Dear Square-Enix,

Hi there! Greg here. I know it's been a long time since you've heard from me - what with me quitting Final Fantasy XI and all. And to be fair, it HAS been quite a few years since your last Final Fantasy game - you released X back in 2001, after all. I don't count XI - that's not the same thing.

Anyway, I can tell you've been up to a lot lately. I saw your show at E3 last year - things look like they're going just SWELL for XII. Can't wait till you bring that out here. And Advent Children - WHOO! We just can't get enough of Final Fantasy VII. "We" being every single RPG fan alive, of course.

That actually kind of brings me around to my point. You see, we've all seen that technical demo of what Final Fantasy VII would look like on the Playstation 3. Wow. Believe me, you guys really outdid yourselves on that one. But at the same time, don't you think you're being just a LITTLE cruel, here? Here you go, showing what a possible remake of one of gaming's most beloved titles would look like on this new hardware, and then you tell us you have no plans to ACTUALLY CREATE this remake of that game? You dangle that carrot in front of our noses, and then suddenly YANK it away? I thought you loved us! What about everything we've DONE for you? We bought Final Fantasy X-2, after all! We let you get away with breaking your rules once - why won't you do it for us again, when we actually WANT it this time?

The same goes for that tech demo you made for the Xbox 360 - if Final Fantasy XI winds up looking that good, hell, I'd rejoin. But you've dangled THAT carrot in front of our noses before. We kept waiting for you to make the common-sense changes that we all wanted - Mog Houses that you could invite people in to, ownable chocobos, those kinds of things. Yet time and time again, you dashed our hopes to pieces. Why should we believe you when you say this is what FFXI will look like in the future?

I'm in the process of replaying Final Fantasy VII right now, as a matter of fact. And what I see is an amazing RPG that was made just a little bit before its time - a diamond in the rough. All it needs is the skillful programmers to give it a beautiful brilliant cut, and it could shine like no RPG has ever shined. A 10-karat blu-ray enhanced glimmering gemstone of - aw hell, you know where I'm going with this.

Just trust us - we bought it from you before. Hell, in my case, I bought it from you THREE TIMES. I'm willing to buy it again. Let us know you love us. Let us know you care. Hell, if anything, it'll give Nobuo something to do besides rock out all the time - you've turned him into a rock star, were you aware of that? I'm sure he'd love to go over and remaster the music. We don't even have to tell Sakaguchi-san. It'll be our little secret. I won't tell if you won't.

Sincerely Yours,
Greg Dean

P.S. - This applies to Final Fantasy Tactics as well. Gameboy Advance games aren't good enough. You've got a PS3 - use the damn thing.

PLEASE NOTE: The following rant was made at 5am when I should have been in bed. Any views noted within are not intended to offend. This is probably something that would go better in a live journal or something... but this is the best thing that I've got. So please don't send me any angry e-mails.=)

I have noticed a trend in the past few days. Actually, anyone who has any remote sense of webcomics has probably noticed a trend in the past few days. As of today, there are 6 very prominent Keenspotters who are packing up their bags and heading for the hills. Some of these people had me stunned when I discovered their plans for leaving. Such as Steve Troop of Melonpool, who we offered space on our server awhile ago, but he seemed so content where he was that he didn't move. Or last month when Howard Taylor jumped ship. I had always kind of considered Howard as the "face" of Keenspot. Anytime there was a speech that needed to be made, or a business deal that needed to close, Howard was always there.

Greg and I happen to know all of the people who are leaving at the end of the week. Greg became friends with them during his lifespan at Keenspot. I know for a fact that each of the seven people who are going independant this week, are so in love with their comics that nothing could come between them. This makes me believe that the move is not about the money. If anyone can tell you that its hard to make a living off of ads and merchandise, its Greg and I. I'm not sure if all of you know, but the comics on Keenspot don't make that much money per quarter. Some are lucky to get $100 for 3 months worth of comics. Its just the state of the world right now. Advertisers want to pay less for more advertising, so us publishers have to be competitive. Its a hard road.

I wish that Greg and I had been more open about our departure from Keenspot. We left because we had the opportunity to control our own site, for free, and control what kind of ads could be run. That's why we have been so particular about what ads we have been allowing on this site. Sure we would love to bring in money, but its something much more than that. We want the integrity of the page to be intact. So we left about the time some questionable ads started to appear. It's as simple as that. We also were no longer seeing the benefits of the KeenSpot name. Greg's readership had stayed at a steady number of readers for years. Of course, it was partly because of KeenSpot that Greg received some of those readers in the first place.

Don't get me wrong, I think KeenSpot offers an incredible service to the webcomics community. If someone has worked very hard to get their comic to a certain readership and then kind of plateaus at a certain number, it would benefit them to join KeenSpot and take advantage of their cross-promotion. As long as the author doesn't expect to be a millionaire by joining KeenSpot, then it's the perfect set-up for them. As soon as their readership plateaus at KeenSpot, then its time for that cartoonist to move again in a different direction. Greg has more than doubled his readership since leaving KeenSpot, but that's only because we decided to move in a different direction. I really believe that KeenSpot should use this theory for their benefit and market it as such. KeenSpot is the place you go if you want to have a strong cross-promotion platform. I should make up their marketing stuff for them. Or maybe I shouldn't, they are probably doing fine on their own! ^^

There are people out there that hate KeenSpot too. Although, I think it's more of a hatred for Keen Space. It's something about the ability for people to be given a free space to make a webcomic and not have to work for it at all. It's when an artist thinks it'll be a good idea to make a comic, but they don't have the talent for it or the passion that most cartoonists NEED in order for their comic to survive. It's these people that make webcomics look bad. I'm not saying that all KeenSpacers are like that... just a good majority. I think that a lot of the KeenSpacers would agree with me there too.

edit: Funny joke was taken out because people were misinterpreting the joke.

I guess this is what I come up with when I lay in bed not able to sleep.