Lightning Returns turns into whatever it needs to be on here so that people can put it down as much as possible. I can't count how many conversations and debates people had on here, insisting that Lightning Returns wasn't a AAA game, and it looked unbelievably rushed. I think I even remember Kagari arguing that LR was barely even marketed at one point, which I agree with.
Now, critics are insisting it's a massive AAA undertaking. It's just weird to see how fast that switches. People were insisting that wasn't the case when the low reviews hit just 4 weeks ago.
And budget doesn't even matter that much in the point I was making about sales for both games, and how they represent the "future of FF." Regardless of what BD's budget is, it still sold to a small niche audience. They sold almost the same, and both are not really that impressive, unfortunately. People are literally looking at less than 30k sales difference and making statements about how BD should now represent the direction the series goes in.
I mean, people called XIII-2's 3 million sales a horrible failure despite outselling Deus Ex and The Witcher 2. But 200k sales of BD is the future? None of it makes a damn bit of sense. It's just about shitting on the XIII series, everyone's favorite sport. People pick what is a success or a failure based on completely fleeting, contradictory nonsense.