Square Enix grows market share

Square Enix has laid out ambitious plans to become a Top Five European publisher over the next few years.
The company also reckons it can turn up the heat on other entertainment mediums with its tentpole franchises such as Final Fantasy.

Square Enix has already had two No.1 games this year – Final Fantasy XIII and Just Cause 2 – building on serious gains made in 2009.

For 2009 we hit our goal in Europe of growing our market share to a Top Ten position,” Square Enix Europe CEO Phil Rogers told MCV.

That’s what we realised across our key territories.

Our next step is to take us up into a Top Five position in Europe and that’s what we want to achieve – that’s of course something we cannot realise overnight so it’s a multi-year goal.”

Square Enix is already looking at new ways to reach consumers in areas such as the digital and mobile spaces.

Today’s world seems to be in constant transition in terms of how, when and where consumers play games,” continued Rogers.

We want to establish many and diverse points of contact with our customers.

To achieve this, I think owning IP is key, but how we then deliver that IP across a variety of different platforms – PC, mobile, console, ISP – to accommodate consumers’ ever-adjusting lifestyle is something we are constantly aware of and working towards.”

Rogers told MCV that Square Enix can ‘go beyond’ gaming, as well: Our group goal is to become one of the Top 10 players in the worldwide media and entertainment industry.”

Rogers also described the integration of Eidos and Square Enix as ‘transformative’ for its Wimbledon, London office. Square Enix bought Eidos early last year.

We are tearing down walls in the office to ensure we minimise physical barriers, to open up space to accommodate the larger team and hopefully provide us with a new exciting working environment,” he said.

We’re mid-way through this project and it has been interesting to see how different groups interact when they sit next to each other for the first time. Communication across the office has certainly changed.

For our first year, we haven’t done too badly with the 2009 success of Batman: Arkham Asylum recently winning the BAFTA for Game of the Year, and Final Fantasy XIII and Just Cause 2 both reaching No.1 in the UK charts this year. Those achievements are a testament to our teams working together to achieve high goals.”

For the full interview with Phil Rogers, visit MCV’s sister website Develop. The first part can be found here, while click here for part two.