Jason Schreier: "Final Fantasy VII Remake's Box Art Sure Is Misleading"

[Papacheeks]

That's added content; most of the content that people might buy the game for very likely won't be there in this game



I was literally just saying that people can complain about marketing without having to solve the issue themselves. I don't know where all this other stuff has come from...

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Then don't buy it. Go play the remaster. They have been very open about this games development from the very beginning in multiple interviews. So to me if your really outraged by the way they are going about it. Don't buy it, and wait.

To do this game justice it was going to either take 10 years to make because of issues they had when they started, and changed engines. Or was going to go piece by piece like they are doing where they can add a lot to each installment.

There's no way to do a game as big as this content wise justice and not have a long wait, or come up short in being literally a reskin with the same old gameplay that has honestly had its day.

The new combat system looks amazing. And the amount of animations in all of these they've shown so far look expansive. I imagine animating characters like XIII, Catsith, vincent among others take a lot. I mean look at Tiffa's fighting moves.

 

[Massicot]

I'm not sure I agree with Jason, but people mentioning what-about no "part 1" disclaimers on other game series like TLOU or such that aren't remakes are missing the point, no?

 

[BigHatPaul]

Is the box art finalized? Do we know for sure this is the final product? Regardless, I take no issue with it.

 

[Deleted member 32018]

lol you weren't looking for a FFVII remake at all so why even play this?

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That's not what they said at all. You know people have parts of games that they like more than others right?

 

[Gotdatmoney]

Great, now you're calling me a liar for disagreeing with your opinion. That's right: it's just an opinion, no more valid than mine. Another one for the ignore list, I guess. Enjoy your rigid outrage.

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Keep burying your head man. Its all good.

 

[EricTheGamerman]

It's undeniable that Square Enix has not gone out of its way to advertise this "remake" as it actually is and I think that's fairly predatory. No matter how you look at it, taking a 4-5 hour part of the original game from 20 years ago, even with expansions, and presenting it as the Final Fantasy VII Remake with only a little blurb on the back of the game about it only being part one of what might be four or five parts at full price is shitty. Midgar is an incredibly small amount of Final Fantasy VII proper in the beginning and only accounts for setting up a handful of things overall even in the main story. You don't even get a feel for the actual world beyond Midgar and that's extremely worrying.

Yes, a new consumer may read that this is the first part in a saga of games... but does that have any meaning to people not as well informed as Era and online sites? Do they realize how little Midgar actually is of the Final Fantasy VII experience. You're buying into something at full retail price that barely accounts for a portion of the original game and with no definitive roadmap as to its future.

Square Enix has been intentionally misleading about this ever since the beginning. Yes, they remind people that this is only part of the game outside of their big fancy trailers, but that's obviously not what most people are interacting with to learn about this game. Neither the E3 2019 trailer nor the TGS 2019 trailer make any mention or give any hint to this being only part of a saga or multi-release remake. It's just positioned as Final Fantasy VII Remake... full stop.

 

[Deleted member 426]

I'm not sure I agree with Jason, but people mentioning what-about no "part 1" disclaimers on other game series like TLOU or such that aren't remakes are missing the point, no?

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Yep! Nothing like this has been done before so there's no good example of what is and isn't the right way to do this. Just how people feel which differs from person to person.

 

[Big G]

See, I think everyone in the thread agrees with this sentiment. It does need to be clear that this first release is part of a multi-part project.

The fundamental disagreement is whether sticking "Part 1" on the front cover (and all of baggage that entails with having to explain, no this isn't a 3 hour game) is a fair expectation when consumers should reasonably be expected to do some bare minimum amount of reading about a game before dropping $60.00 on it.

I personally think that their openness about this being Part 1 in nearly all official descriptions of the game (very likely very clear about this on the back of the box too) is enough.

An ideal solution would be calling the game Final Fantasy 7: Upgrade or Update instead of "Remake" to avoid these types of expectations in the first place.

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I actually think they should have just called this release "Final Fantasy VII", like the Resident Evil remakes did, with the addition of a subtitle or tagline implying that this is a beginning of a saga. For instance if the boxart just had the FFVII logo on it, with a tagline beneath it like "A New Beginning" or "The Journey Begins" (those are stupid, overused slogans but you know what I mean!). That to me splits the difference, where you're not building huge expectations that this is a full remake of FFVII, but also not giving off the impression that this isn't a full $60 game.

I feel like the word "remake" in the title with no further context is the source of 90% of the issue.

 

[Plum]

I'm not sure I agree with Jason, but people mentioning what-about no "part 1" disclaimers on other game series like TLOU or such that aren't remakes are missing the point, no?

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They're missing the point so much that if they started walking to the point right now the entirety of the Final Fantasy VII Remake will have released by the time they get to it.

 

[Lumination]

I'm not sure I agree with Jason, but people mentioning what-about no "part 1" disclaimers on other game series like TLOU or such that aren't remakes are missing the point, no?

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The amount of perverse justification in this thread is one part hilarious and one part nausea-inducing. They're doing mental gymnastics to defend a game misleading publisher antic about a game that they haven't played or seen more than like 2hrs of footage on.

 

[PlanetSmasher]

Yep! Nothing like this has been done before so there's no good example of what is and isn't the right way to do this. Just how people feel which differs from person to person.

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It was done with the Hobbit movies and it was done terribly there.

 

[Papacheeks]

Frankyl theres' a lot to work with in Midgar considering that despite it having a lot of characters, they all have incredibly thin characterization. Considering how the segment ends fleshing them out in theory would make the climax more impactful.

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Exactly my sentiment.

It was done with the Hobbit movies and it was done terribly there.

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Not even remotely the same thing. One is a video game that has had a bunch of re-releases, and remaster already. The other is a continuation of a story from a book that was expanded upon. But was not made into a film during the original trilogy. So one was already made as a product and re-released, the other was being made from the first time for the big screen with only a book being really it's only incarnation up till that point.

 

[ArkhamFantasy]

Let me get this straight. You believe of the millions of people that will buy this game, almost every one of them will know it's part 1?\

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Yes, it's an incredibly bad faith argument to say that someone will play FF7 growing up, not know anything about the game (No trailers, avoided the $100,000,000 marketing campaign, hasn't heard anything about it from friends), then walks into a video game store (another phenomenon that's becoming more and more rare) see's the box art (without reading the description on the back) or googling and buys it.

It's so incredibly unlikely that i'm not worried about, especially when they can return it and SE will have to buy back all the unsold copies from retailers once word of the "Scam" gets out.

 

[Wireframe]

It's a full length game.

 

[Deleted member 32018]

the game will be fleshed out and 40-60 hrs is my own guess at it's length. 40 hrs to beat, maybe 60 to Platinum?

the expectation of this concluding simply it's feasible at this scale, uninformed fan will be disappointed because he was.. uninformed ;)

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You can't use a guess to make a point...

Square Enix could help those uninformed fans be more informed just by adding a couple words in the title. I'm not sure why you're pushing back against that?

 

[Starphanluke]

There should absolutely be some indication in the title/on the front of the box that the game--while a complete game--is NOT the full FF7 experience.

 

[MrWindUpBird]

As long as it has a reasonable play time - who cares? If they extend it and do it good it'll feel like a full game any way.

The Last of Us was part 1 too, part 2 comes out next year ;)

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The Last of Us could have never gotten a sequel and it would have been fine. This "Part 1" of the remake isn't literally going to end in the middle of the story. They're not comparable at all.

 

[Merc_]

That's not what they said at all. You know people have parts of games that they like more than others right?

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You aren't familiar with PlanetSmasher from older FFVII remake threads I'm guessing.

 

[Gotdatmoney]

I just find it funny that the defense force thinks that SE giving the information that would make the game sell less is a good reason to misrepresent the games content lol.

Everyone understands the marketing reason for the name.

 

[Zafir]

But that's at least something. The word of mouth/adverts would be pretty clear that this is a beefed up Midgard game. Besides your grandparents who's doing a 100% blind buy in 2019.

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You say that about the adverts, but up until now the trailers I've seen haven't been clear either. Sure it's only shown off Midgar but lets think about how many other games only show off one small part of the game during a trailer.

Word of mouth could just be a case of "Oh you remember that game you played 20 years ago, I saw they're doing a remake of it".

 

[Omnistalgic]

I completely agree with him. It's dishonest to not make it clear from the box that this isn't a remake of the entire original game.

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completely disagree with you. and I think it's dishonest to actually make this an issue when its much to do about nothing. There's an ENORMOUS amount of coverage for just about every entertainment item released from professional sites to YouTubers to blogs. They simply used a classic box art, if the value is not there it will be known well in advance.

isnt this about value? No one is gonna get suckered into buying FF7 in this media age, it's absurd to even suggest it..

 

[Doskoi Panda]

So people are worried that if Square Enix is more forward about what this remake is, that they might not generate as many sales? Why should concern over Square Enix's bottom line supercede all other concerns?

 

[Deleted member 27471]

Oh but you know that all those people that live under a rock far from society and internet that only come out once every generation to buy games at their local game store might buy it thinking their playing a game from the 90's with better graphics.

You're more than likely to get the random purchases from people who know nothing about FF7 than you are to get someone described above. Telling someone that's new to the game that it's part 1 or episode 1 devalues the game. When those new to the game play it, I'm sure as long as it's good, their going to enjoy the 20 to 30 hour full game they played.

 

[kurahador]

If Square actually tried to drag out the first reactor mission for 30 hours I would die laughing.

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I think there will be more than 1 reactor, each with its own bosses and quests.

 

[Mona]

put me on team misleading,

i dont think its a huge thing, but i think it should have some indication that its not a full remake

 

[Crushed]

Final Fantasy VII: Partial Remake.

People really wanted them to put this on the box?

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I mean


That's what it is


Nobody forced Square to remake the game this way and just put the word REMAKE on the box, they decided it on their own. "But then people might think it's short or a prologue!" That's entirely on SE's head! That's how they decided to do this! I would absolutely rather have hundreds of thousands of people think it's a prologue than the opposite, of thinking it's a full remake of the original game! If the concern is that the game might underperform compared to its obviously super high budget (considering the incredible production values), and jeopardize future installments then... that's still completely on Square Enix for somehow turning the most demanded remake of one of the most successful and beloved games of all time into a financial risk with a convoluted multipart cross generation remake plan where they don't even know what it's going to look like in the end. This is entirely a problem of their own making.

 

[Lumination]

Yes, it's an incredibly bad faith argument to say that someone will play FF7 growing up, not know anything about the game (No trailers, avoided the $100,000,000 marketing campaign, hasn't heard anything about it from friends), then walks into a video game store (another phenomenon that's becoming more and more rare) see's the box art (without reading the description on the back) or googling and buys it.

It's so incredibly unlikely that i'm not worried about, especially when they can return it and SE will have to buy back all the unsold copies from retailers once word of the "Scam" gets out.

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You're assuming the entirety of the Remake customer base on previous FF7 fans? I'm sure SE would like to hear that, because I'll let you in on a secret, that's not the objective here. I visit era EVERYDAY, and I was still unclear about whether this game was Part 1 or not during most of TGS because they basically scrubbed the words off of whatever marketing materials they had. And you think Joe Schmoe is going to know better? And it's not on the publisher to be clear about what they're selling?

You're so off the mark on so many counts, I don't think it's worth our time to continue this conversation.

 

[EllipsisBreak]

Schreier has a point. This game is not the full remake, and that fact should be represented on the box. On the front of the box.

 

[RKasa]

honestly this is worse than the Kojima crap. Why are we acting like casual fans are going to be in some type of uproar over this? I seriously doubt anyone would care, whether familiar with the original or not, these are now grown adults who played this game 20 years ago.

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Edge Magazine once speculated that the original FFVII was the "most returned game in history" in the West because of its deceptive advertising. If you were around back then, you might remember that the commercials and magazine ads showed images from the FMVs, and typically only the FMVs. Imagine the general public's shock when they found out it was a turn-based RPG with a lot of reading and simple character graphics most of the time. It wasn't hardcore JRPG fans returning copies of FFVII.

These days, what with nostalgia being a driving force in popular media, this is going to sell to way more people than just hardcore gamers. Of course some, if not many, casual fans are going to be in an uproar when they play this game and find out that it's only Disk 0.3 of 3. It's a game that many, many people loved in the late '90s, and not all of them have been hanging onto every single bit of new info that comes out. Hell, some might be hardcore but actively avoiding (non-plot) spoilers. Square Enix is setting themselves up for a lot of returns (or copies quickly sold back to GameStop, whichever) again.

Seeing how nostalgic bits have been recreated in the Remake has been mostly nifty thus far, but going the deceptive marketing route again is a bit of nostalgia we could all do without.

 

[Servbot24]

I'm not sure I agree with Jason, but people mentioning what-about no "part 1" disclaimers on other game series like TLOU or such that aren't remakes are missing the point, no?

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I can only assume they're trolling. No one could truly be that obtuse.

 

[Plum]

So people are worried that if Square Enix is more forward about what this remake is, that they might not generate as many sales? Why should concern over Square Enix's bottom line supercede all other concerns?

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And, in turn, where does that place Part 2? If calling this anything but "Final Fantasy VII: Remake" is such a bad idea then what will happen to the future parts which will 1) have to have a subtitle of some sort and 2) not be able to rely on the nostalgia-fest that is Midgard?

 

[Zen]

This is going to be dragged out for 20 years as the next big cash cow isn't it.

 

[Merc_]

So people are worried that if Square Enix is more forward about what this remake is, that they might not generate as many sales? Why should concern over Square Enix's bottom line supercede all other concerns?

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Personally speaking, I just don't think it's going to be an issue for people and that this is all just a bunch of pointless hand wringing. SE's profits on this game don't matter because it's going to sell no matter what they do.

 

[Ruby-Eyed Witch]

Just put a fucking "Volume I" under it. Failing to do so is intentionally misleading. This isn't a tricky question.

Oh, they're worried that a "Volume I" might not sell as well? Maybe they should have thought of that when they decided to split it into volumes, instead of when they were making the box art five years later.

 

[aesync]

This really should have been the box art/title for a full remake collection that includes all the parts once they are all released, as a faithful recreation of the original release packaging. That being said I love the art still!

 

[Papacheeks]

This is going to be dragged out for 20 years as the next big cash cow isn't it.

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No.

It just seems like its taking forever because the project was restarted after it's initial reveal.

 

[ArkhamFantasy]

You're assuming the entirety of the Remake customer base on previous FF7 fans?

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If somebody hasn't played the OG FF7 then why would they care if the game ends in Midgar? They're getting an awesome 40+ hour game, what do they care if it ends there or in the crater? They don't know what the crater is.

 

[AgentLampshade]

I guess, but there's also the back of the box. If the back of the box doesn't state it's just one part of the series, then yeah that's shitty and misleading.
But then, I don't know who'd be blind-buying a remake of such a high-profile game like this.

 

[MillionIII]

They don't, and they aren't. They do have an obligation to make it clear to consumers that this is not the original game remade, which the box indicates it is.

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But it is the original game remade, by definition they can change it however they want.

 

[Mona]

Just put a fucking "Volume I" under it. Failing to do so is intentionally misleading. This isn't a tricky question.

Oh, they're worried that a "Volume I" might not sell as well? Maybe they should have thought of that when they decided to split it into volumes, instead of when they were making the box art five years later.

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"if we represent the product accurately then it wont sell as much"

lol

 

[Ploid 6.0]

"S-E Presenting Final Fantasy 7 Remake!!!" "It's only first part featuring Midgar" "It's not 4 hours long!!!"

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Final Fantasy 7 Remake

Spoiler: Back of the box within the fine text

This is a complete reimagining of Final Fantasy 7 (tm). This is only a story about life in Midgar. Future games may or may not happen, the full story of the original Final Fantasy 7(tm) may never be retold completely with possible future games. All rights reserved.

 

[Gotdatmoney]

Just put a fucking "Volume I" under it. Failing to do so is intentionally misleading. This isn't a tricky question.

Oh, they're worried that a "Volume I" might not sell as well? Maybe they should have thought of that when they decided to split it into volumes, instead of when they were making the box art five years later.

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Pretty much.

 

[MillionIII]

More than enough doesn't equate to the full story that the title implies. No, they don't have an obligation to keep it as a single game, but if they're going to spread the story out over multiple games then they do have an obligation to let people know that rather than mislead them with a title that implies it is.

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But they did inform people of that?

 

[TitlePending]

The cover as designed is meant to evoke nostalgia in people who played the original, and remind them of all the memories from the first game. The motorcycle chase! The world map! The gold saucer! SPOILER DIES! The epic fight at the end of the game!

Yes, putting part 1 on the cover would cost them sales, because people would realize most of those memories aren't in this remake. Revealing basic facts about the product on the cover costing sales isn't a justification to not put those facts on the cover, when both the title and the cover design are meant to 1:1 mirror the thing you remember.

Like, yes, putting Part 1 or Midgar on the title would probably make people hesitate to buy it... but then we're talking about box art intentionally designed to mislead. Sticking something on a back cover that people might or might not be able to read easily at point of purchase is, like, intentionally burying that information so that you get more sales.

I'm mostly confused because there's no way to read this that isn't 'SE doesn't want to draw attention to this being only the Midgar piece because they think that being obvious on the cover would cost them sales.'

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If one were to really stretch their imagination, then the image of the Mako reactor is actually the subtitle because the 2020 release does cover Midgar. I would be extremely concerned if it were a picture of the Gold Saucer or another locale.

SE is in a bind.

• "This is part 1" -- "Oh, I'm not going to buy an unfinished product."
• Don't include a subtitle -- "This isn't the complete experience!"

SE is hoping that the quality of FF VII: R will engender enough good will that consumers will ultimately be satisfied with their purchase and come back for the next installment. And given that it's several years away so any blow back should subside under the waves of GOTY-accolades that I'm confident will follow.

 

[Deleted member 49438]

The amount or quality of the content in the game has no bearing on how far you will reach in the plot of this game. From a storytelling perspective, the Midgar section is effectively just the exposition of FF7. It sets the scene for the actual nature of the conflict & introduces the major players. But you don't even really reach the rising action in midgar. They could flesh out a lot of stuff & add new content, but ultimately aspects of the plot are locked to a post-midgar game, and adding "Part 1" to the title isn't an unreasonable ask to make that clear.

I am sure the game will still be enjoyable, as will the new content. I'm not concerned about that. I am concerned that some less informed people will expect Final Fantasy 7 Remake to be exactly what it sounds like, rather than just the exposition of the game they remember & love.

 

[PlanetSmasher]

I think there will be more than 1 reactor, each with its own bosses and quests.

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That would be so damn repetitive I don't know why anyone would want it. The game barely even has you do two of them without swerving it hard.

Also it would be pretty weird for AVALANCHE to go from district to district bombing reactors - Shinra finds out who you are almost immediately (which is still shown in the trailers) and the rest of the time there's an open manhunt out for you. AVALANCHE basically bombs one and then everything goes to shit after they try the second one.

 

[Xeontech]

This article is pure speculation. No facts. This is bad journalism.

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you know they might put that information on the back of the box..

which hasn't been released yet

i think one should have all the facts before making this accusation, but hey what do i know

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I think Jason is jumping the gun a little here.

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.

 

[Deleted member 925]

I just find it funny that the defense force thinks that SE giving the information that would make the game sell less is a good reason to misrepresent the games content lol.

Everyone understands the marketing reason for the name.

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I get people want further episodes made and that's the reason they want this to sell as much as possible, but under the idea of misleading consumers is shitty as hell.

 

[sfortunato]

Of course it is misleading.

Outside gaming communities, very few people know this is not the remake of the full game. The name (even in trailers) doesn't indicate that.

Then one can say it doesn't matter in the end but that's another issue.

 

['3y Kingdom]

I don't know how one could disagree with this.