Hey guys, so I can’t help but feel like the reference about the closure of the Visions of Mana developer being tied to the “game’s lack of success” to possibly be a mischaracterization of what I meant, unless my Discord comment wasn’t the one that came to mind—but let’s be real, I’m pretty sure it is and I can now sew why it may have been perceived as an oversimplification of the relationship between the game’s success—or lack thereof—and the studio’s financial situation.
EDIT/TLDR: TLDR, Ouka Studios was not closed and its employees laid off because the quality of Visions of Mana as a title; rather, the closure of Ouka Studios prevented Visions of Mana from receiving the attention and support it deserved from both consumers, and its dedicated developers. But when the news surrounding a game’s launch is “uncertain future regarding short and long-term support from Ouka Studios or NetEase after their first game’s release;” then players are more likely to wait and see how well it reviews and whether any performance issues encountered would actually be fixed, post-launch. In turn, Square had far less room to promote the game since consumers had questions they were no longer able tôt ready to answer. The only promotions the game received post-launch, largely seemed to be those present tied to a sale of some kind from the various retail and digital storefronts the game could/can be purchased from. TLDR, Ouka Studios was not closed and its employees laid off because the quality of Visions of Mana as a title; rather, the closure of Ouka Studios prevented Visions of Mana from receiving the attention and support it deserved from both consumers, and its dedicated developers. But when the news surrounding a game’s launch is “uncertain future regarding short and long-term support for Ouka Studios’ first game release;” then players are more likely to wait and see how well it reviews and whether any performance issues encountered would actually be fixed, post-launch. And in turn, Square now had very little incentive to promote a game that raised questions they could not yet answer; as a result, the only promotions it received were those present during sale of SE titles on the various retail and digital storefronts the game was available for purchase in.
You will never catch me saying “well the game wasn’t great so that’s why XYZstudio closed, [so maybe they should just make good games instead].” That would be like saying “Microsoft studios took too long to put out new games, and all of them ranged from meh to meh-meh and none of them were called Titanfall! So, maybe if they just made good games instead of bad ones, then those studios would remain fully staffed and funded! They only have themselves to blame!”
That sort of nonsense insinuates that the productivity of an organization and its employees necessarily leads to outcomes that are commensurate with the quality and regularity of their outputs. It’s like arguing that a publicly traded corporation will always act according to their long-term business interests because they can’t risk jeopardizing their financial viability just to boost ROI in the near-term, to reward investors and Executives for the difficult strenuous work of existing, regardless of the company’s actual performance year over years. It’s almost as if Stock Buybacks haven’t been around for 40 years, I mean that would be buying high and selling low, potentially with borrowed money with high interest payments, so surely capitalism wouldn’t couldn’t be anything other than meritocratic and fair, right!?!
The same people arguing that Xbox Studios fairly assessed the long-term viability of its studios and made “tough, yet necessary, decisions” are also currently arguing that Gears of War E-Day is sitting below a 90% MetaCritic/OpenCritic average because of reviewers with an anti-American political agenda and their need to inject “woke” into everything—it’s certainly not because society doesn’t look as fondly on the action game and movie culture that developed in the shadow of the Global War on Terror…
In the Xbox scenario, it’s not even worth engaging in because their studios were acquired to make unique titles that complemented Game Pass’ value proposition, and they did that very well. It’s the fact that Microsoft realized they were in a race to build data centers to monopolize a sizable Share of the Global Cloud Computing market that AI companies must train their models on, which changed their predisposition toward’s the longer-term risks and uncertainties associated with game development. As a result, the Blizzard-Activision acquisition made it seem like Xbox needed to make drastic restructuring decisions to round out their operating expenses with plenty of cost cutting that reflected a lack of understanding and respect for the process as a whole. They cut entire teams of experienced engineers, whom may have been critical for ensuring the scalability of in-house engines for new projects, as if they operated and worked in a silo that had little to no impact on the operational wellbeing of the rest of the studio.
so those deficits had to be squared with mass layoffs and restructurings before the next quarterly meeting with the Board of Directors took place, bottom line.
So, dozens of studios were caught in the crossfire and the entire development and publishing industry is pretty much in shambles across North America—either you’re being acquired by a Saudi Wealth Fund, your employer’s restructuring decisions seem to emphasize the value of pre-packaged IPs to potential external buyers rather than existing teams’ pronefy assignments and/or other short-term goals, you’re out looking for work and considering leading the industry altogether in favor of a less volatile career that’s more hospitable to raising a family, or you’re part of the remaining staff that could be laid off at any time and no longer has the talent on hand to meet the new regime’s expectations… None of that is actually the fault of the studios, in fact it almost never is.
Similarly, Visions of Mana’s lack of mainstream success had nothing to do with the game’s overall quality. My point was that VoM had an unusual development arrangement, so while Square Enix licensed and published the game, the team that would’ve been responsible for supporting it post-launch and perhaps even porting it to the Switch, had all of their longer-term plans for the game upended when the layoffs began several weeks before launch. Some of the top talent at Ouka moved over to Square Enix in October of the same year, but the people who were supporting the game at launch numbered less than five and may have done so without pay at the time, just to guarantee that their game released as close stable as possible.
That actually helped a lot, because some game breaking bugs were quickly patched before Square Enix took over continued support—but SE only has some of the original developers, did not write the code or build the assets, nor did they know how far along next-Gen ports were in the development process, or how much long-term marketing the game would need. My point was simply that with the development studio being closed at launch, any long-term marketing plans were most likely cancelled to avoid promising more versions/content for a game they may not have had any in-house resources available to allocate, not to mention that the publishing side of Square Enix cannot make development decisions and can’t make announcements regarding a game’s projected future without the development side of the company initiating those steps; by which point, an entirely new game would probably just be the better option for resource and time allocations.
That is to say, TLDR, Ouka Studios was not closed and its employees laid off because the quality of Visions of Mana as a title; rather, the closure of Ouka Studios prevented Visions of Mana from receiving the attention and support it deserved from both consumers, and its dedicated developers. But when the news surrounding a game’s launch is “uncertain future regarding short and long-term support for Ouka Studios’ first game release;” then players are more likely to wait and see how well it reviews and whether any performance issues encountered would actually be fixed, post-launch. And in turn, Square now had very little incentive to promote a game that raised questions they could not yet answer; as a result, the only promotions it received were those present during sale of SE titles on the various retail and digital storefronts the game was available for purchase in.
garion333
October 7, 2026I’m commenting at your site!
I’m only halfway through the episode, but with DD2 Dark Arisen this week, I’m surprised there isn’t more chatter from you lot.