Former Square Enix exec on why Final Fantasy sales don’t meet expectations and chances of recouping insane AAA budgets (gameworldobserver.com)

submitted 4 months ago by simple@lemm.ee to c/games@lemmy.world

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[-] Katana314@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago

I've started feeling this way about anime too, so it's obviously a pervasive problem in Japanese markets.

Got a series that's interesting? You can have some curious character developments and mysteries in the twelve episodes you get, but its REAL reason for existing is the hope of selling merchandise and concluding its story arc across 100 manga releases and 80 episodes (which almost never happens)

[-] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 4 months ago

US animation existed for the sole purpose of merchandising and advertisements. Back in the 80s when transformers were all the rage (the cartoon existed for the almost sole purpose of selling the action figures) they released a movie that killed off most of the transformers (children cried) and they did this so they could bring in all new transformers to carry on the battle, so that kids would have to go out and buy more new toys.

[-] Maven@lemmy.zip 2 points 4 months ago

Fun fact to add onto this. Before Reagan repealed the law, it was illegal to make a show purely to advertise to kids. Once it was repealed we got the transformers and GI Joe and so on but before Reagan every single one of those would've been illegal to show.