Naoki Yoshida (a.k.a. Yoshi-P), the producer and director of Final Fantasy XIV, has confirmed that players don’t have to worry about him losing focus or interest in working on FF XIV after leading the game for over a decade at Square Enix.
In a recent interview with Noisy Pixel, Yoshida was asked about what keeps him working on and staying interested in a single game for so long. His answer wasn’t some grand response about his love of the craft or any philosophical exploration of his work. Instead, his answer (via a translator) was much more cut and dry.
“I’m more of a businessman, and I make games, and of course people tend to say we’re creators or creative, but I am an employee at Square Enix and I receive money to make games. I think my primary purpose is to make games so that we are delivering it to gamers out there, fans, players who want to consume our product. I think that is fundamental, or a minimum requirement that I have because I belong at this company.”
“And of course, working in a company and feeling bored with a particular project and starting to claim ‘well, I don’t like this game, I’m bored with this game,’ then I think people like that would need to remove themselves from a corporate environment if they want to pursue that style. But I don’t have that strong personal desire to go into my own creative things.”
Yoshida continued to say that beyond the obligation he feels as an employee at Square Enix, he’s not nearly done with the ideas he wants to continue to build and implement.
“When asked do I ever get bored with Final Fantasy XIV, I don’t think so, because there are a lot of things that I have yet to actualize in XIV, things I want to do, things I must do, things that require to be taken care of. And so, I think for at least a good while, I should be okay.”
He did, however, add that he would change one thing about his role, which is to not have to deal with his administrative duties, and focus solely on game development.
“I would rather not do a lot of management or operational things,” He said. “I already do a lot of game developing and I’ve sacrificed some sleep sometimes, but perhaps if I were to have a choice, I would like to focus in on the game development design.”
It seems that Yoshida is more than content, continuing to work on Final Fantasy XIV, thinking up new ideas for it, and delivering a game that fans enjoy playing. If he’s happy and content, why would he want a change? Just because he’s worked on it for a while? That doesn’t seem to be a good reason in his mind.