success of Bravely Default has inspired Matsuda to focus on the core fan base and take into consideration the appeal of globally-minded releases. He said that the company was not able to realize this before, as the mindset was divided between developing for the different regions of the world, but that the fans of Japanese role-playing games are spread all around the world.
"Through the means of various networks, the latest information that is announced in Japan is instantaneously being spread across fans throughout the world. Whether it's North America, Europe, or South America. There really isn't much of a gap [in the relay of information]," Matsuda revealed.
When everything is taken into consideration, the end result is the feeling of a certain mass, and the image of a niche market is lost, giving way to the image of a global unified one.
"For the new games we’'l be developing from this point on, while this may sound a bit extreme, we've been talking about making them as heavy JRPGs. I believe that way, we can better focus on our target, which will also bring better results," Matsuda concluded.
He admitted that Square Enix has been struggling a bit lately, with some less than stellar releases in 2013, and that the most likely culprit for that is the fact that the company wanted their games to become more universally appealing, while turning their backs on the core audience.
Hitman: Absolution was the prime example for that, where the development team implemented a lot of elements that catered to the masses, trying to get as many new players as possible, and the core gamers felt the lack of focus in the game, which in turn made it struggle as far as total sales go.