Square Enix announces £112m in “content abandonment losses” as it seeks to be more selective

Square Enix have announced 22.1 billion yen (around £112m) in “content abandonment losses” for the fiscal year ending March 2024. The loss is the result of the publisher being “more selective and focused in the allocation of development resources,” suggesting they have cut funding to or cancelled undisclosed projects.

The loss and increased focus come “in light of the myriad changes underway in the environment surrounding” the company, according to the brief statement made to shareholders.

This announcement follows several months of similar rhetoric from the publisher. Earlier this year, Square Enix announced changes in structure designed to reduce its reliance on external resources “and focus more on in-house triple-A games.” Those changes included the long-serving producer of Dragon Quest games stepping away from the series.

In other recent financial updates, Square Enix have continued to talk-up their plans for utilising both the blockchain and AI in the development of future games.

That sounds grim, but the actual reality of Square Enix’s recent release slate has been far more interesting, with an onslaught of sequels and remakes to classic JRPG and tactics series, such as Star Ocean: The Second Story R, SaGa Emerald Beyond, Live A Live, and Tactics Ogre: Reborn. Simultaneously, the publisher has released several interesting, niche and original games such as Harvestella, Triangle Strategy, Voice Of Cards, Dungeon Encounters and The Centennial Case, alongside some blockbuster missteps, such as Forspoken.

If this era of Square Enix releasing multiple games per month, often with seemingly no marketing, is coming to an end in favour of more Forspoken-sized swings or better side quests in the inevitable Final Fantasy 17, I’ll be a little sad. It’s been fun watching a mainstream publisher be prolific in an era when most companies of equivalent scale only work on a handful of annualised franchises or live service games at a time.