Final Fantasy VII G-Bike is being terminated come this December

[The Witch]

In case you’re wondering, FFVII G-BIKE is ENDING on December 15th of this year. For the few players that did get to play this mobile game, this may come as a shock. The reason? Prepare yourselves, because this will come as even more of a shock, even for the naysayers... According to Kotaku, Square Enix reports that its termination is due to the ‘difficulty’ to offer a ‘satisfactory experience’ to fans.



Well, it’s assumed that this ‘dissatisfaction’ that they’re talking about is the many complaints Japanese fans had about the lack of other characters, including the heroine, Aerith Gainsborough. Quite a few gaming bloggers in Japan often criticized the game for this very reason, and this eventually led to less people playing G-BIKE all together, which could mean Square Enix saw no profit in continuing this game any longer, thus they decided to call it quits. Of course, this is just my speculation for the cause of the sudden termination.


What I’m more concerned with is the fact that Square Enix openly told the world that they were terminating a mobile game because they didn’t know how to make players happy. What exactly does this mean for the upcoming FF7 Remake?


While I still have faith in Square Enix’s abilities to remake this game, this worried me quite a bit. If they can’t even listen to consumer demand and make players happy with a mere mobile game, how will they hold up with one of the most highly anticipated remakes in gaming history?

What do you guys think?

 

[greenyxi]

Meh, I always knew it would be a bit of a flop. While it was decent fun in FF7, it could never be its own game without huge improvements.

As for the FF7 remake...I have no doubt in my mind that it won't be as good as the original. However, I want to see what they make different so I'll still play it. I reckon, if they can't measure fans' wants for a minigame, then they are going to have a hard time with the remake. Still, they've had a hella long time to perfect things since the tech demo came out like a decade-ish ago. That's bound to be long enough to see what works and what doesn't...right? .

 

[The Witch]

Good point, good point. They probably don't even care for this game, too. But still, to think their staff would be smarter than to say 'oh hey guys, btw, we dont know how to make you happy so we're gonna cancel this game'


I'm so freakin' worried for the remake

 

[Linnaete]

I think it's a considerable stretch to say that just because this mobile game failed for whatever reason, it bodes ill for the FFVII remake. By extension, FFXV is in considerable trouble as well. As is FFXIV's ongoing development...which is clearly false, because it's been garnering so much good will with the players.

Square have made many misfires in recent years, but they're one of the most persistent companies around - they refused to let FFXIV fail and practically threw everything but the kitchen sink at its reboot. They're not going to allow a project as big as the FFVII remake to flounder anymore, after the calamitous original 1.0 release of FFXIV.

This mobile game by comparison is a rather inconsequential little thing. They have streams of steady revenue from other mobile games, MMO subs and AAA releases, so they're easily able to sacrifice this particular cynically designed money grabber. If it doesn't stand out well enough in a fiercely competitive and saturated Japanese mobile space, it may as well be taken out to the back. Though having said that, this ISN'T the first mobile game they're shutting down. There was Final Fantasy Agito as well. The interesting thing with Agito is that they're planning to reboot it, so the same could happen for this one. A mobile game can fortunately be allowed to fail without severe consequences.

 

[The Witch]

It's why it failed that bothers me. They don't know how to satisfy players wishes, if you don't understand what players want for one game then you don't understand what they want for any

i don't care if FF15 fails or not. my worries are for ff7 remake. i know they won't want the game to fail. but the fact is, they still couldn't make fans happy with a mobile game so now i'm worried for the remake.

 

[Linnaete]

Or maybe they just couldn't be arsed. Maybe it just wasn't a game with enough legs to stand on worth the server upkeep. Maybe players just got sick of it after a few minutes and went on to the vast myriad of other mobile games out there.

And besides, fans don't even know what they want for a game, let alone for something like the FFVII remake which will have like, hundreds of diverging requests. Nothing they can do will satisfy anywhere close to everyone anyway, so they may as well experiment and stick with whatever vision they have/are dreaming up.

 

[The Witch]

or maybe they'll scrap the remake completely because they don't know what to give the fans so what's the point in going through with it,
see my point?

 

[Linnaete]

Not really, no. But I'm someone who has never clamoured for a FFVII remake, nor have I ever felt one would be necessary, so I've no real stake in this.

But I'll reiterate my point. The purported reason for this inconsequentual mobile game shutting down its service ---> they probably have no idea how to please fans with the FFVII remake at all is a bit of a far leap to make at this point. How about we wait and see first, when we virtually know nothing about the remake.