Companies have not only the right, but the OBLIGATION to defend their intellectual properties. If they are given information telling them that a fan project is somewhere doing w/e, however harmless it may be, it's easy, safe and necessary for them to shut it down. The problem was never the fault of the company and the developers & artists shouldn't be blamed or punished for it.
alfadorredux natural 20'd this with his(?) response, but there're also some examples I want to throw out there. Ultima 5 Lazarus and Mechwarrior Living Legends, both MASSIVE projects that the copyright owners knew damn well about, had massive coverage, and in the first case actually got a "oh, cool" out of EA. You could try to argue that it's somehow different because those are mods for other games that step on the IP of the owners of those properties, but it still runs counter to your dubious claim that defense of those IPs is necessary.
If you don't like something they've put out just don't buy it.
That is why I said it was easy to keep my vows, is it not?
I personally think it's more than a little harsh to say nothing good has come from them in the last decade
I was speaking out of anger. Keep that in mind. It would be more correct to say that
most of what they've crapped out in the past decade is, well, crap. Speaking of that "d" word again.
(perhaps you're forgetting how long a decade is or something?)
It's perfectly appropriate to round seven up to ten for purposes of hyperbole and/or ranting. Also, putting it that way is a bit dickish (yes, yes, pot meet kettle) and borders on calling the other person an idiot. Not cool.
DQVIII was good & I've heard that Kingdom Hearts 2 game is good, same with Valkyrie Profile 2...
Dragon Quest 8 was developed by Level-5. Valkyrie Profile 2 was made by tri-Ace. Both were just published by Square-Enix. And I'm counting Kingdom Hearts 2 on my "shit games" list. Sorry, but Tron can only save a game in my eyes so much.
FFXII had potential, but loses a lot of points for its main character. I can't pass judgement of FFXI because I haven't played it. (
Bannable Offenses makes me interested in trying it. I need to find a free, player run server.)
But perhaps you also forgot about portable games? The FFTA games are solid SRPGs, Sword of Mana is a great remake of the first Seiken Densetsu, all of the FF Advance (& Dawn of Souls) were great, KH: CoM was pretty decent (RE is probably a bit better), everything Matrix Software (FFIII DS, FFIV DS, FFIV The After) has scratched a different oldschool itch, FFT:WotL was something I had wanted to happen (wouldn't mind it happening again in some fashion even) & the same for the first two Star Ocean remakes, I've heard nothing but good things (from people that have actually played it anyways, everyone else just complains about the art style) about The World Ends With You, CTDS was a great 'advanced' port & Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume is pretty good (though I need to play more of it sometime)
I should have broken that into more quote blocks, but... Meh.
Sword of Mana was developed by Brownie Brown. (Which is owned by Nintendo.) The FF Advance ports, and FFT:WotL were ported by TOSE, and are covered under the "Old Square GOOD, Square-Enix BAD" thing anyway. TOSE also did the Star Ocean ports, and the originals were still done by tri-Ace. The 3D remakes were, as you said, done by Matrix Software, which is by no means a Square-Enix subsidiary. CTDS was a) a Chrono game, and b) a port of a good game and falls under the "Old Square GOOD, Square-Enix BAD" thing. Valkirie Profile is, again, a tri-Ace production, but some games have been ported by TOSE. Some you didn't cover were the port of Front Mission that, while not ported by TOSE, is still covered the "Old Square GOOD, Square-Enix BAD" effect.
FFTA and TWEWY, I'll kind of give you. FFTA wasn't horrible, but it wasn't super good, either. Still need to play through FFTA2. Jupiter is half-responsible for TWEWY, but they're kind of hit or miss.
Jupiter is also half-responsible for KH:CoM, which I will not give you because it is, in my eyes, crap.
...I don't feel like going over the pre-merger games (yup, it hasn't even been a decade since THAT)...
Restating for the sake of responding to all points, it's perfectly acceptable to round seven years up to a decade. Six? No. Five is right out.
Not only that, but in the years before the merger, Square and Enix were both still sliding downhill. Final Fantasy X, anyone?
And now they're breaking into new genres thanks to Taito, Eidos & IO Interactive (Hitman) which is cool & interesting in terms of future possibilities...C'mon, learn from Capcom & do a big, nasty cross-over game SE! 
While all three companies have been consumed by Square-Enix, I'm not sure if they've been tainted yet so I can't really comment.
Mostly it comes down to how underground a fanbase is or not. Not every hack or fangame gets shut down, but the more people that know about your project, the more assholes that know about it that can cry foul to SE's legal department.
Not every company is as litigious as Square-Enix. When we have reasonable entities like Electronic Arts on the field, (that... felt really, really freakin' weird to say...) the amount of blame you can place on Square-Enix's legal team for the shit they pull increases greatly.
Again, it makes NO SENSE to begrudge the creators for some legal matter in another country they probably aren't even aware of (er, the legal matter, not the country...>_>)...
My blaming the company's legal teams for the C&D, my blame of the executives for teasing the fandom with a sequel they don't intend to make, and my blame of their current development teams for making bad games are separate issues, but contribute to my statement that Square-Enix, as it is today, is shit, and cannot be trusted.
I'm going to be repeating myself a fair bit, but I don't want to ignore LinkSlySora.
"Square-Enix" has been thrown around in a lot arguements, but it doens't always mean the same thing. In the case of the C&D, it was their legal team.
And in the case of teasing the fandom with "herp durp a million copies of the second damn port we've released isn't enough interest to justify a new sequel" it was their executives.
And in the case of making bad games, it was their current developers.
Now (for anything I say correct me if I'm wrong)
You're wron- Oh, shit, jumped the gun.
that the only people who directly influenced the letter being sent, were just a few people, not the company as a whole.
You're wron- Wait, no, you're accurate there.
I highly doubt many people within the company knew about it (and the reasons were not because it was bad. Because it wasn't, from those videos it looked like a very well done game). Now wheather
You're wrong. Not in the statement, but you misspelled "whether" there.
or not right they were right in sending the letter.... remains to be seen. I've seen arguements go both ways.
That's where I'm going to go right out and say you're wrong. (And not because you misspelled arguments. I already did that joke. )
From a marketing, public relations, and moral stance, that was a horrible decision. I'd like to see arguments, other than V_Translanka's disproved statement that companies are obligated to crush fanworks, supporting Square-Enix. I really would. Because I can't, even trying to play devil's advocate, think of even one.
And as said early, there have been many good games that have come form SE.
Wrong for entirely subjective reasons. (Hey, you didn't say they had to be GOOD reasons to say you're wrong.)
From all the reading I've done, few have been deemed "Bad" by the fans.
I won't say wrong, this time, I'm overusing that, but I will point you at my statement in the first post stating that some people will buy literal shit in a box if you slap a "Final Fantasy" label on it. Most gaming journalists can't be trusted in the modern industry either because bashing Square-Enix is a good way to end your career. There's an unspoken rule that giving bad reviews to super hyped up games is a good way to get fired lest the publishers take all their advertising money to your competitors and stop giving you "exclusive" looks at their latest piece of shit.
Cynical? Why yes, thank you.
Most either good, or argueable (like Final Fantasy XIII). True it's all subjective, but saying all their games in the last decade have been bad is bit of a strech.
It's not that much of a stretch. Most of the good games that have been released under their name were merely published by Square-Enix. What's left is a small amount of mediocre games, quite a few ports of their good earlier titles, and a whole bunch of shit-tier productions.
