It's clear that Final Fantasy 14 producer and director Naoki Yoshida is in this for the love of the game, and as Automaton and GamesRadar report, in a recent joint interview at the Final Fantasy 14 Fan In a joint interview at the festival, Yoshida gave his thoughts on what would happen to the game if he were fired from Square Enix, or if he were to die.

If he were to be fired from Square Enix, Yoshida mentioned that he would start all over again from scratch as a contract developer for Final Fantasy 14. Otherwise, Yoshida would be content to retire with dignity as one of the players who always complains about the game to the developers. I will never love the game as much as Naoki Yoshida loves Final Fantasy 14.

On the other hand, what Yoshida said about his own death was both surprising and strangely moving: the 50-year-old developer wants to live another "20 or 30 years,"

but said, "Even if I collapse here and now, the team will be fine."

"No one else may be able to talk about expansion for two hours in front of a Tokyo Dome crowd like I can, but I have no doubt that my team can deliver the same information and the same amount of excitement."

Final Fantasy 14 seems to be having this effect on veteran Japanese RPG developers. Hironobu Sakaguchi, the series' original creator, recently admitted that Final Fantasy 14 "took up about 80%" of his waking hours during the first few months he played it; FF14 has a loading screen like the Nintendo Wii's, "Let's go outside for a minute." Maybe we need a cheeky screen.