When Final Fantasy XIV was first released with version 1.0, it was such a disaster for Square Enix, then CEO of the company, Yoichi Wada, had to publicly apologize, feeling it had tarnished the Final Fantasy name. It would take a certain YoshiP to bring life back into the struggling MMORPG and save FFXIV.
While Final Fantasy XI had initially struggled, Square and its team used patches to bring FFXI into a state players enjoyed, and eventually, it became a massively successful game for the company. But, after the incredible success of World of Warcraft, Square wanted a true competitor, and went about creating a new MMORPG in the form of Final Fantasy XIV.
However, for FFXIV version 1.0, many team members had been inexperienced in MMOs in general, and were overly reliant on future patches to win over fans.
Instead of entirely throwing in the towel, Square put Naoki Yoshida in charge of FFXIV, who went about both updating FFXIV to a fun, and playable state, while simultaneously working on version 2.0, A Realm Reborn, which was built from the ground-up, and essentially a brand new game that would win over fan trust, and renew the good name of Final Fantasy. Dave Klein breaks all of this story down, and how Final Fantasy XIV SAVED itself!
