[HN Gopher] Square Enix to record extraordinary loss of 22.1B yen
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       Square Enix to record extraordinary loss of 22.1B yen
        
       Author : haunter
       Score  : 36 points
       Date   : 2024-04-30 20:02 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.gematsu.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.gematsu.com)
        
       | breckenedge wrote:
       | That's only $139M USD, so not terrible when it comes to the costs
       | of making a AAA game these days.
        
         | nozzlegear wrote:
         | Genuine question, I don't play very many video games anymore:
         | does Square Enix make AAA games? And what does a AAA game cost
         | these days?
        
           | nitwit005 wrote:
           | These are questions you can paste into your browser search
           | bar and get perfectly good answers.
        
             | cfeduke wrote:
             | > browser search bar and get perfectly good answers
             | 
             | That depends. If your search engine is Google, you'd get
             | things like "The best 17 AAA games by budget to buy in
             | 2024" or "22 triple A games for a tight budget in 2024."
        
             | ClassyJacket wrote:
             | ...Have you used Google recently?
        
           | pixl97 wrote:
           | Baldur's Gate 3 had a budget of $100 million.
        
           | solardev wrote:
           | Sure. Square Enix is a big publisher and sometimes developer,
           | responsible (or formerly responsible) for the Final Fantasy
           | series, Tomb Raider, Hitman, Thief, Deus Ex, etc. They sold
           | some of their development studios to Embracer Group, I
           | believe, but still publish titles. You can see their
           | franchises here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Square
           | _Enix_video_game...
           | 
           | AAA games can cost around $100 mil or more, altogether.
           | Here's a list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_exp
           | ensive_video_g...
        
       | rowanG077 wrote:
       | This is money they wasted due to "content abandonment". As a
       | whole SE is still shoveling in money. This is just a clickbait
       | title and an article that seems to want to cast Square Enix as
       | beeing in a bad financial position.
        
       | mushufasa wrote:
       | sounds like they cancelled a major game that had been in
       | development for a while.
       | 
       | The fact that they're issuing a mid-year guidance just for this
       | suggests it isn't your standard tax losses
        
         | lloydatkinson wrote:
         | It was probably Final Fantasy 13 III Mark 12 Edition 21 Version
         | 2.18.
         | 
         | In which case nothing of value was lost.
        
         | omoikane wrote:
         | According to speculations from some random thread[1], it might
         | be Dragon Quest Monsters 3 that's at risk, especially since
         | Toriyama Akira was involved with Dragon Quest and he died
         | earlier this year.
         | 
         | [1] https://togetter.com/li/2358590
        
       | peanuty1 wrote:
       | Maybe they will reconsider their decision not to sell the
       | square.com domain to Jack Dorsey's Square, Inc.
        
         | ZeWaka wrote:
         | But it is sold? Or at the very least, redirects to Square.
        
           | Aqua_Geek wrote:
           | Block (fka Square) pays them for the redirect, IIRC.
        
         | echelon wrote:
         | Block pays a lot of money to rent it.
         | 
         | I remember the Jira tickets for occasional square.com DNS
         | updates and rental payments.
        
       | downrightmike wrote:
       | Naming FF7:Rebirth was probably not a good move. Just sounds like
       | ew
        
         | jimbob45 wrote:
         | You're joking but I follow the games somewhat more than
         | casually and even I'm a little confused on which game is which
         | and what is actually in each game.
        
           | ClassyJacket wrote:
           | I do think the obsession with naming everything in a series
           | words beginning with 're' is a little unnecessary.
        
           | ambichook wrote:
           | i vaguely follow? and i think final fantasy <number> denotes
           | a new series, with then any words after <number> being
           | different entries in said series?
        
         | JojoFatsani wrote:
         | It's just you.
        
       | hiddencost wrote:
       | On revenue of 3.65 trillion in 2022, or 0.6% of annual revenue
        
         | gffrd wrote:
         | Their 2022 revenue was 32B yen, or 202M USD. The financial
         | figures in Wikipedia for Square Enix are in Yen.
        
       | bilekas wrote:
       | I'm genuinely shocked by this. The gaming industry usually culls
       | companies based on acquisitions, then become insolvent by the
       | investor.. maybe I missed a beat I don't see this here. In fact
       | they made 2 Amazing chapters of a series everyone wanted and a
       | promised 3rd to finalise.
       | 
       | I would like to believe this is invested money's and not "losses
       | of investment" but I'm no accountant.
        
         | iEchoic wrote:
         | FF7 Remake and Rebirth are both incredible, but Rebirth's sales
         | are significantly lower. I'm hoping this doesn't make them
         | reduce investment for the third installment.
        
           | ddtaylor wrote:
           | It's also a very expensive developnent.
        
             | iEchoic wrote:
             | You can definitely tell while you're playing it. It's
             | probably the best-looking game I've ever seen and it has a
             | pretty unbelievable amount of content.
        
             | bilekas wrote:
             | It absolutely should be the most expensive, but they did
             | choose to use unreal engine, I'm not complaining about but
             | it's certainly cheaper.
        
             | bilekas wrote:
             | Let me reply again, game development in my eyes is insanity
             | personified.
             | 
             | If it's engine or interop, it's wild. It always has been..
             | We used to have memory and space limits, now we have no
             | limits but time. I adore and praise every game developer.
             | It's a tough field.
        
           | bilekas wrote:
           | I don't have the sales numbers, but if we look at Capcom with
           | resident evil remakes, they made some cash.
           | 
           | FF remakes are in unreal engine, so some costs there but I
           | would imagine far less than a new engine build? With faster
           | turnover times..
        
           | fhuebgj wrote:
           | My guess is dinosaurs holding onto the "good ole days" of the
           | "console wars".
           | 
           | Remake and Rebirth were both seriously, and needlessly,
           | kneecapped by their own parent company.
           | 
           | The exclusivity deals are to blame.
           | 
           | One year exclusive on console(and in terms of Rebirth, a
           | console that few people own because of short supply at launch
           | and lack of games throughout its now apparently finished
           | tenure), then one year exclusive on a single pc game
           | store(the one I refuse to use), then, finally, wide release,
           | but by then everyone excited about the game has heard about
           | their friends playing it or a watched streamer and so once
           | they are finally ALLOWED to play the game the purchase is
           | less of a intriguing prospect.
           | 
           | I think the original moved a lot of CONSOLES, but to think
           | that sort of purchasing power STILL exists is a fever dream
           | that is dangerous to the parent company's own goals. (pun
           | intended ;)
        
         | politelemon wrote:
         | I'm not very familiar with their media, which series are you
         | referring to?
        
           | solardev wrote:
           | Not the OP, but probably
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_VII_Remake
           | 
           | FF7 was huge in the late 90s, and they've recently remade
           | that old game into a 3-part action RPG trilogy with enhanced
           | graphics and different gameplay.
        
             | ShamelessC wrote:
             | And bizarrely different plot points.
        
               | quchen wrote:
               | For example? I'm a fan since release 1997, but haven't
               | touched the remakes.
        
       | bilekas wrote:
       | For context also that's 130 million euro. Not that bad actually.
        
         | AtlasBarfed wrote:
         | Yeah, consider the pattern recently of the major media
         | corporations just not releasing movies so they could declare
         | large tax losses
         | 
         | A major movie being abandoned like that is probably on a scale
         | of 100 million
        
       | resist_futility wrote:
       | So half of last years earnings?
       | 
       | https://companiesmarketcap.com/square-enix/earnings/
        
         | marricks wrote:
         | Yeah, but line must go up or there will be blood.
         | 
         | I feel like the business world feels the need to overhype any
         | loses to justify whatever measure are about to come.
        
       | arkis22 wrote:
       | It might be helpful to understand that "extraordinary" is an
       | accounting distinction:
       | 
       | >An extraordinary loss is a loss resulting from a business
       | transaction that is highly unusual, should occur only rarely, and
       | which does not result from operating activities. These losses are
       | reported separately on the income statement from operating
       | earnings, in order to keep from confusing readers about the state
       | of a firm's earnings.
       | 
       | https://www.accountingtools.com/articles/extraordinary-loss
        
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       (page generated 2024-04-30 23:02 UTC)