Fromsoftware Inc SWOT

SWOT - From Giona Buchicchio's mind

- WHO AM I

Me irl

I am Giona Buchicchio, a student at LuosiPico High School in Mirandola, Italy.

Today we will do a complete SWOT analysis of Fromsoftware, a Japanese video game company

- What we are going to talk about today

*giona.buchicchio@luosi.istruzioneer.it

SoulsBorne

Ending

SWOT?

SWOT!

History

Before SWOT - What is a SWOT analysis?

The swot analysis is a business plan created by companies to fully understand the strategies to adopt in the current situation of the company, and in the future to come. This analysis is divided into 4 points. Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats.

External origin

Internal origin

STRENGHTS

OPPORTUNITIES

Helpful to achieving the objective

These are the internal decisions and initiatives that have given and are giving good results. Something you can be proud of.

These are possible choices that the company could make to improve or add strengths.

WEAKNESS

THREATS

Harmful to achieving the objective

These are choices or lack of choices that do not yield as much as they should, and should be fixed or changed so that they can be effective

The market, like competition, are threats. Weaknesses beyond our control.

Before SWOT - What is FromSoftware?

FromSoftware Inc. is a Japanese AAA video game company founded in 1986, known for creating titles such as Armored Core, Dark Souls, Elden Ring and more. The current president has been Hidetaka Miyazaki since 2014, the one who directed the development of Dark Souls as the Main Director, and to this day, of all games developed by FromSoftware.

FromSoftware - History

Before continuing, it is necessary to understand specifically what Fromsoftware creates and how it arrived at its current sitation, with Elden Ring, whose 20 million copies sold in 1 year increased Fromsoftware's profits by 60%.

Only 9 years later in 1994 it published its first video game, King`s field. Together with Armored Core, mecha-robot piloting games, we could say that Fromsoftware's personality was born. But before it was totally developed, several games would pass, King's Field and Armored Core would continue to have sequels(Armored Core still to this day), and Fromsoftware would continue to produce video games of varied types, but always close to mecha-robot or rpg.

The production of King's Field ends and Demon's Souls, follows. A third-person dark fantasy RPG. The success that Demon Souls had was impossible to ignore for all workers in the Japanese Inc. But what are the factors that led to this success? With Demon's Souls, Miyazaki who was to the Principal Director of the project, really created a new video game genre. To make a game fun, there are a variety of unwritten rules:

• - Making the mechanisms and rules understandable
• - Constantly reward your players for their actions (good exploration performed, quest completed, boss beaten)
• - And the most important: Players should not get frustrated while playing.

These are the Wii years, where popular video games were often accessible to everyone, enjoyable and simple.With Demon's Souls, many rules are broken: - It is not an easy game - It is challenging - It is very frustrating. No explanations or guides of how to continue, leaving the inexperienced player to rot in his ignorance. Hardcore games were back, but now it was no longer enough to be good at them; it took video game intelligence on the part of the player to overcome the challenges offered.

But then where is the fun? For many casual gamers, defeating a boss or completing an area can take days, if not weeks. But the satisfaction of having completed such a task was so high that they wanted to keep playing, looking for the next challenge. Rumors spread, people learned about the challenge playing Demon's Souls brought and became interested, and that's how it sold 1.7 Million total copies, an incredible success.

Fromsoftware continues to produce titles of various types, but 'souls' games are extremely more successful. In 2011, Dark Souls, the first of a trilogy, was released. Based on Demon's Souls, Dark Souls is extremely revolutionary compared to Demon's Souls. The level of level design will increase disproportionately. Here come what are Fromsoftware's strengths, bosses, quests, areas, art design, story, and more, which we will see specifically later. To this day considered in many ways "the best game ever" Copies sold: 5.5 Million.

Dark souls 2 (2014) had major production problems, which led the two main directors to fight, so much so that Tomohiro Shibuya left the project. Yui Tanimura was left as the only one to direct the production, and with little time left, He tried to reorginize much of the game as best he could. Tanimura saved a game that should have been one of the best sequels ever. The amount of cut content and scrapped ideas is immense. Despite this, it is a very good game, receiving 91/100 from critics. Copies sold: 2.4M

Bloodborne (2015) is title that moved away from the classic Souls Game, and adopted a completely new gameplay, Transforming Weapons, Parries given by guns, very quick dodges, and a Lovecraftian world all to explore, with even darker themes than those covered in the previous games. The care taken in the game's story and details have made many to this day consider Bloodborne as the best Playstation 4 game ever created. In this game as never before, you can see all the passion and love Miyazaki had for this game. Copies sold: 7M (2020)

Directing Dark Souls 3 (2016) was Miyazaki, who, after much criticism of Dark Souls 2, attempted to create a game that was as linear as possible, with no complications in exploration or mechanics. This simplicity was the success of Ds3. Innovative gameplay and art design reduced from Bloodborne, with almost always wonderful bosses and outstanding music. Copies sold: 10M (2020)

With Sekiro (2019) we have another experiment by Miyazaki, which involved creating an action game, based mainly on the dynamics of the parry and Japanese culture, rather than medieval as before. Sekiro's biggest innovations were the ability to jump upwards rather than forwards, and the 'stealth' mechanic, which allows you to kill enemies without being noticed. Thanks to the development of this mechanic, the AI of the enemies has evolved a lot with sekiro. Copies sold: 10M (2023)

With the release of such a Nintendo open-world masterpiece as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, this genre has had an explosion, production-wise and interest-wise, to the point of being of primary interest to Fromsoftware, which, with great inspiration from Zelda, creates its first open-world game again in the souls style. This game is possibly called the ultimate souls of fromsoftware. All past games and ideas have not been ignored at all. The interconnection of areas, the gameplay style, jumping and stealth mechanics. And in particular Dark souls 2, much hated in the past, but all the good ideas used and not, were now reality, improved. The puzzles, mechanics, variety of weapons and freedom of exploration are the main points. The "perfect game." Copies sold: 23M

SWOT - "Your STRENGHT, extraordinary"

1. Experience in developing unique games: bosses, areas, music, characters, story NEVER mundane.
2. Reputation in the industry: Fromsoftware is well known for creating challenging and high-quality game experiences.
3. Creative talent and dedicated team: The development team is not only extremely skilled, constantly innovating their game designs, but the level of art design is also consistently high
4. Loyal fan community: Fromsoftware has created a community that is very loyal to the games they produce, showing that they are always open to sharing feedback

SWOT - WEAKNESS

Dependence on exclusive licenses: The company may be limited by its dependence on exclusive licenses or partnerships with specific game platforms.

Marketing and communication risks: It may be difficult for FromSoftware to effectively reach new audiences outside of its existing fan base.

Limited portfolio diversification: The company may be vulnerable to fluctuations in the market if it fails to diversify its product portfolio.

Steep learning curve: FromSoftware's games difficulty could limit their appealing to a large player base.

SWOT -OPPORTUNITIES

• Change of Direction: Secondary directors such as Tanimura or Yamamura should be given the opportunity to be able to express themselves in their own way in the world of video games by creating a game entirely directed by them

• Other genres: Fromsoftware could increase its audience by producing games outside of RPG and mecha, perhaps returning to action gaming or experimenting with something else.

• Creative collaborations: FromSoftware could benefit from collaborations with other development studios or brands to expand its fan base and experiment with new ideas.

• Franchise expansion: Explore opportunities to expand the game into a larger franchise, through books, comic books, animated series, or movies, to increase brand visibility and engage a variety of audiences.

Where to go?

Reputation risks and lack of innovation: A disappointing or problematic game experience could damage FromSoftware's reputation and negatively affect future sales. Steep advancement of technology: Fromsoftware's games must have high replayability and it is their job to use mechanics that do not age as technology develops. Saturation of the market for souls-like games: As the popularity of souls-like games increases, a saturation of the market may occur with titles that mimic the Souls series style and gameplay formula, reducing the distinctiveness and interest in FromSoftware's original titles. Changes in next-generation gaming preferences: With the transition to the next generation and the changing gaming preferences of gamers, there may be a decrease in interest in traditional Souls games in favor of new types of gaming experiences or emerging genres.

THREATS

"The Way I See It, Our Fates Appear To Be Intertwined"."

Thank you all for your attention

Primarily playing Souls games are people >25 years old. Many of these people probably started playing video games in the 1980s and 1990s, “the golden age of video games”, veterans of titles such as “The Legend of Zelda", “Final Fantasy,” “Baldur's Gate,” and “Ultima,” learning to love RPG games. Generation Z (1997-2010) seems to show broad interest still in RPG games, but their future remains uncertain.

Economically, the last 2 Souls-like releases are still far behind Fromsoftware, but in recent years Souls-like are having more and more personality in differentiating themselves from From's games.

Why?

Today I am not exposing areas such as fashion, technology, or anything else, but a very specific field about which if you do not have a basic knowledge it is difficult to talk about. I have chosen the basic points of what Fromsoftware is about so that the concluding SWOTs can be accessible to everyone, granting you the opportunity to discuss them.