If you wanted to buy Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn tonight, too bad. They've temporarily stopped selling digital copies.
The game is meeting with positive feelings from its players--the ones who can get logged in, that is. Log in queues and outright blockages have hampered the early access period and look like they will continue well into the official launch phase.
It really is very unfortunate. I've been hearing good things about the game. Maybe it's just Final Fantasy fanboys getting their collective squee on, but that's exactly what a Final Fantasy MMO should be all about. If the game can please it's audience, it will be a good game.
All praise for the game aside, the fact that their servers are insufficient for the gamerload isn't all that surprising. The game is a relaunch, after all, and they must not have expected players to give them a second chance. Kudos, gamers. But I digress from the issue, which is that second chances don't beget third chances and Square Enix and pals seem to be squandering this one. The game didn't work the first time, and now their own lack of faith (it would seem) in their second try is dooming it to failure as well. They literally stopped selling the game. On the list of bad sales decisions, stopping people from giving you money is number one.
Remember the Diablo III launch? This is the kind of bad PR that destroys a game's potential to draw new customers. There are plenty of people who want the game, who've bought the game, who will play the game, but when things go wrong before the game can draw in players you have a sinking ship.
Here's how it's going to go down. The launch numbers will be fine. The folks who know about the game and want it are going to buy it and play it. Those same people are going to tell their friends to play it with them--hell, they might go as far as buying extra copies. The first few months are going to be tenuous, but just when everything seems okay, the problems will start. The new player numbers will drop; gamers who might have been drawn in will have forgotten to care how the game is doing--they'll only remember the ugly launch. FFXIV will be the butt of the same old jokes that plagued Diablo III, so the game won't be highly regarded. I've heard the most compliments for the game's crafting system, and no one picks up an MMORPG because they want grind blacksmithing levels. The game won't keep selling. It might turn free-to-play or pay-to-win. If that happens, the quality of the player base, which starts high with a fanboy game like this, will dwindle with influx of fickle free-to-players getting their kicks. Suddenly your party members won't have names like Aelix Whitetunic, they'll be grotesque abominations gestated in the churning bowels of a moron's poorly developed frontal lobe like Vajlick Swagdaddy. No one wants to play with you, Vajlick Swagdaddy, let alone spend their fun-time doing the same thing as someone like you. You ruined the fun for everyone because you're a sucktard.
Alright alright alright. Enough. The point is this: if FFXIV doesn't get their server issues solved soon, the future of the game is dark. Refusing to sell your game isn't a solution to anything; it's actually an enormous problem from a business standpoint. While you may want your customers to think you're doing something about the server issues, stemming the flow of hate mail you're receiving about it by cutting off sales will turn players away from your game for good.
Get your shit together, guys. Work through the night. Spend a couple thousand dollars if you have to. Get more servers up so people can play the game you want them to buy from you. We don't need an apology, we need to level up our blacksmithing.
The "apology": Announcing Server Enhancements and the Temporary Suspension of Digital Download Sales
Joystiq article: Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn struggles through early access weekend
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