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Post 4-SWOT Analysis for Square Enix

As I did my SWOT analysis for Square Enix, I came to notice what makes this company so popular in the gaming community as well as some weaknesses that it should address.

Strengths- Square Enix has a number of franchises such as Kingdom Hearts, Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy. All of these series are extremely popular with kids, teens, and young adults (members of Generation Z), which are their target market. Square Enix has been releasing games for multi platform including handheld devices, such as the Nintendo Ds, and consoles like the PlayStation 3 and 4. According to the location of its branches, Square Enix has performed demographic studies and focused on placing its developers on first-world countries, including the U.S., Japan, China, and some countries in Europe, people are more likely able to afford their games. Lastly, as Square Enix is a company that focuses on the RPG genre, its focus lies not only on the creation of a good story, but also on the design of characters and usage of musical pieces that enhance the experience of the target market. Moreover, as new consoles are being released every year, Square Enix adapts to the new technologies by using their own game engine.

Weaknesses- Since the company does not take into account economic environments, newly released products may be expensive for some households that cannot afford $60 for a new game. Moreover, because of the company’s focus on their main franchises, their gameplay has not changed much over the years, alternating between turn-based and strategy games. Moreover, since they succeed on the RPG genre, the Square Enix does not seem to move into other genres and cuts itself from other markets. Lastly, since they have several branches placed in different continents, the quality of employees might have some differences that might create problems as they continue to release new products, not to mention that the timing for the release of a game might be different, making their fans unhappy.

Opportunities- With the number of popular franchises that company has, the number of fans can only increase further. Moreover, since the series are long, it gives the company an opportunity to sell more products to newer fans as they look into old games to understand a franchise better. As the number of platforms increases, so does the opportunity to make money for Square Enix. In other words, the company can focus on making a game exclusive to a particular device and can create profit. As Square Enix is one of the top game-developing companies in the world, the number and quality of applicants increase each year.

Threats- As of today, Square Enix is one of the top RPG producing companies, so it does not have any immediate competition. However, there are some threats to the company. Some parents today do not have a positive view on gaming and may prohibit their children from buying their games at all, especially Tweens since they are at an age in which they are becoming teenagers. Since the company has branches all over the world, the value of a game may change due to the conversion factor, and shipment plus taxes increases the price of the game. Although this applies to all games, haters are also a threat to Square Enix as they may badmouth the company and/or the genre the company produces, thus taking away possible customers.

Sources:

- (n.d.). Retrieved from https://square-enix-games.com/en_US

- Square Enix. (2019, March 03). Retrieved March 6, 2019, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_Enix

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Post 1 -Square Enix

I chose Square Enix as the business I wish to represent this semester for my Tumblr project. I selected this brand because they are the developers of two of my favorite video game series: Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts. In my opinion, they have developed quite a fan base thanks to the marketing strategies they have developed over the years, as they have become one of the biggest gaming companies in the whole world. I think that Square Enix has a mixture of product and sales orientation. In other words, they focus on manufacturing the best products they can as they promote them through advertisements on the Internet which connects the entire globe. While the company itself focuses on selling products to its customers (Business to consumer), in the gaming industry there are also several people that sell their pre-owned games to other customers for a cheaper price (consumer to consumer). In my opinion, Square Enix has focused on three out of the 4 P’s in marketing: Place, Promotion, and Product. In terms of place, Square Enix merchandise can be found on the shelves of popular stores such as Target and Walmart which are located throughout the entire country. As for promotion, Square Enix allows its customers to promote their games through several streaming platforms (such as Twitch.tv and Youtube) that allow viewers from all over the world to watch the quality of the company’s products. If there is one thing that Square Enix could improve on is prices. While it is understandable that most of the newly-released games are around the same price, I think that $60 is a bit too much.��

I hope I enjoy researching and learning more about Square Enix’s organization and its marketing strategies during the course of this semester