Square Enix exacerbated the problem by releasing incorrect system requirements before the Mac version’s release, which Yoshida said was done “in the chaos” leading up to the multi-platform launch of the Final Fantasy 14 expansion, Heavensward. All of the issues people are experiencing can be boiled down to one simple fact – the Final Fantasy XIV Mac client is just a Windows game dressed up like a Mac game. The game that these early players downloaded was a pre-release build with multiple performance issues. As a result, some Mac gamers purchased FF14 only to find that their system didn’t meet the actual requirements.
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I believe that the biggest problem with the Mac version release was the significant discrepancy between the performance of the product our development team produced and the expectations our customers had for it, which was due to the lack of information available on our product when sales commenced, as well as other issues. Yoshida ended the post with a lengthy, but interesting explanation of the difficulties faced by companies that want to port to Mac, as well as why chose middleware over native OpenGL. In an effort to get as much performance out of the title as possible, they were tweaking elements of the game pretty late into the release cycle-as a result, they were had a number of different system requirements in mind for getting the game to run in various states.
Players who purchased the Mac client through Square Enix’s online store can apply for a refund here. He did not provide a timetable for when this might happen. But he said Square Enix wanted to bring the game to Mac because fans were calling for it.
Yoshida explained that developing specifically for Mac is a risky business and is technically more hard than working on PC.
“As an MMORPG, FFXIV has to display many complex objects at once, and as such it is unavoidably demanding on systems”, he explained. That would have nearly been the flawless opportunity for those on Mac to try it out, considering that the Mac version was just recently released as well. Thanks to last minute crunch, not unusual in the game development biz, what got released was an FF XIV that required beefier specs than first thought. The game’s also available on PC, PS3, and PS4.
Yoshida said he takes full responsibility for the issues.
“The mistakes made by the development and operation teams in the lead up to this release have caused considerable confusion and trouble”, he added. “To our customers who eagerly anticipate purchasing, or who have already ordered, their copy of the Mac version of Final Fantasy XIV, and to all of our distributors, we offer our deepest and most heartfelt apologies”. Yoshida says that Square Enix is going to make a full announcement about the game’s final system requirements, running resolution, and other details.
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Check out the full blog post for an incredibly detailed breakdown of the entire situation.
