Final Fantasy TCG is in its second year. The first year, players and store owners dealt with distribution issues, and those seem to have been resolved. As the game grew in popularity, fans demanded other things, too. Large tournament support? A judge program? Better constructed play support, like more promos? I've seen a lot of complaints around that stuff. I totally get why, and it comes from a place of love. Some of the overarching frustrations I've witnessed all seem to come from a fundamental place: "Square Enix is a giant company, and much smaller companies run card games more effectively, so why are we waiting around for what we want?"

I do not know the answers to why we're on the timeline we are with judge programs, etc. However, I think it's an unfair comparison to make when it comes to the size of Square Enix.

Annual Reports

Companies that are publicly traded must disclose specific financial information to the public on an annual basis. There are limits to how much information they must disclose, just as there are strict minimum requirements that must be met. Companies, more or less, get to choose how they portray their business and profits / losses. If you want to see a full history of Square Enix's Annual reports, use this link. For our purposes, we're just going to look at the 2017 and 2018 annual reports, as that covers the timeline of FFTCG's history.

Four Segments of Business

Square Enix divides its business into four core categories: digital entertainment, merchandising, publication, and amusement. FFTCG is under the "merchandising" segment, so we're going to pay special attention to that group.

In 2017, Square Enix provided a snapshot of each segment, outlined below.