One of the biggest nails in the coffin comes from a glaring oversight the developers have made over the years; they have forgotten who their fans are. Most of us who are fans have grown up with the franchise since the first Final Fantasy hit the shelves - that puts the demographics of those who are hardcore Final Fantasy fans between ages of 20 to 30 and maybe even 40. Meanwhile, new fans are constantly coming onboard after they pick up one and start to play. Therefore, the developers are at a crossroads; they have to appeal to not only us but also the younger generation - however oftentimes one of the two gets neglected. The games need to begin appealing to the older generation once more, while still maintaining the attention of the youth. Games need to be darker, characters need to be not be "the loner" (Squall) or "the whiner" (Tidus) - they have to be real and handle struggles we can relate to - it's not easy. One of the biggest drawbacks of being such a long franchise is the fact that now their demographic spans from ages 10 to 60 (seriously, grandmas play some of these games). This is probably something that if Square Enix catches in time they can recover from, but it's going to take a lot more to recover from the rest of the problems that they have built over the years. The company and developers need to stop thinking about themselves (yes, we know, they did listen to our demands after FF13) and remember what creating an RPG - no, not just an RPG, a Final Fantasy RPG - is all about.
