Square Enix reveals NEO: The World Ends With You underperformed
- Details
- Published on November 24, 2021 @ 05:05 am
- Written by Arielle
During Square Enix's Financial Results Briefing Session for the six-month period ending on September 30th, they revealed that NEO: The World Ends With You underperformed at release. The company acknowledged that the game was well received by audiences, but did not reach their sales expectations.
While the HD Games sub-segment released such home console titles as "OUTRIDERS," "NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139…", "NEO: The World Ends with You," and "Life is Strange: True Colors," its net sales were lower than in the same period of the previous fiscal year, which had seen the release of "FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE" and "Marvel's Avengers."
[...]
While “NEO: The World Ends with You” was well received by users, it has underperformed our initial expectations.
The game released on July 27th, 2021 on PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch consoles and for the Epic Game Store for PC on September 28th, 2021.
Read our review of NEO: The World Ends With You! Follow Kingdom Hearts Insider on Facebook and Twitter for the latest updates on Kingdom Hearts Union χ [Cross], Kingdom Hearts Dark Road, Kingdom Hearts III, Kingdom Hearts Melody of Memory, and all things Kingdom Hearts and The World Ends With You!
COMMENTS
Not exactly a big surprise that they didn't match the combined sales of FFVIIR and Avengers
Kind of a bummer NEO underperformed, although considering it's Square Enix I do have to question if their expectations were reasonable to begin with.
Probably not reasonable at all.
Also, they really sent the game to die with their poor marketing. Like, how hard was it to feature it during E3 since it was about to come out???
And Nomura shouldn't have been allowed to directly say "no" to KH references in that one interview because I think that probably kept curious KH fans from crossing over to check it out (and even if they left disappointed, they would have played a fun game)...and the lack of leveraging the FF references in the game to appeal to that audience...or not using game images for easy meme material...
Essentially they needed a better marketing plan behind this game.
Sad, but not surprised
And Nomura shouldn't have been allowed to directly say "no" to KH references in that one interview because I think that probably kept curious KH fans from crossing over to check it out (and even if they left disappointed, they would have played a fun game)..
Nah that would have been cheap and cynical as heck
That's a shame, I was under the assumption that it was a successful game because of the constant fanart that was created on social media. Square Enix could have absolutely promoted this game at E3 but they decided not to.
Maybe Neo can be salvaged by having the cast be featured in Quadratum in the next Kingdom Hearts game. If I recall correctly, Dream Drop Distance boosted the popularity of the original The World Ends With You.
That's a shame, I was under the assumption that it was a successful game because of the constant fanart that was created on social media. Square Enix could have absolutely promoted this game at E3 but they decided not to.
Maybe Neo can be salvaged by having the cast be featured in Quadratum in the next Kingdom Hearts game. If I recall correctly, Dream Drop Distance boosted the popularity of the original The World Ends With You.
I don't know the game's budget or its global sales, so this is just a guess, but I think NEO was successful, otherwise they wouldn't say it was well received. I think it's more like Square Enix expected it would sell a lot and be highly profitable but in the end it sold just fine. It was profitable but not extremely profitable.
To be honest I don't think the game had a big budget in comparison to other Square Enix franchises but it was a full price title anyway. Not saying the game wasn't worthy of its price but I can understand why many people would want to wait for a discount. I did that with Melody of Memory, i didn't want to pay 60€ for that game and waited until I found it for 40€.
Nah that would have been cheap and cynical as heck
Considering their “expectations”, they should have been cheap and cynical. Also any company willing to take EGS money should also be fine baiting an audience to drive sales lol
Lord knows they already baited them for years with sequel bait lol
I think we all knew this deep down, but I guess we needed an official confirmation to snuff out any denial.
I do wonder what their expectations were. TWEWY has always been niche even if it has a lot of die hard fans. So does "underperformed our initial expectations" mean that they were expecting a breakout hit and didn't get one, or did they manage their expectations but it still failed to clear a low bar?
It's frustrating because the game is well received by the people who played it, it just didn't get a big audience. It didn't even got a nomination in Game Awards for Best RPG or Best Music. I know Game Awards is usually for more mainstream games, but i wasn't expecting it to be ignored like that. Honestly nothing this year comes close to NEO music. Nothing.
Best thing Square did was not make NEO a Nintendo Switch exclusive. It would be even worse. Just release it everywhere to reach more people.
And Nomura shouldn't have been allowed to directly say "no" to KH references in that one interview because I think that probably kept curious KH fans from crossing over to check it out (and even if they left disappointed, they would have played a fun game)
That is.....completely awful. And...explains so many things wrong with this site. You want TWEWY to so desperately be some sort of KH spin-off that you intentionally want people mislead about what it actually is?
Accept it for what's there: A great series that stands on its own. It may not be very successful, but it is loved and appreciated by its small and dedicated fanbase. Intentionally misleading people to draw connections that aren't there is just the most cynical kind of bullshit and it just makes no sense whatsoever to begin with. You'd rather force an extremely awkward, easily avoidable situation in a vain attempt to force a franchise connection instead of market it properly and let it stand on its own.
No thank you. >:< I'd rather have it being a financial failure than put it in such a weird spot that you suggested at a mere chance of success. You seem to forget that Final Remix really, really, REALLY soured people a few years back...
That is.....completely awful. And...explains so many things wrong with this site. You want TWEWY to so desperately be some sort of KH spin-off that you intentionally want people mislead about what it actually is?
Accept it for what's there: A great series that stands on its own. It may not be very successful, but it is loved and appreciated by its small and dedicated fanbase. Intentionally misleading people to draw connections that aren't there is just the most cynical kind of bullshit and it just makes no sense whatsoever to begin with. You'd rather force an extremely awkward, easily avoidable situation in a vain attempt to force a franchise connection instead of market it properly and let it stand on its own.
No thank you. >:< I'd rather have it being a financial failure than put it in such a weird spot that you suggested at a mere chance of success. You seem to forget that Final Remix really, really, REALLY soured people a few years back...
? I don’t want the games to be connected, I want SE to utilize their existing fanbases. You see how quick KH fans were to drop interest the second Nomura said it had no relation to KH. There was no reason for SE to deflate interest when it was keeping a specific group of people interested in their product, even though that interest was misguided. It didn’t even need to be dishonest. Just don’t answer questions like that. That is all they needed to do.
SE had no problems doing this in the past with their other franchises. Why was this the game where they became super honest?
Final Remix soured people but look at the hype surrounding the announcement of NTWEWY. There was clearly interest from all around.
You would rather let the series die than let people hype themselves into playing a game for their own reasons?
A shame there was no gaming related conference or live streams they could have shown trailers for this on. Especially ones that were a month before release. By the way, have you heard of Guardians of the Galaxy?
I don't know the game's budget or its global sales, so this is just a guess, but I think NEO was successful, otherwise they wouldn't say it was well received. I think it's more like Square Enix expected it would sell a lot and be highly profitable but in the end it sold just fine. It was profitable but not extremely profitable.
There's not really a correlation between critical acclaim and sales. Yes, good critical acclaim can boost sales but it's not always the deciding factor towards a games financial success. If Square Enix says it financially underperformed then we'll have to take their word for it.
You also have to remember that this is a HD game so the expectations for profitability are much higher by default because it was a much more expensive game to create than its predecessor.
You see how quick KH fans were to drop interest the second Nomura said it had no relation to KH.
That's......not even remotely true. Interest was dropped because they marketed the game for shit. I was pumped for the announcement trailer, and even I genuinely forgot the game was coming out until like...a month out from release. That's why interest was dropped. People forgot! And again, Final Remix! People who didn't play the original DS game didn't exactly have much to look forward to - it was either a mobile port, or a super crappy overpriced port of the mobile port.
And if you can say anything positive about their crap marketing, at least they didn't actively engage in lying and misleading people on what it even was just to move a few units. That just would've made things worse! You move a few units, only at the expense of people who bought it ending up pissed off. You want Nomura and Kando and the rest of the devs to be known as the Japanese Peter Molyneux? Hell naw. You don't sell fans of Malcom in the Middle on Breaking Bad by calling the latter a spin-off because, I dunno, they share the same actor. First off, it's stupid. Secondly, it's misleading. If it is its own thing, you let it stand on its own merits, not some imaginary connection that doesn't exist. Yes, Square didn't let it stand up on its own merits, but you don't fix that by creating imaginary connections that don't exist!
I'll give credit where it's due: KHInsider was one of the few sites that spent extensive time covering it, as did you. ...Even though this is a Kingdom Hearts site, and that isn't a Kingdom Hearts series. But reading your thoughts on this, I think we should all be really, really, really glad you and your cynical ass "strategies" didn't go anywhere near an official marketing meeting. Small blessings!
So...I'm just gonna chalk this whole thing up as you being really upset about the game failing, and you're in a very emotional condition over it lol. You're venting! So....just look the bright side. You're a fan of the series, and you got a kickass sequel to it that you got to enjoy. The game also doesn't end on a huge cliffhanger or anything either - a few dangling bits here and there just in case, but for the most part a closed and complete story with a proper ending. You don't see much of that these days! It's either endless sequels, or projects that abruptly fail because they're obsessed with pumping out endless sequels!
That's......not even remotely true. Interest was dropped because they marketed the game for shit. I was pumped for the announcement trailer, and even I genuinely forgot the game was coming out until like...a month out from release. That's why interest was dropped. People forgot! And again, Final Remix! People who didn't play the original DS game didn't exactly have much to look forward to - it was either a mobile port, or a super crappy overpriced port of the mobile port.
And if you can say anything positive about their crap marketing, at least they didn't actively engage in lying and misleading people on what it even was just to move a few units. That just would've made things worse! You move a few units, only at the expense of people who bought it ending up pissed off. You want Nomura and Kando and the rest of the devs to be known as the Japanese Peter Molyneux? Hell naw. You don't sell fans of Malcom in the Middle on Breaking Bad by calling the latter a spin-off because, I dunno, they share the same actor. First off, it's stupid. Secondly, it's misleading. If it is its own thing, you let it stand on its own merits, not some imaginary connection that doesn't exist. Yes, Square didn't let it stand up on its own merits, but you don't fix that by creating imaginary connections that don't exist!
I'll give credit where it's due: KHInsider was one of the few sites that spent extensive time covering it, as did you. ...Even though this is a Kingdom Hearts site, and that isn't a Kingdom Hearts series. But reading your thoughts on this, I think we should all be really, really, really glad you and your cynical ass "strategies" didn't go anywhere near an official marketing meeting. Small blessings!
So...I'm just gonna chalk this whole thing up as you being really upset about the game failing, and you're in a very emotional condition over it lol. You're venting! So....just look the bright side. You're a fan of the series, and you got a kickass sequel to it that you got to enjoy. The game also doesn't end on a huge cliffhanger or anything either - a few dangling bits here and there just in case, but for the most part a closed and complete story with a proper ending. You don't see much of that these days! It's either endless sequels, or projects that abruptly fail because they're obsessed with pumping out endless sequels!
☺️ Oh boy I sure am super emotional and venting even though I’m not the one who took their time out of their day to create an account on this website just to complain about one random user’s post because it really upset them.
You can have your ideas and I can have mine on what would have been a better approach. That’s the fun about opinions. It doesn’t affect anything in the end because the game’s already failed and it’ll slide into cult status like the original and everything spoken after is just people whining about something they couldn’t control.
All I’m saying is that Nomura even addressing a comment about TWEWY and KH together was a bad idea and one of the many marketing missteps they made. It absolutely did cause harm because I had the pleasure of viewing the fallout on Twitter for days. And I didn’t say they needed to lie or mislead. Not speaking on something isn’t misleading. That question should have never been asked or answered is all I’m saying. Let people imagine what they want. It’s Nomura’s own fault for associating TWEWY to KH in the first place. He was the one who tried leveraging that fanbase to make TWEWY more popular then balked at the mess he made after the fact once he realized people kept asking him about the relationship between the two.
Utilizing existing fanbases isn’t misleading. Something as simple as “From the team who brought you Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy” would have been honest and confidence-inspiring for a wary audience. “Miki Yamashita’s rise from designer in KHUX to one of the main character designers in TWEWY” as a featured video showing off her work is simple enough. She had some of the best designs and character ideas of the game.
Doing something similar for each designer and for Nomura and Kando and Ito and Ishimoto would have been great.
Doing fun posts about stuff like FanGO or the emojis or how they use “Kweh” as would have been a cute way to appeal to FF fans.
How about something so easily effortless:
“Nagi can Dive into people’s hearts ? to free them of the Noise and Fret can Remind ? people about things they’ve forgotten to find new leads in their quest to win the Reaper’s Game”
How hard is that? How is that lying? It’s playing coy but clearly targeting a certain audience. If their already hyper-active imaginations lead them to misconstrue things, let them. That is 90% of what hype is to begin with.
I blame the complete lack of advertising for the underperformance. Couldn't even be bothered to lend a Spirit Event for Smash Ultimate to make some more people aware.
Sigh
Oh, well. It is what it is.
I blame the complete lack of advertising for the underperformance. Couldn't even be bothered to lend a Spirit Event for Smash Ultimate to make some more people aware.
Sigh
Oh, well. It is what it is.
Right? Would have been so easy. Absolute bafflement at how incompetent and uncreative their marketing was. So many low-cost efforts would have at least given it some visibility.
And if you can say anything positive about their crap marketing, at least they didn't actively engage in lying and misleading people on what it even was just to move a few units.
There’s a difference between actively misleading and leaving things a mystery. We can also discuss what would have been a more effective marketing strategy from a business perspective without acting like the person who suggests it is an evil corporate shill (especially when they’re very much the opposite.) But it is still No Nuance November, so not sure why I expect people to understand that.
A good answer would have been to pass on the question.
A great answer would be something like “NEO: TWEWY has many of the same creatives as the KH series, so they share a similar DNA and fans of KH will find a lot to enjoy.” They could have pushed that behind the scenes connection between the two series which would have been 100% valid for them to do. It would not be misleading in any way, but would have kept KH fans interested in the project.
This is sadly not at all surprising, their lack of dedication to heavy marketing wasn't going to end in any other way. NEO was still a great game though.
☺️ Oh boy I sure am super emotional and venting even though I’m not the one who took their time out of their day to create an account on this website just to complain about one random user’s post because it really upset them.
You can have your ideas and I can have mine on what would have been a better approach. That’s the fun about opinions. It doesn’t affect anything in the end because the game’s already failed and it’ll slide into cult status like the original and everything spoken after is just people whining about something they couldn’t control.
All I’m saying is that Nomura even addressing a comment about TWEWY and KH together was a bad idea and one of the many marketing missteps they made. It absolutely did cause harm because I had the pleasure of viewing the fallout on Twitter for days. And I didn’t say they needed to lie or mislead. Not speaking on something isn’t misleading. That question should have never been asked or answered is all I’m saying. Let people imagine what they want. It’s Nomura’s own fault for associating TWEWY to KH in the first place. He was the one who tried leveraging that fanbase to make TWEWY more popular then balked at the mess he made after the fact once he realized people kept asking him about the relationship between the two.
Utilizing existing fanbases isn’t misleading. Something as simple as “From the team who brought you Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy” would have been honest and confidence-inspiring for a wary audience. “Miki Yamashita’s rise from designer in KHUX to one of the main character designers in TWEWY” as a featured video showing off her work is simple enough. She had some of the best designs and character ideas of the game.
Doing something similar for each designer and for Nomura and Kando and Ito and Ishimoto would have been great.
Doing fun posts about stuff like FanGO or the emojis or how they use “Kweh” as would have been a cute way to appeal to FF fans.
How about something so easily effortless:
“Nagi can Dive into people’s hearts ? to free them of the Noise and Fret can Remind ? people about things they’ve forgotten to find new leads in their quest to win the Reaper’s Game”
How hard is that? How is that lying? It’s playing coy but clearly targeting a certain audience. If their already hyper-active imaginations lead them to misconstrue things, let them. That is 90% of what hype is to begin with.
Honestly it seems like a no win situation. Staying silent would have led to complaints from people who thought there would have been something, as well as people trying to make connections where there are none.
And Nomura shouldn't have been allowed to directly say "no" to KH references in that one interview because I think that probably kept curious KH fans from crossing over to check it out (and even if they left disappointed, they would have played a fun game)...and the lack of leveraging the FF references in the game to appeal to that audience...or not using game images for easy meme material...
Ah Nomura, that complicated man. Never ceases to disappoint me with the way he carries the series that he creates. He's definitely gotten a swollen ego after KH became popular.
☺️ Oh boy I sure am super emotional and venting even though I’m not the one who took their time out of their day to create an account on this website just to complain about one random user’s post because it really upset them.
Nah. Not why I joined. Just a convenient excuse. ;)
Nah. Not why I joined. Just a convenient excuse. ;)
Then please, enjoy yourself on the site ? We have a robust award system, plenty of topics, an RP section with a TWEWY RP currently ongoing.
I'm really disappointed, but I knew this was going to happen:( Not advertising it at E3 was such a mistake. I don't understand. Ugh. I hate that it's probably going to go into cult status like the original, and we'll most likely never get another game:( Maybe sales could start picking up and they could change their mind, but I'm sadly not holding my breath to get burnt.
I'm really disappointed, but I knew this was going to happen:( Not advertising it at E3 was such a mistake. I don't understand. Ugh. I hate that it's probably going to go into cult status like the original, and we'll most likely never get another game:( Maybe sales could start picking up and they could change their mind, but I'm sadly not holding my breath to get burnt.
Novels and manga are where movies/shows/games go to die lol.
We're def not getting another game, but we still might see another story from Shibuya here and there in another form.
Don't take the word of randoms on Twitter too seriously, but allegedly there's been a spike in sales after they announced the game's underperformance:
If true this is both a bad and good thing. Good because it means the game is doing a little better, bad because it means that the announcement of the game's failure did a better job advertising it than any of the marketing leading up to its release.
Honestly I think it probably did underperform. But that's from Square's expectations. They probably expected it to do amazingly well as it was seen as a very much in-demand sequel... except I think Square didn't factor in that it was an in-demand sequel for a very niche game that game out a decade ago. They were probably expecting it to get KH3 treatment (OK not that level, but I'm using it as an example for wait time/hype time for a sequel), but Square didn't really do much to hype it up. Unlike FF and KH where one tiny tease will break the internet and trend all over social media, a full on reveal for The World Ends With You's sequel is not enough.
I am a huge fan of the original and I STILL haven't bought the sequel. I'm kind of waiting for it to get much cheaper and also, I'm busier than a decade ago when the game came out, and also there's a pandemic so yeah my mind isn't really focused on gaming. Square should have been focusing on attracting new fans, but maybe they didn't think the effort was worth it because this would be the only sequel (and hence not grabbing fans for a franchise that will grow).
Anyway, the important thing is that it was critically acclaimed. I would rather it not sell well, but be considered an amazing game over it selling well and the sequel's quality be disappointing.
I wasn't really paying much attention to its media hype, but did they at least try to hype the game along with the anime? It seems kind of obvious to do at least that... and maybe Square could have also re-released the original again or do some kind of new version of it or something, to at least promote the series some more.
Honestly I think it probably did underperform. But that's from Square's expectations. They probably expected it to do amazingly well as it was seen as a very much in-demand sequel... except I think Square didn't factor in that it was an in-demand sequel for a very niche game that game out a decade ago. They were probably expecting it to get KH3 treatment (OK not that level, but I'm using it as an example for wait time/hype time for a sequel), but Square didn't really do much to hype it up. Unlike FF and KH where one tiny tease will break the internet and trend all over social media, a full on reveal for The World Ends With You's sequel is not enough.
I am a huge fan of the original and I STILL haven't bought the sequel. I'm kind of waiting for it to get much cheaper and also, I'm busier than a decade ago when the game came out, and also there's a pandemic so yeah my mind isn't really focused on gaming. Square should have been focusing on attracting new fans, but maybe they didn't think the effort was worth it because this would be the only sequel (and hence not grabbing fans for a franchise that will grow).
Anyway, the important thing is that it was critically acclaimed. I would rather it not sell well, but be considered an amazing game over it selling well and the sequel's quality be disappointing.
I wasn't really paying much attention to its media hype, but did they at least try to hype the game along with the anime? It seems kind of obvious to do at least that... and maybe Square could have also re-released the original again or do some kind of new version of it or something, to at least promote the series some more.
It was much cheaper though. $30 and it dropped as low as $15 during Black Friday.
It was much cheaper though. $30 and it dropped as low as $15 during Black Friday.
I was thinking of getting it on Black Friday, but then I forgot lol. Also I have so many games I have to get around beating that I don't want to get it and just add it to the list of games untouched.
Exactly. A drop in price this early on probably means good things for moving more units, but probably not enough to make a huge difference.
Hm... I think NTWEWY's "failure" is probably a combination of things.
1. Crappy marketing
2. Accidentally pushing people away even though peoples intentions were good/honest
3. They set their expectations ridiculously high on purpose knowing it would fail
For #1, it's true. I don't really watch gaming shows anyway but usually I see crap tons of advertisements I don't want to see for games I'm not gonna play. NEO just... faded away at some point. I only knew it was out at some point because a streamer/youtuber I watch was memeing about Suskichi. I THINK I'm on squares email list even though I don't want to be and I still didn't get any info about it. It definitely seems like they didn't put very much effort getting it out there.
#2 Ok, here's a controversial one. I remember around the time of the release... people were MAD about KH fans being interested? Maybe that's not exactly what they were mad about, they were on full patrol trying to squash conversations suggesting they MIGHT be related. Some people were seriously pissed at the suggestion. On the one hand I get it. It can get bothersome if you love this game so so much and you feel like people only talk about it when another game is mentioned. But at the same time, I just don't think it's a good idea to squash those discussions either? You push people away for no reason.
I sorta knew about TWEWY before it showed up in KH, but I didn't know the plot. Yet. I got into it a bit after that. I love my KH theories and all, but of course I don't think TWEWY is related to KH, it's just like FF. It's an external properly whose rules get twisted ONLY when it's in KH. I think Nomura is great about that honestly, KH does not really leak into other properties and I think most KH fans know that.
Maybe the TWEWY community shouldn't immediately get so defensive about stuff like that and should do more to spread the property, even if they have to piggyback off a different property just a little bit.
TWEWY is not the only game suffering from KH's bloat lately. Smash and even Final Fantasy, KH's father, gets pestered by less informed KH fans sometimes. It's not good for a fandom to tear itself apart trying to expel those people though, you gotta reeducate them and register them into your own religion instead.
#3 I know some gaming companies set their expectations extremely high on purpose because they want to say a project failed so they can drop it forever. Gosh, I know this has happened before in the past a few times but I can't think of a name off the top of my head. I feel like was an EA property... oh! I remember. It was Dead Space. For Dead Space 3, not only did executives meddle in the development, force microtransactions into a AAA game... but they also set the sales number at an unreasonable number to be considered successful. They shelved the series and closed the studio afterwards.
Now, I'm not saying Square did all that. But maybe they knowingly didn't put a budget to market the game and yet still pretended it should sell as if it was marketed well.
Exactly. A drop in price this early on probably means good things for moving more units, but probably not enough to make a huge difference.
Yeah, it’s a game of diminishing returns. Lower the price and you are taking in less. What we hope is that they had a set goal in mind when they let retailers lower the price and they reached that goal.
I just hope that this is a continual lesson in expectations for SE. It’s clear they have issues with that in general.
1. Crappy marketing
2. Accidentally pushing people away even though peoples intentions were good/honest
3. They set their expectations ridiculously high on purpose knowing it would fail
For #1, it's true. I don't really watch gaming shows anyway but usually I see crap tons of advertisements I don't want to see for games I'm not gonna play. NEO just... faded away at some point. I only knew it was out at some point because a streamer/youtuber I watch was memeing about Suskichi. I THINK I'm on squares email list even though I don't want to be and I still didn't get any info about it. It definitely seems like they didn't put very much effort getting it out there.
#2 Ok, here's a controversial one. I remember around the time of the release... people were MAD about KH fans being interested? Maybe that's not exactly what they were mad about, they were on full patrol trying to squash conversations suggesting they MIGHT be related. Some people were seriously pissed at the suggestion. On the one hand I get it. It can get bothersome if you love this game so so much and you feel like people only talk about it when another game is mentioned. But at the same time, I just don't think it's a good idea to squash those discussions either? You push people away for no reason.
I sorta knew about TWEWY before it showed up in KH, but I didn't know the plot. Yet. I got into it a bit after that. I love my KH theories and all, but of course I don't think TWEWY is related to KH, it's just like FF. It's an external properly whose rules get twisted ONLY when it's in KH. I think Nomura is great about that honestly, KH does not really leak into other properties and I think most KH fans know that.
Maybe the TWEWY community shouldn't immediately get so defensive about stuff like that and should do more to spread the property, even if they have to piggyback off a different property just a little bit.
TWEWY is not the only game suffering from KH's bloat lately. Smash and even Final Fantasy, KH's father, gets pestered by less informed KH fans sometimes. It's not good for a fandom to tear itself apart trying to expel those people though, you gotta reeducate them and register them into your own religion instead.
#3 I know some gaming companies set their expectations extremely high on purpose because they want to say a project failed so they can drop it forever. Gosh, I know this has happened before in the past a few times but I can't think of a name off the top of my head. I feel like was an EA property... oh! I remember. It was Dead Space. For Dead Space 3, not only did executives meddle in the development, force microtransactions into a AAA game... but they also set the sales number at an unreasonable number to be considered successful. They shelved the series and closed the studio afterwards.
Now, I'm not saying Square did all that. But maybe they knowingly didn't put a budget to market the game and yet still pretended it should sell as if it was marketed well.
Yeah, the fandom didn’t really do a great job at trying to win KH fans over or educate them. The hostility was a huge deterrent.
I also just don’t see why they shouldn’t be allowed to have their theories. Separate from my argument about what Nomura should have done to keep individual fanbases on board, I really don’t think in fan spaces should be denied their forays into wild theories. It should be paired with a clear understanding that their theories are unlikely to happen because we aren’t the people making these projects because people should always keep their expectations in check, but I think letting people theorize or have fantasies about characters meeting or appearing is fun. It doesn’t hurt anything, and it generates discussion. Every fandom has its own sub-spaces and there is no reason to deny people from building that.
Yeah, it’s a game of diminishing returns. Lower the price and you are taking in less. What we hope is that they had a set goal in mind when they let retailers lower the price and they reached that goal.
I just hope that this is a continual lesson in expectations for SE. It’s clear they have issues with that in general.
Yeah, the fandom didn’t really do a great job at trying to win KH fans over or educate them. The hostility was a huge deterrent.
I also just don’t see why they shouldn’t be allowed to have their theories. Separate from my argument about what Nomura should have done to keep individual fanbases on board, I really don’t think in fan spaces should be denied their forays into wild theories. It should be paired with a clear understanding that their theories are unlikely to happen because we aren’t the people making these projects because people should always keep their expectations in check, but I think letting people theorize or have fantasies about characters meeting or appearing is fun. It doesn’t hurt anything, and it generates discussion. Every fandom has its own sub-spaces and there is no reason to deny people from building that.
I'm all for theories for the most part. For example, if NEO was included in a future KH, how would that go, and what message would they bring into it? (Also looking back now that I know about TWEWY, I feel like they could've done better to represent TWEWY in DDD)
I can see why theories like "NEOTWEWY IS LIKE ONE BIG SECRET ENDING FOR KH3!!11!!" would get a bit annoying if people are being serious about a theory like that.
I'm all for theories for the most part. For example, if NEO was included in a future KH, how would that go, and what message would they bring into it? (Also looking back now that I know about TWEWY, I feel like they could've done better to represent TWEWY in DDD)
I can see why theories like "NEOTWEWY IS LIKE ONE BIG SECRET ENDING FOR KH3!!11!!" would get a bit annoying if people are being serious about a theory like that.
Those are annoying. XD
And yeah, TWEWY could have been utilized way better in KH3D. But I mean…we can sort of say that for really anything in KH besides maybe Toy Story. KH is a sink hole of missed opportunities.
KH is a sink hole of missed opportunities.
And that folks can be the subtitle for the entire series including all parts, Disney, original and Square cameos alike since at least 2005. :LOL:
Okay, moving away from the KH aside because we can trash on KH fans and the series any time, I thought of a few easy, cheap/low cost marketing things that could have kept NTWEWY in the gaming zeitgeist:
1. Should have been announced later to have an overall shorter marketing-to-release schedule. They announced it in November 2020 and then let it languish for 8 months. This is a game that did not need a 8-month lead up time. Announcing this game in 2021 when the anime started airing would have been better to both promote the anime and keep the game in people’s minds. April - July would have only been 4 months, meaning they could have still released the same amount of marketing materials but with less space between them, and capitalized on summer game marketing events.
2. A public Discord server. Now, I know that requires getting moderators so it isn’t SO cheap and a Discord could have very well failed, but I think this game needed a centralized hub for discussion. Outriders, one of SE’s more recent releases, had a very dedicated fanbase that was on Discord and they absolutely are a part of the reason why I don’t think that game was an absolute failure. It shows in the fact that even a casual gamer is aware that Outriders exists, regardless of how active the game is today or not. The Discord helped foster a dedicated fanbase that kept it active and it was able to find and build an audience.
For TWEWY, yes, there was already an existing audience but I think they were too spread out and couldn’t carry the game on Twitter when discussion changes with the wind on there. I’m sure they had private servers but that’s a private server. Being able to go onto Discord and find an official public server would have at least given it a home for centralized discussion.
3. Getting influencers and more journalists on board. I don’t like influencer-based marketing because for awhile SE was way too focused on streamers and shunned anything that wasn’t a streamer, but it is necessary in these times. It drives me nuts that this is the game they needed to do this for but they happened to pull away from streamer-driven marketing just in time for this game!
Also in general they were very picky about review codes for sites and it doesn’t make sense because the game ended up being very well received. Weird time to be super conservative and nervous.
My point is that this game needed to be more visible and SE just didn’t do that. I’m not sure if they had bad internal reviews or if the flaccid demo reception did something (which lol what did they expect would happen? They needed a better vertical slice of the game rather than just having the beginning).
4. Less of whatever those tweets and Insta pots were and more in-game funny gifs. How hard would that have been? And if they wanted later game stuff, they could have had SE Japan edit screens with the mr mask guy neku’s face still covered up.
5. Leaving mr mask guy neku as the marketing mystery when there were better mysteries to be had in that game lol
6. MORE SHOKA IN MARKETING.
Yeah, the fandom didn’t really do a great job at trying to win KH fans over or educate them. The hostility was a huge deterrent.
What hostility? From sites like Gematsu and Siliconera, to public joints like ResetEra and Reddit, Kingdom Hearts fans kind of being dicks about it was the cold reality; all NEO posts on the KH sub were promptly killed off for being off-topic, outright disdain on RE, and an utter lack of interest everywhere else, which brings the next issue: Why on earth should TWEWY fans have to "win over" KH fans, who again, have been the hostile ones, not the other way around? Again, it is its own thing, it's not a Kingdom Hearts spin-off, it should stand on its own merits.
If you want to point fingers at fanbases for.....I dunno, being "irresponsible" for not sharing the love, or...whatever, look at at the Persona or DanganRonpa communities. TWEWY is far more in their wheelhouse, and has far more in common, than it would have with Kingdom Hearts. A few stray elements like sharing a producer and cameos does not a cohesive, connective tissue make... If you wanted disparate communities to join hands and forge a circle of trust, those'd be it.
In fact, I honestly never did get why the site staff here decided to put KH and TWEWY in a blender. The two franchises are so far apart in presentation, writing, characterization, style, it's not even funny... It would've been much, much more efficient if you just made a brand new, dedicated TWEWY fansite, and plugged it every chance you could. In fact, that actually happened a long time ago - there was a site called "7 Days Limit" a long, looooooong while ago but it didn't last since the owners got into some kind of spat. You guys could've picked up the pieces! But sharing the space on KHInsider, without any meaningful distinction, pretending like TWEWY was some kind of spin-off... It was foolish, and it made no sense.
If you want to point fingers at fans for not doing Square's job more efficiently...well, let's just say KHI isn't exactly a shining beacon of marketing either. I actually know a thing or two about this! I'm....well, was, in marketing myself. =_=
It's not about winning them over my guy. From my perspective, especially on Twitter, the minute a KH fan referenced something about TWEWY possibly being related to KH, people overracted way too harshly. "THEY HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH EACH OTHER" "OMG KH FANS ARE THE WORST MENTIONING KH AND TWEWY IN THE SAME SENTENCE"
Yeah, that kind of hosility over the years doesn't go away. Some KH fans start feeling that way towards TWEWY and it sucks. That's why I brought up the point in the first place. I've seen it with my own eyes over the years. It was such a missed opportunity to grow the TWEWY fandom more by educating KH fans better since DDD did a poor job at it. That's how so many lesser known properties get more popular if the company isn't doing anything. Word of mouth. Trying to convince others to try it. Look at FF14. It literally became a meme and sensational success because of that meme. People managed to convince popular WoW streamers to try it and now some of them and their audience don't even want to go back to WoW.
Maybe from your perspective you've only seen one side of it (KH fans hostlity towards TWEWY), but it's a two way street. At the beginning, KH fans had no reason to feel hostility towards TWEWY and even though most KH didn't know about it before DDD, I think they liked the inclusion of it and the characters.
So you have to ask yourself "Ok, then why is there this tongue-in-cheek tenseness between the KH and TWEWY fandoms?" It's BECAUSE well, even though their intentions were good and obviously they LOVE TWEWY universe a lot and want to protect its integrity... some people on social social media either purposely or accidently wasted a huge crossover opportunity to get a huge market to love their game.
Like, how many people are like me who had no idea what Final Fantasy even was when I played KH and are now an average FF enjoyer? KH is so many FF fans "First baby FF game". It's like a freakin' pipeline into nerdom.
I think that was what they kinda wanted to do with TWEWY too. Create a streamline into discovering the TWEWY, but it only kinda worked.
It's not about pointing fingers. It's just a string of unfortunately circumstances and misunderstandings that's lead to some fallout. Square did little to nothing to continue cultivating KH fans to enjoy the lesser known properties like TWEWY as well so if they were relying on the fandom to market the game to KH fans (a fandom literally built on the back of crossover so they are open for almost anything), that was a mistake and they didn't read the tense room beforehand.
Honestly the game/series always felt like a niche, mostly carried by the core fanbase, which isn't big enough to make a game sell well. plus the meh marketing. they just sent it out to die which is pretty sad.
grabbed the game on sale for 20$, so did my part i guess. my friend loves the series a lot so mostly did it for him.
What hostility? From sites like Gematsu and Siliconera, to public joints like ResetEra and Reddit, Kingdom Hearts fans kind of being dicks about it was the cold reality; all NEO posts on the KH sub were promptly killed off for being off-topic, outright disdain on RE, and an utter lack of interest everywhere else, which brings the next issue: Why on earth should TWEWY fans have to "win over" KH fans, who again, have been the hostile ones, not the other way around? Again, it is its own thing, it's not a Kingdom Hearts spin-off, it should stand on its own merits.
If you want to point fingers at fanbases for.....I dunno, being "irresponsible" for not sharing the love, or...whatever, look at at the Persona or DanganRonpa communities. TWEWY is far more in their wheelhouse, and has far more in common, than it would have with Kingdom Hearts. A few stray elements like sharing a producer and cameos does not a cohesive, connective tissue make... If you wanted disparate communities to join hands and forge a circle of trust, those'd be it.
In fact, I honestly never did get why the site staff here decided to put KH and TWEWY in a blender. The two franchises are so far apart in presentation, writing, characterization, style, it's not even funny... It would've been much, much more efficient if you just made a brand new, dedicated TWEWY fansite, and plugged it every chance you could. In fact, that actually happened a long time ago - there was a site called "7 Days Limit" a long, looooooong while ago but it didn't last since the owners got into some kind of spat. You guys could've picked up the pieces! But sharing the space on KHInsider, without any meaningful distinction, pretending like TWEWY was some kind of spin-off... It was foolish, and it made no sense.
If you want to point fingers at fans for not doing Square's job more efficiently...well, let's just say KHI isn't exactly a shining beacon of marketing either. I actually know a thing or two about this! I'm....well, was, in marketing myself. =_=
Why would we pick up a site we didn’t know existed? And we did TWEWY news because we wanted to expand into more than just KH news and have something to do when KH was in its downtime. It was a nice way to distinguish us from the other fansites. We had plans on doing general Disney news and growing out that way as well but it’s not that easy when we work full time and just volunteer for free here. I was allowed the compromise of a Disney section. We also had plans on folding our old FF news site to this site as well but again…free volunteers working for free! It is hard enough working one site when you are in the middle of a work meeting. Handling multiple or having more news topics on one? Not possible. And volunteer work is by the wayside these days and people will go to a site that will pay them so adding staff isn’t easy.
I’m certainly not pointing my fingers at fans, I’m saying fan in-fighting was everywhere and it didn’t help matters alongside a tepid marketing “campaign”.
KHI isn’t some marketing arm. We hope our efforts do something to promote the two series we love, but we are here to be a resource and a home for discussion.
We’ve never treated TWEWY like a spin-off. If I had it my way we would have had a TWEWY section on its own years ago but it wasn’t allowed, so we worked with what we had until I could make a section for it.
Whatever work you did in marketing in whatever place you live in is fine knowledge and kudos to you for getting into it, but irrelevant to this particular chain of discussion about fandom infighting which was and still is out there and not just coming from KH fans. It’s a two-way street. Kirabook laid it out pretty well so I have no desire to rehash what she said.
I feel like you are coming at this with a wholly biased view as somebody who works/worked in marketing so you know how hard they work. You also are clearly a TWEWY fan with little love of KH fans which is fine. I hate KH fans too lol. TWEWY is my favorite above any other games, so I get it. But I’m not sure why you are desperate to genuinely argue against us as if we’ve committed some slight against TWEWY just by…reporting on it? when very few others were until the anime and sequel got announced. We just wanted to have fun and share news about a game we thought was really neat…minus one of our staff. He thought we were big idiots chasing after a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow of remix albums (the gold being the sequel). (I say this in jest btw. He was right to be skeptical and is usually right ❤)
My point is that we are doing this stuff because we love KH and TWEWY and Nomura just happened to put it in KH and it wasn’t big enough for its own separate site we could make so…??♀️
Probably not reasonable at all.
Also, they really sent the game to die with their poor marketing. Like, how hard was it to feature it during E3 since it was about to come out???
And Nomura shouldn't have been allowed to directly say "no" to KH references in that one interview because I think that probably kept curious KH fans from crossing over to check it out (and even if they left disappointed, they would have played a fun game)...and the lack of leveraging the FF references in the game to appeal to that audience...or not using game images for easy meme material...
Essentially they needed a better marketing plan behind this game.
I know I'm late to the discussion party, but yeah, NEO had a lot of viral marketing potential. And for a game that was making a franchise comeback for the TWEWY, yeah, they undersold the game. I feel like, at this day and age with how technology facilitates organic marketing for brands; the fact that the Switch is selling like hot pancakes and anything stamped in it gets record breaking numbers; the fact that it's also on the PS4; I feel like Neo undersold terribly. Again: lack of marketing
I don’t like influencer-based marketing because for awhile SE was way too focused on streamers and shunned anything that wasn’t a streamer, but it is necessary in these times.
Especially how one of your characters is an influencer. They could have made a "real life" Motoi and promote the game.
And Rindo explaining internet memes in the most boomer way possible because he looks it up in oxford dictionary instead of urban dictionary.
I just hope that this is a continual lesson in expectations for SE. It’s clear they have issues with that in general.
Capcom used to have this problem - their initial projections for Resident Evil 6 were at least 7 million sold on launch and 5 million for DmC: Devil May Cry, which they later revised to 5 million for RE6 and 2 million for DmC (which didn't even break a million after launch I believe).
It is a shame that the series will probably be shelved for some time because of this. But oh well maybe in 15 years we'll get TWEWY3 and Deus Ex 5.
PS what the fudge is goin on here
I doubt this is the end of TWEWY and this is coming from someone that never expected a sequel. But years later not only we got one, but also an anime. What were the odds?! The franchise is more popular now than it was some years ago. Even if it's just a little.
Anything is possible. Most people who played NEO really enjoyed it. It's not like the game is bad or something. Hopefully Square realizes this.
I doubt this is the end of TWEWY and this is coming from someone that never expected a sequel. But years later not only we got one, but also an anime. What were the odds?! The franchise is more popular now than it was some years ago. Even if it's just a little.
Anything is possible. Most people who played NEO really enjoyed it. It's not like the game is bad or something. Hopefully Square realizes this.
I think we need to separate "things that are not impossible" from "things that are actually plausible". Is TWEWY 3 impossible? No, if SE really wanted to they could greenlight it right this instant. But is that something they actually would do? NEO's underperformance makes it unlikely.
Realistically speaking, NEO and the anime were supposed to be the second chance for a potential series where the original game was beloved by the people who played it but had always been niche. The fact that there was a gap of nearly a decade and a half between the original and sequel hints that getting the sequel greenlit was an uphill battle. Why would the people holding the purse strings go for a third chance when the second chance missed the mark?
NEO nominated for Best Art Direction, Best Soundtrack and PS GOTY in PS Blog GOTY Poll: https://blog.playstation.com/2021/12/06/ps-blog-game-of-the-year-2021-polls-are-now-live/?fbclid=IwAR3qXuYpgTM1tMq6iCm_6gB6cJSa0IonSHKTS5m1ge-OcyTEBWOwjbKjO_M
Why would the people holding the purse strings go for a third chance when the second chance missed the mark?
The chances are indeed low. It's business and the main priority in business is making money which TWEWY is not making enough, regardless how realistic Square expectations were.
I won't take a third game for granted, but after we had an anime and sequel years later coming from nowhere, I feel like anything can happen.
I won't take a third game for granted, but after we had an anime and sequel years later coming from nowhere, I feel like anything can happen.
From out of nowhere? More like the the creatives had wanted to make a TWEWY sequel for years (teasing audiences with Hype-chan and the like) and finally managed to convince the executives to take the risk. That risk not paying off will make them even more wary in the future unless NEO manages to turn it around and become a sleeper hit.
You do realize that the anime was part of the marketing for NEO, right? It was supposed to let potential new players catch up with story without having to play an old game. Regardless of whether or not it accomplished that goal they didn't make it out of the kindness of their hearts.
I love Neo to death but I can't say I'm surprised. :(
that really sux
Neo really does deserve more recognition than it got as it such a great game with an awesome soundtrack but unfortunately the lack of advertising has turned this game into a hidden gem. It’s a shame that the only way they can try to advertise the game now is probably putting it in a discounted deals section in the PlayStation store and Nintendo E-shop and hope people think the game looks interesting.
I was watching the Game Awards the other day and after the new trailers for Forspoken and FF7 Remake Intergrade to PC, the lack of marketing of NEO crossed my mind again. NEO never got any trailers in these big events, right?
I was watching the Game Awards the other day and after the new trailers for Forspoken and FF7 Remake Intergrade to PC, the lack of marketing of NEO crossed my mind again. NEO never got any trailers in these big events, right?
Nope! That has been the main criticism behind the marketing of this game. They skipped out on key events where this game could have gotten exposure. No brainers like a proper showing during a Nintendo Direct or State of Play or SE’s own E3 presentation.
It's early, and I'm not awake enough to catch up on the thread, but was this related to Japan or are we talking global figures? Both? One thing that prevented me from purchasing the game at launch was that they divided up the contents of the physical collector's edition JP had into seperate merch for NA, and that personally would have incentivized me to move forward with the sale. As it is now, I have neither. *shrug*
Nope! That has been the main criticism behind the marketing of this game. They skipped out on key events where this game could have gotten exposure. No brainers like a proper showing during a Nintendo Direct or State of Play or SE’s own E3 presentation.
No idea what they were thinking, but that's something for them to reflect on if there's a next time. Even indies get trailers in these events...
I remember at the time telling people that the lacklustere showing of SE and Sony at E3 would definitely come back to bite them on the ass, but I didn't expect it so quickly. More to the point, I can't find a retail copy of NEO anywhere, and when I asked at my local game shop in September, they said that the publisher had already asked for copies to be returned which is kinda crazy to me! I never worked in retail for video games but I have for books, magazines, newspapers etc, and products do get recalled on a timely basis but for things that aren't on an ongoing schedhule like books, the recalls are very few and definitely don't happen 2 months after release. Sony saw nintendo doing directs and wanted in on that cheap, powerpoint way to get things trending, but Nintendo has a whole closed ecosystem and 1st party/exclusive games that are already hugely popular; it was never gonna work for Sony, and is just proof of how necessary trade fairs are. Everyone knows when the next direct is because of how obnoxious Nintendo fans are about it, but I couldn't ever tell you about the various State of Plays that drop at the weirdest times. Sony have an established name and presence - they should use it! And the less said about Square's ridiculous marketing of GotG over NEO the better.
Man hearing how the game underperformed is really disheartening. Especially, because all I've ever really heard regarding the game, was positive buzz. Guess, we won't be getting the Shinjuku game anytime soon. Unless SE somehow realizes that their lack of marketing was at fault or that their expectations for this AA Game was too close to that of an AAA Game.
I guess, I should just be happy that we got to revisit this world again and that this is one of those 10 year later sequels that stuck the landing.
I was watching the Game Awards the other day and after the new trailers for Forspoken and FF7 Remake Intergrade to PC, the lack of marketing of NEO crossed my mind again. NEO never got any trailers in these big events, right?
Exactly, I don't know whether Square Enix wanted a large profit margin with a smaller marketing budget or not, but regardless, I find the poor marketing for NEO TWEWY inexcusable in this day and age.
These valentine cards are great:
It also reminded TWEWY doesn't even have its own official english page and I don't know why. :rolleyes:
These valentine cards are great:
It also reminded TWEWY doesn't even have its own official english page and I don't know why. :rolleyes:
Considering how poor SENA's social media game is, it's for the best.
Considering how poor SENA's social media game is, it's for the best.
In order to reach more people It would still be better than nothing.
The_Echo
November 24, 2021 @ 05:14 amOffline