The Shrine

A post for those interested in the two series.

The franchises are much closer this gen than previous generations (I included all remakes and sub-franchises as well; I wish I had downloadable title numbers, because there are more Final Fantasy titles including FF7, FF8, FF Tactics, FF4 AY, FF1, and FF4). Final Fantasy appeared on all major consoles, while Dragon Quest appeared only on DS, PSP, and Wii:

Dragon Quest: 7 releases on DS for 12.5 million, an additional 900K for 2 games on the Wii, and 110K for 1 game on PSP.

Final Fantasy: 3 releases on Wii for 630K, 6 releases on 360 for 2.3M sales, 1 release on PS3 for 4.26M, 8 releases on DS for a total of 6.85 million, 7 releases on PSP for a total of 6 million.


Totals:
Dragon Quest = 13.5 million
Final Fantasy = 20 million

Total releases:
Dragon Quest = 10
Final Fantasy = 31

Average sales:
Dragon Quest = 1.35 million
Final Fantasy = 646K


My thoughts:

Final Fantasy has been a very used name since its inception, spawing sub-series almost immediately; Dragon Quest since about DQ4 when they released a side-game based on DQ4. So don't be surprised by the number of different releases in the franchise. As I see it, Final Fantasy has two major releases left (FF13-2 on PS3 and also on Xbox 360) and Dragon Quest has two (Dragon Quest X, and Dragon Quest VI), with Dragon Quest's releases having the greater sales potential; although this generation is effectively approaching its close. I expect both series will have their strongest appearance in the next generation on the 3DS.

Final Fantasy, despite winning in total sales, seems to be the weaker brand nowadays. Dragon Quest 9 is on its way to selling 5 million very soon (currently at 4.85 million and selling ~25-30K per week), whereas Final Fantasy 13 sold 4.26 million on PS3, and 1.35 million on Xbox 360 for a total of about 5.61 million. Final Fantasy is still much stronger outside of Japan, but Dragon Quest is not doing terribly, with 1.3 million sales in the west this generation.

The irony is that Dragon Quest was actually originally made with the idea of having a greater appeal to western audiences than Japanese audiences (DQ is largely focussed on medieval western fantasy themes, whereas Final Fantasy focuses more on Japanese sci-fi themes). I would guess that Dragon Quest will have a greater western audience on 3DS; DQX looks as though it could potentially fall after the release of Nintendo's next console (which I expect for release in 14 months), which will negatively impact its success over here.

Seems ironic that DQ is supposed to be the more "Western" RPG, but it's always been a traditional JRPG through and through, so I don't understand why they would think that.

Keep in mind that when DQ was first created, it was basically a videogame version of Dungeons & Dragons. But I'm not aware of any evidence to Seeker's claim - yes, the world's in DQ tend to resemble medieval and Renaissance Europe more than Japan, but I'm not aware of any stated desire to appeal more to western audiences.

How can DQ be intended for western audiences when there are more DQ games that was never released in the western world compared to FF games even though there are far more FF games than DQ games?

Kupek wrote:Keep in mind that when DQ was first created, it was basically a videogame version of Dungeons & Dragons. But I'm not aware of any evidence to Seeker's claim - yes, the world's in DQ tend to resemble medieval and Renaissance Europe more than Japan, but I'm not aware of any stated desire to appeal more to western audiences.

Oh, they don't. They appeal to the very traditional DQ fan, period. Always have, always will. Why the hell would they screw with that gift horse?

You can't really say Dragon Quest is "JRPG through and through". First of all, it is western fantasy; swords and sorcery - Robert E Howard/JRR Tolkien style. Second, when it was created, there were no points of comparison: not only was western style fantasy not popular in Japan (if you look at the media of the time, it was all science fiction related; lots of post-apocalyptic stuff, high tech, robots and stuff), but it was the very first game of its kind; it was the very first console RPG. Its closest relatives were old-PC fantasy games like Wizardry and Ultima; which are western developed titles - not Japanese.

I suppose I shouldn't say it was intended for Western audiences so much as it wasn't expected that a western fantasy themed game like Dragon Quest would do well in Japan. "People used to say that western style fantasy would never be accepted by Japan." said DQ father, Yuji Horii. Final Fantasy was created with more elements from Japanese style fantasy (technology intertwined in the fantasy). It contained more science fiction elements, such as robots, post-apocalyptic civilization, high technology, and the fantasy elements essentially having a scientific explanation (even in the very limited format off NES to explain this stuff).


Anyway, the point of my post is that the Dragon Quest brand could very well surpass the Final Fantasy brand in the not so distant future. It is gaining traction in markets outside of Japan, and Final Fantasy games are on the decline in popularity. While Dragon Quest 8 was fairly big, its push was largely the result of the merging of Square and Enix, and it fed off of Final Fantasy's popularity (I would guess many saw it as a Final Fantasy demo with a free RPG included, rather than a Dragon Quest game with a free RPG demo included). This generation, Dragon Quest has been selling based on its own merits. I expect that it will increase in sales in the coming generation; given that the series will obviously have gained more popularity, and the upcoming systems will have much greater anti-piracy.

Julius Seeker wrote:You can't really say Dragon Quest is "JRPG through and through". First of all, it is western fantasy; swords and sorcery - Robert E Howard/JRR Tolkien style. Second, when it was created, there were no points of comparison: not only was western style fantasy not popular in Japan (if you look at the media of the time, it was all science fiction related; lots of post-apocalyptic stuff, high tech, robots and stuff), but it was the very first game of its kind; it was the very first console RPG. Its closest relatives were old-PC fantasy games like Wizardry and Ultima; which are western developed titles - not Japanese.

That was then. This is now. The term JRPG didn't exist at the time, because like you said, "it was the very first console RPG". This doesn't include the thousands of spins off that wanted to be like Dragon Quest, due to its initial popularity.

Nowadays, it's rare to find a Japanese RPG that is sci-fi related, or post-apocalyptic stuff, high tech, robots and stuff. It seems the Americans have taken over that market (Mass Effect, Fallout, System/Bio Shock, Deus Ex). As far as the Japanese RPGs, Dragon Quest and a vast majority of the other RPGs have stuck with the same ol' boring formula for 15 years. Final Fantasy, though they still stick with the fantasy angle most of the time, have at least taken risks, which is why it's still very successful.

That's not to say that DQ isn't successful, but its success is fading. And it's the king of all JRPGs, which means that other JRPGs are already failing. (This again ties to the fact that the Japanese is starting to lose touch of what makes a good game, especially the ones that don't embrace Western ideals.)

I can't count how many times I've bought one of these JRPGs, only to be pissed able how boring and typical the game is. I never finish these games, and I think I've finally come to the point of saying that I won't get fool again. I simply won't buy another one unless something really stands out in the reviews. And even then, I probably won't play something like DQ. (I've played the DQ8 demo, so I basically know it's going to be the same as the other 7 ones.)

Julius Seeker wrote:Anyway, the point of my post is that the Dragon Quest brand could very well surpass the Final Fantasy brand in the not so distant future.

I disagree completely. DQ would need to make some big changes to remove its traditionalism elements, which they would never do. While Square has been doing a good job of fucking up their games lately, they have at least been making some pretty good FF games.

In any case, the mantle of great RPG makers are shifting towards the American companies, so none of this will matter in ten years, anyway.

SineSwiper wrote:That's not to say that DQ isn't successful, but its success is fading.

What are you basing this claim on?

In the Main series:

Dragon Quest 5 - 2.79M
Dragon Quest 6 - 3.19M
Dragon Quest 7 - 4.33M
Dragon Quest 8 - 4.99M
Dragon Quest 9 - 4.87M (will probably end up over 5.2M by Christmas)


The expanded series per generation:

Gen 5 (PSX) - 6.42M
Gen 6 (PS2)- 7.47M
Gen 7 (DS) - 12.5M


Looks like growth to me.

You mean a bunch of Japanese love DQ? I don't think DQ has been extremely popular in America, compared to the Japanese. I could count 30 different games that have done more than 620K sales in the US.

I don't see how this supports your point that the series is fading. Although the data I presented showed that was not the case.

It has become more and more apparant in the gaming industry that relying on sales figures from Japan is not a good business strategy. DQ is relying on the fact that it's a huge name, just like how FF sells millions of copies even if it was a shit game, and the fact that DQ releases have been pretty sparse until recently.

My point is that the sales figures may reflect growth but its temporary as the industry moves towards more complex games and stories tailored to Western audiences.

Just like most people don't care too much that China and Korea supports a bunch of MMOs you've never seen and most likely won't like since the culture is different, most people probably don't care if DQ is propped up by a Japanese fanbase if the gameplay remains irrelevent to the western world. It might make the company a lot of money but it is of no relevance to most people in the western world.

Inafune (of Megaman) has an article about how Japan is about 5 years behind the western world in game development. Sure your entrenched franchises like Pokemon or DQ or even Megaman can probably get respectable sales from Japan even if there is no innovation whatsoever, but you also won't be finding much growth out of them besides what Japan accounts for. Look at how amateurish FF14's launch is compared to even the worst MMORPGs. Inafune said western games have big budgets so they can actually try to improve the game (which may or may not be successful) while Japanese developers are content to just make the same thing over and over again (which is pretty ironic since he made Megaman, after all) so the gap gets bigger over time, and I think it's a pretty accurate assessment.

SineSwiper wrote:It has become more and more apparant in the gaming industry that relying on sales figures from Japan is not a good business strategy. DQ is relying on the fact that it's a huge name, just like how FF sells millions of copies even if it was a shit game, and the fact that DQ releases have been pretty sparse until recently.

My point is that the sales figures may reflect growth but its temporary as the industry moves towards more complex games and stories tailored to Western audiences.

Temporary? The trends I have posted for the main series growth date back to 1992, 18 years ago; hardly temporary =P

I think the only reason you are arguing against points that are quite evident, is out of a personal bias, rather than reason.

Personal bias? Just look at the replies around you. We've also discussed this before in other threads on how Japan is slowing losing the global marketshare on gaming because of its refusal to adapt to Western ideals. Several Japanese developers agree and have discussed this. Here's that article that Don's talking about:

http://www.pushsquare.com/19138/inafune ... ful-games/

Here's other articles:

http://kotaku.com/337683/japanese-game- ... in-trouble
http://www.destructoid.com/western-deve ... 2272.phtml
http://www.nowgamer.com/columns/casual- ... developers
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-10419828-17.html
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/ar ... ?id=249993

Konami, Platinum Games, Capcom, BioWare, Cliff B. They all agree that Japanese is falling behind in the industry.

I don't see how this is relevant to Dragon Quest; or how this disproved your bias against the series. There is no evidence that the decline in the market in other sectors is negatively impacting sales in the Dragon Quest franchise. The evidence shows that Dragon Quest popularity has increased over the past 18 years.

Fact: Japan is the #4 market in the world now, behind the US, Europe, and Asia

http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Video_game_industry

Kojima and Inafune actually stood up during the Tokyo Game Show (and this has been going on for the last couple years now) and said "we suck"

http://www.gamefocus.ca/?nav=new&nid=11059

This is all old news we've discussed here many times. What's the argument about?

What does Japan's shitty market have to do with the fact Dragon Quest still sells extremely well there and each Dragon Quest game has sold more then the last, I think, is Seeker's point?

DQ sales is like saying there's this new awesome dating-sim series that's selling better than ever in Japan. Nobody cared about them (outside of Japan) back in the NES era and nobody cares about them now. Sure maybe these game could be the pinnacle of gaming but if nobody cares about it, it's not even important. It'd be like me telling you the new Touhou game is like the best shooter ever (or not) and sold 3 million copies in 3 days in Japan. Even if really happened nobody on this board would care, because it's a game that is irrelevent outside of Japan. You might as well say 5 out of 5 Klingons recommend DQ and that's about as relevent the DQ franchise is to the western world.

On the other hand FF is clearly relevent to the western world. It started out as irrelevent and is now generating pretty good sales in area that is not Japan. From the western-centric point of view this is clearly a gain for the series. I mean how can it be not, it went from an irrelevent game to being a prominently known franchise! Yes it might make less money than DQ overall, but why would you care about that unless you're a Sqix stakeholder (and since they make both games it probably doesn't even matter)? If every FF game cost Sqix $100 million loss why do you care as a player? I think all can agree most FFs are at least a decent value for the cost of the game, and sure the recent direction of FF is rather bizarre but as long as you're not a stackholder it doesn't matter. Most FFs probably is still at least comparable value to other RPGs out there so we view it as the more successful franchise. Any success has to be better than a game that is simply irrelevent to the western world.

I just noticed that I basically said that we don't care about DQ but we care about FF so that's what counts, and technically you can say well the Japan cares about this but not that. But things have changed. Back in the past Japan used to be the #1 market so when you hear FF was coming here it's this title that did really well from the NUMBER ONE market and like it or not stuff like that is important to people's perception. Today the situation is reversed as most of the biggest number games that aren't solely a function of unusual market distortion (anything Nintendo pumps out, since they have no quality competition on their proprietary systems) come from somewhere that isn't Japan. So the #4 market considers DQ > FF in terms of sales and that might be great but rest of the world doesn't care what the #4 market thinks. Like Inafune was saying, Japanese developer seem to just stick to the same thing that used to work and that might be okay when you had the #1 market since the rest of the world has to respect that, but now that you're #4 the rest of the world doesn't really care.

Look at the rise of the Koreans. It is largely from their ability to do MMORPGs well, which is almost certainly the most profitable genre out of all games (WoW makes ~1B a year in revenue). In fact Korea is probably the #2 nation in the world in terms of developing MMORPGs (never heard of any European nation being good at this) and they're now considered as a significant player in gaming development even if they can only do one thing well, because rest of the world clearly views MMORPGs as important and they meet that need. Yes Japan might still be really good at making dating sims or vertical shooters or whatever but that's simply something that isn't important to anyone outside of Japan. On the other hand Korea's ability to make MMORPGs clearly is noticed by the rest of the world.

Eric wrote:What does Japan's shitty market have to do with the fact Dragon Quest still sells extremely well there and each Dragon Quest game has sold more then the last, I think, is Seeker's point?

DQ doesn't sell well in the US, combined with Japan's bleak gaming future, and combined with the fact that DQ will never change its formula. That and what Don said about Japan's relevance.

The original claim by Seeker was: "Dragon Quest brand could very well surpass the Final Fantasy brand in the not so distant future". I said no, because:

DQ = JRPG + Japanese only + unchanging (unable to Westernize)
FF = More Westernized RPG + US/Japan + not afraid to take risks

Japanese only = no future + declining sales
US/Japan = good future + increasing sales

I really can't get any clearer than that. If we are going to continue discussing this, you're either going to have to understand my argument and move on or I'm not going to play nice with the troll any more. I'm tired of repeating myself and re-hashing old arguments.

End of line.

To be fair it is entirely possible DQ is more profitable than FF, but again that really doesn't concern anyone in the area outside of Japan. If there was some dating sim in Japan that sells 3 million copies per game it really wouldn't have any meaningful impact to anyone outside of Japan either. It is also clear DQ's gameplay style has no future outside of Japan (which is why its sales are heavily derived from Japan). Does that mean it is a worse game than say, WoW? No, it's just irrelevent. I have some pretty unique interests in games too and it's easy to think that there are all these awesome games nobody else besides yourself has ever heard of but usually the reason why nobody has heard of your game indicates it probably has some kind of fundamental problem. It might not matter to you but it clearly mattered to most people and for most people the best game you have never heard might as well not exist.

This isn't quite like say, if you think LOTRO is the best MMORPG compared to WoW. While WoW is the undisputed leader in numbers most people have heard of LOTRO and played it in some capacity out of the population that'd be generally interested in such games. Yes people probably all heard of DQ but it's just a "I heard of this game before", sort of like you may have heard Rangarok Online was super popular in some country, or that some Korean FPS game is more popular than WoW. You may know they exist but you almost certainly never played it, and certainly the population as a whole is never going to play the game.

SineSwiper wrote:

Eric wrote:What does Japan's shitty market have to do with the fact Dragon Quest still sells extremely well there and each Dragon Quest game has sold more then the last, I think, is Seeker's point?

DQ doesn't sell well in the US, combined with Japan's bleak gaming future, and combined with the fact that DQ will never change its formula. That and what Don said about Japan's relevance.

The original claim by Seeker was: "Dragon Quest brand could very well surpass the Final Fantasy brand in the not so distant future". I said no, because:

DQ = JRPG + Japanese only + unchanging (unable to Westernize)
FF = More Westernized RPG + US/Japan + not afraid to take risks

Japanese only = no future + declining sales
US/Japan = good future + increasing sales

I really can't get any clearer than that. If we are going to continue discussing this, you're either going to have to understand my argument and move on or I'm not going to play nice with the troll any more. I'm tired of repeating myself and re-hashing old arguments.

End of line.

I am just presenting an examination of the facts. You're the one who is making a poor attempt at argument by completely ignoring the facts; while instead presenting an argument based on insults, conjecture, and biased inaccuracies. You have failed to show that Final Fantasy isn't shrinking in sales numbers, and that Dragon Quest isn't growing in sales numbers.

The comparison here is like saying KFC is doing great outside the US because they're trying new stuff while McDonald's is not, so that means at home KFC is better than McDonald's. This overlooks the fact that you're not going to go to Asia to buy KFC noodles for dinner no matter what, so whatever they're doing better outside the US really is of no concern, just like whatever game that is doing good that is clearly outside the Western demographics is of no interest to to the Western demographics. Now if KFC/DQ decided to leverage what they learned outside of the Western world and bring noodles/new gameplay to the Western world it may have an impact, but until this happens it's really irrelevent whatever they do well outside the target demographics.

I don't really like the recent FFs too much because they just aren't great games and some of them tries some pretty weird concepts (FF12 comes to mind though it wasn't too bad). But at least they're trying to fit in with the targeted demographics instead of wondering why no one seems to be interested in generic turn based combat ala DQ.

Julius Seeker wrote:I am just presenting an examination of the facts. You're the one who is making a poor attempt at argument by completely ignoring the facts; while instead presenting an argument based on insults, conjecture, and biased inaccuracies. You have failed to show that Final Fantasy isn't shrinking in sales numbers, and that Dragon Quest isn't growing in sales numbers.

It's not insults, conjecture, or biased inaccuracies. It's expert opinion by people in the industry. You were asking for predictions of the future, not what has happened in the past. The past can be accurately depicted by facts. The future can only be speculated by the evidence we have. You presented growth figures on sales, and I countered with industry trends and opinions that the future will not be the same as past sales.

Insults - calling me a troll for not agreeing with you is an insult, as is calling Dragon Quest a shit game.

Bias - again, calling Dragon Quest unchanging (obviously false), and a shit game (also obviously false since the series gets very positive reviews universally; the latest one has significantly higher reviews than the latest Final Fantasy).

Conjecture - Basing wild conclusions on the future of Dragon Quest vs Final Fantasy based on the argument "That's not to say that DQ isn't successful, but its success is fading." despite the FACT that the sales data shows the complete opposite; but then you make the even wilder statement that essentially says that 18 years of growth is "merely temporary," when no other major franchise has even close to that kind of track record. Then you go on to essentially say: "these experts say Western Developers are ahead of Eastern developers, and Final Fantasy resembles a western game - therefore Final Fantasy will grow and Dragon Quest will shrink", this time completely ignoring logic. That is actually a very striking example of baseless conjecture.

The most successful Japanese-only game can obviously be more successful than a somewhat successful game that reaches out to the world. It's just that the rest of the world doesn't really care about the former game which is why FF is more relevent to the world compared to DQ.