Michael Harnest. . . (Grrrrr!!!!)

by The Dark Lord

Original Editorial: Final Fantasy VII's Grandeur

Micheal Harnest, your arguments are foolhardy at best. FFVII cannot be likened with a "messiah" for the simple fact that it produced no widespread revolution. Ultimately, your argument has one fatal flaw, lack of ackknowledging the state of the video game industry.

In Japan, video games have always garnered much more respect than anywhere else in the world; RPG's have always been, by far, the most popular type of gaming, since the release of the original Dragon Quest.Also, note that from the outset, over 70% of the Video Game market was centered in Japan, which obviously accounts for why many of the earlier games were untranslated. Anyways,the RPG market was never humble in size as even the nes Final Fantasy's sold more than one million copies.

Too say that FFVII created the market is utter nonsense since the Japanese had long been playing RPG's. FFVI had also sold multi-million copies. It is true that the U.S. RPG market sharply increased with the release of FFVII, or did it? In the past, video games were not accepted, and disregarded as childrens toys; thus, many of those who started playing around the times of the nes and snes were children. Some of these people may have played RPGs in their youth, but would not have the economic power to purchase these games. Essentially, what we might see, with the release of FFVII is the fact that many of the players who were swayed by FFVI were now older, thus, having and economic impact. Ultimately, their are two ways to view the U.S. sales of FFVII, surely some new gamers moved into the genre; however, it is more likely that those who played games like Chrono Trigger and FFVI in their youth had now matured to the point were they might be an economic factor.

"The japanese FFVII sold more than five times as many copies as the U.S. version. . . ."