Part One: A Brief History of Square Enix and Where it went Wrong

Men's Special Interest Literature

The last week has been highly productive if I say so myself. Yes, highly unusual I know. Amongst many things the most interesting has been the development of the new blog. Being well underway I can safely say it will be active sometime this month, which reminds me to announce that the RSS feed will be un-active, if such a word exists, until the new blog is published. While I don't want to go on too much about development, I must announce that Blankmind will be taking a new and interesting direction, which I'll leave for my collage to announce. But there is one clue in this part one of a post.

Not a Happy Bunny

For those who have seen the latest video from our YouTube channel (which I would be very surprised and worried if you did seeming as it still rests on my desktop waiting to be uploaded) I'm not a happy bunny. Specifically with Square Enix. Now I don't want to sound like an idiot ranting... but I'm going to continue with this anyway and run the risk. And for the record I apologies if I sound like I'm starting an anti camping. But let's just say their PR or business mindset, whatever you want to call it, for a lack of words, is shit. This defiantly puts me at odds ends. On one hand I'm slating the company that makes one of my favorite gaming series, but on the other I have a company that cannot see further than it's own stocks. But this got me thinking. Were things always like this? Or am I just glorifying my childhood years by thinking things were better back then. I'm not naive in thinking that I haven't just described most of the companies in the world, but surely wasn't there a time when this gaming company focused on making a quality game than profit? This is a brief article on what I found. While reading this bare in mine that this no way a professional article and is only intended to for at best light reading.

Part 1 of A Brief History of Square Enix and Where it went Wrong

Introduction: Reformations and Revelations.

"Square Enix's Corporate Philosophy

1. Professionalism

We shall exhibit a high degree of professionalism, ensuring optimum results in the workplace. We shall display initiative, make continued efforts to further develop our expertise, and remain sincere and steadfast in the pursuit of our goals, while ultimately aspiring to forge a corporate culture disciplined by the pride we hold in our work."

When Final Fantasy XIII was released in Japan December 2010 and later in March 9th for Europe and North America markets many critics and players around the world were astounded. The game was a graphical marvel. Again the series seemed to have pioneered in RPG battle mechanics and the company had shown it still maintained a high caliber of artistic creativity and graphic technicality that the series and company are renown for. If anything Final Fantasy XIII was confirmation. Confirmation that Square Enix holds some of the industries best artists and technological prowess in the world. Though despite the hype and instant sales success that come with any popular gaming series (over 5.7 million copies were sold worldwide and became the fastest selling game in the UK) it was not without its pressure. Final Fantasy XIII had a lot to live up to. It was to become the first game in the series to be made for 7th generation consoles. The last time such a project came around had been 8 years ago when Final Fantasy X was made for the Playstation 2. It had cost roughly 32 million dollars in the making and went on to become a critically acclaimed success, so much so that it went on to have its own squeal, a first for the series. It seemed like a fitting outcome. First time the series made a cross to a new platform was when Final Fantasy VII was made for the Playstaion in 1997. Back then it pushed the boundaries or RPG mechanics, making the genre popular once again to the mainstream gamers. Even today many fans hold it as being the pinnacle of the series. A lot of pressure indeed. Final Fantasy XIII was not only being made for one one console, but was and still is a part of the on going Fabula Nova Crystallis project that will eventually see 3 independent games over 4 very different platforms. But there was a bigger and not so obvious importance for Square Enix on a corporate level. It was not only on whether the game would live up to these legacies, but whether the corporation could carry the same success as Square. Whether wanted or not Final Fantasy XIII would be a true test, a test on a corporate and administrative level. While Final Fantasy XII was technically the first in the series to be publish by Square Enix, it was Final Fantasy XIII that would challenge the reformations since Enix merger with Squaresoft in April 2003. Final Fantasy XIII would carry a relatively large success, yet it was soon to be over shadowed by controversy and public relation blunders. Final Fantasy XIII would certainly be remembered, but partly for the wrong reasons. In all the hype it would be its own limelight that would reveal a corporation that some where along the line cared more about profit than its fans. The question was, when?

Shurikens and ShoutOut

ShoutOut! Music Artist Worthy of Note

Ever wondered how to make a paper shuriken? Or maybe you just a bit into making origami's after Heavy Rain? Well try mixing an audio instruction with a chill out mix: that's what Halvard Avheim Vegum did on here on Newgrounds. If you find that this perks your interest into actually making one try the video tutorial here. Not that I want to rip a load of things from Newgrounds today, but Burn7's "Phychosis Pt. 2"defiantly wins top trumps. Part 1 can be found here as can the entire mix here.

The Price of the Future

Another long university holiday has been and gone, and I would like to say that I have done all of the things I planned to do over the past months, sadly that would be a lie. Although we have done numerous things that we planned on, like starting BlankMind.tv, and attending Amecon, there is still a long list of things that were never completed. However we do have plans...

As my friend has previously stated, we’ve been slowed done by the barrage of new and wonderful games that have appeared throughout the year (and of course the year isn’t over yet). It has been quite hard, and dangerously expensive to keep up with this years’ explosion of digital entertainment, whilst also anticipating even more within

the last few months of year. The all new Medal of Honor will shortly be followed by Fallout New Vegas, then The Sims 3, Fable 3 and Force Unleashed 2 all penned for the same release day! Then comes along Call of Duty Black Ops, Little Big Planet 2 and Assassins Creed Brotherhood, not to mention the Playstation Move and the Xbox Kinect, and that’s not even the end of November.

So you’re probably longing for some more personal news... right? Well I have finally been able to order my all new desktop computer, and it’s going to be an Alienware! I will finally, after many many years be able to get my hands on one. For those that are interested in that kind of thing, it’s the Alienware Aurora (no not the ALX, I’m not made of money... but if I were...). I will no dought do a rather long post once it arrives and fill it full of wonderful information on how well it benchmarks with a few different games.

The Futures bright...

So we have a few plans for the future of this blog, and BlankMind as a whole, as my friend has said we feel that BlankMind is growing beyond just a blog, and with such growth we need to make changes so that things can move on a little more seamlessly that they perhaps have in the past. We do have a few things in mind, but we’re not going to be mentioning them on here just yet, we want time to test things and get a good feel for where we’re going.

The Price of the Past

So... how do I explain our absence? Sadly I can't say that this was all planned, but I guess it certainly was foreseen. As a consequence of my absence a brain aneurysm of events have passed us by. But let me at least try to catch you up to speed with this piece of enriched literature:

A Short History of Me

Last time I posted we were all in the month of March and for me and many other avid gamers, just on the eve of events that would send us into a spiral of costs. I think many would agree that 2010 will be forever be remembered for the big bang of game releases. Shall I make a post or should I play on Heavy Rain? Soon turned into, Final Fantasy XIII! to yes I can finally have my own starship on Star Trek Online into Resident Evil 5 updates! and again more Resident Evil 5 updates!

to Jesus I must play Battlefield: Bad Company 2 proceeded by bad ass Sam Fisher then Starcraft II followed by Ruse. If you haven't died from reading one of the longest sentence on the Earth then you see my point. But don't get me wrong, my life hasn't been completely consumed by gaming as I portray. A lot more significantly important events have happened too. So important in fact that they will be omitted from this post and instead replaced with this adequate summary of my previous sentiments to posting.

Things Are Changing

Lets be frank, Major Sheppard and I are bored with Blogger. Blankmind is becoming more than a blog, or is at least trying to be. We now have an upcoming Youtube Channel, Blankmind.tv, a Twitter, Blankmind Tweet and now more recently we want to introduce an image gallery for the blog. In short we've pretty much reached Blogger's limitations in terms with what we can do. Nothings set in stone, nothing is around here, but its time for the blog to become more and we plan to do just that. One thing we are focusing on is promoting Anime artists, or more generally, digital artists. Some new and some well known ones, but overall ones that we think are note worthy. In a nutshell we want to spice things up here. I wont say near but in the future we plan to move the blog. Come the forth Birthday of Blankmind we'll be on a whole new server with a whole new site.