No that was my fault on how I stated that. The company is going to support the game long term for sure. What I meant is that the player base itself is kind of a rotation affair. The added content adds more value for new players than older ones because of how fast established players are going to go through that new content. I'm sure we are going to disagree with each other on this because that's part of life with the internet, but that is how I view the game after playing it through.
I think Yoshida is aware of this, being that he calls the game "extremely casual" in nature. He doesn't seem surprised that people will drift off and play other games in between major patches.
It's kind of funny, because there's only a very small percentage of people that are able to actually complete content while it's relevant. There's still people struggling to push through the hardest content the game originally launched with, even with a 15% global buff.
I guess it's casual in the sense that it's easy to pick up and put down without having to invest the hours of a second full time job to be able to accomplish something, because the game certainly isn't lacking for challenge in the top tier content.
Like another poster said, I have no idea why you hate this game so much or why you refuse to believe it's doing well. I agree with you that it doesn't have 2 million subscribers. It just means more than 2 million people bought the game. However, 3 months ago yoshiP, himself, said the game gets 500k UNIQUE users a day and if you consider every two days, it's considerably more than that.
But please, don't let facts get in the way of your opinion.
You are letting perception get in the way of facts Square Enix made a number of forecasts, as publically held companies do.
They estimated net sales of between 59,000 and 63,000; and sales came in at 61,700.
And as a result of these sales they estimated that they would make (another) loss.
What happened is that sales came in within their estimated range but they actually turned a profit. And they gave a number of reasons for this one of which was
that they had better sales of FFXIV ARR in North America. And that sales were strong. But nothing else.
And that is all the results tell us about FFXIV. They estimated that they would sell ...blah ... and they sold .... more than blah.
The game could have sold less well than forecast in Japan - we could assume not but they don't say.
Nor do they tell us how well FF XIV is doing financially - maybe they forecast that they would lose 3,000 million yen on FFXIV but at the end of the day they only lost 1,000 million yen. Which would be 2,000 million yen better than forecast but the game itself could still be making a loss.
Now I am not saying that FFXIV is doing well or badly. Just pointing out the facts: FFXIV had "strong sales", sold better than forecast in NA and that the game has 2M registered accounts. Beyond that its a case of "You know nothing John Snow".
Originally posted by voltt Sorry Kano i would have to disagree with you. If this was maybe a F2P game then i could imagine that including any and all account created for the game. Here i would say subs or at the least 2 million accounts that purchased the game
Yoshi P already answered that question in a recent interview. Its 2 million registered accounts.
They are counting CHARACTERS, not accounts, not subs.
Throughout the entire game you are referred to as an Adventurer.
So if you have 3 characters on your old unsubbed account, you increase the counter by 3.
Hope that helps
No, there are around 8 million characters total (according to lodestone and what yoshi has said), and this is in a game where alts are completely pointless for everything except RP. Also a lot of people on this forum seem to forget that it is extremely common for people to let their subs fall off in between expacs or content patches. It's not like it's impossible to re-sub once you aren't subbed anymore. Active subscribers isn't the end all be all number for MMOs.
I don't know of the sub count but my server has alot of people in every zone on in the afternoons. The cities and mor dhona are super packed, and I see alot of people running around doing fates, not just for atma farming. Soo to me looks like the game looks like it is doing pretty well nearly a year in.
over 2/3's of the NA servers are barren and devoid of life only servers worth while atm are balmung and Gilgamesh with few others id say at low-medium pops so may be2mil accounts but far far less players trust me.
Originally posted by voltt Sorry Kano i would have to disagree with you. If this was maybe a F2P game then i could imagine that including any and all account created for the game. Here i would say subs or at the least 2 million accounts that purchased the game
Lets say 2 million purchased the game since launch (which is probably correct)- are you saying that all 2 million are still subbed?
I know first hand 14 players who only played the 1st month and another dozen who cancelled after month 2 - none have returned.
Funny how you call vagueness a "weapon of marketing" then follow with your own small anecdotal evidence.
In any case, regardless of how many subs there are(which are prob in the 500k - 1M range) the game is completely active, there is surprisingly also no sign of lack of people even when near the end of a patch cycle, like the one we are in at the moment, there's still queues to log in at prime time and weekends and even character creation restrictions on servers(specially in the japanese ones).
So yeah on the topic of whether or not the game is doing well even as we are approaching the 10 month mark, i can say with quite a bit of confidence it is still brimming with people playing.
Lets not go around with misinformation. I agree with ZizouX estimation of the sub numbers and with china coming in it will go over 1 million.
? What misinformation? He never said all 2m were active. Just that 2m copies were sold.
2.2 million accounts registered includes all 1.0 accounts, which were carried over to 2.0. If you purchased FFXIV during 1.0's time, you did not have to re-purchase Realm Reborn. You got it free. Those 1.0 accounts are included in that 2.2 million as well, which brings the total Realm Reborn purchases down a bit.
As to why they haven't released actual subscriber numbers yet...
Well, for one possibility, they might be waiting for their first yearly Census to come out. They release those every year for FFXI and so they may do the same for ARR.
On the other hand, assuming the active sub numbers are under 1 million, that could actually end up looking bad for them - even if it's actually good. Why? Because we live in a time where any MMO that doesn't achieve WoW-like numbers, or at least have a population north of a million, is automatically dismissed as a "failure". Look no further than these very forums for evidence of that. Public opinion, however inaccurate, carries more weight than any official PR release.
Doesn't matter what SE says, or how little sense it makes. Pointing out that WoW's success is an anomaly gets you nowhere. People tend to hold any new MMO up to WoW as a gauge of "how successful it is". Hence, you see SE throwing around the "2.2 million registered accounts" and "7 million characters" numbers.. Because they look more impressive to someone reading them (but not necessarily thinking critically about them).
I don't know how many subscribers there are, but I know that my server (Midgardsormr) is packed and that I having enough fun after 10 months that I am still talking people into purchasing. A buddy and my wife finally picked it up in the past week, and last night my wife could not even create a character on my server due to congested new character lockouts. When she tried to roll on another server just to get the hang of the controls, she found several that were not allowing new characters. I have no numbers and make no claims of success or failure, but it looks pretty good from my angle...
Why? Partly to suggest to other potential buyers that the game is alive and well - which it is and that's fine - but also to reassure shareholders. FFXIV was an unmitigated disaster. A tale of a company that had "lost its way". They want to put out the message that they have recovered the situation; stability has been regained; that all is well..
Now a server being busy says nothing - one server says nothing. What speaks volumes, imo, is SE support for the game when it crashed and burned. The brand mattered to them. They invested heavily in it. vested in it. A strong message and one that current subscribers should be very happy with.
Originally posted by Datastar over 2/3's of the NA servers are barren and devoid of life only servers worth while atm are balmung and Gilgamesh with few others id say at low-medium pops so may be2mil accounts but far far less players trust me.
2/3's dude you done bumped your head if you think this is true.
Lets not go around with misinformation. I agree with ZizouX estimation of the sub numbers and with china coming in it will go over 1 million.
? What misinformation? He never said all 2m were active. Just that 2m copies were sold.
2.2 million accounts registered includes all 1.0 accounts, which were carried over to 2.0. If you purchased FFXIV during 1.0's time, you did not have to re-purchase Realm Reborn. You got it free. Those 1.0 accounts are included in that 2.2 million as well, which brings the total Realm Reborn purchases down a bit.
As to why they haven't released actual subscriber numbers yet...
Well, for one possibility, they might be waiting for their first yearly Census to come out. They release those every year for FFXI and so they may do the same for ARR.
On the other hand, assuming the active sub numbers are under 1 million, that could actually end up looking bad for them - even if it's actually good. Why? Because we live in a time where any MMO that doesn't achieve WoW-like numbers, or at least have a population north of a million, is automatically dismissed as a "failure". Look no further than these very forums for evidence of that. Public opinion, however inaccurate, carries more weight than any official PR release.
Doesn't matter what SE says, or how little sense it makes. Pointing out that WoW's success is an anomaly gets you nowhere. People tend to hold any new MMO up to WoW as a gauge of "how successful it is". Hence, you see SE throwing around the "2.2 million registered accounts" and "7 million characters" numbers.. Because they look more impressive to someone reading them (but not necessarily thinking critically about them).
It's all calculated PR.
The 1.0 accounts that make up that 2.2 million number aren't even 100k so I don't think thats worth bringing up in this case. Additionally, every MMO that comes up that you hold side by side with WoW will of course be a failure in terms of numbers but why would this be any different one would ask? Because its not trying to compete with it for space in the market where as games like Rift ran into that issue.
I look at this as the EVE online of themepark MMO's, its got its hardcore fanbase, and its own agenda, and this is due to Yoshi-P who is concerned with FFXIV:ARR and nothing else and that's the key. The issue we see now is that too many companies out there are worried about the rest of the market and blizzard instead of trying to figure out how to establish their own space within it.
No that was my fault on how I stated that. The company is going to support the game long term for sure. What I meant is that the player base itself is kind of a rotation affair. The added content adds more value for new players than older ones because of how fast established players are going to go through that new content. I'm sure we are going to disagree with each other on this because that's part of life with the internet, but that is how I view the game after playing it through.
I think Yoshida is aware of this, being that he calls the game "extremely casual" in nature. He doesn't seem surprised that people will drift off and play other games in between major patches.
It's kind of funny, because there's only a very small percentage of people that are able to actually complete content while it's relevant. There's still people struggling to push through the hardest content the game originally launched with, even with a 15% global buff.
I guess it's casual in the sense that it's easy to pick up and put down without having to invest the hours of a second full time job to be able to accomplish something, because the game certainly isn't lacking for challenge in the top tier content.
All content has a shelf life: it's simply up to the players to complete that content before it expires. Usually expiration in this case is either the players growing tired of trying to beat it, or the developers releasing newer content that renders the older stuff redundant or into a new part of the gear ramp.
No that was my fault on how I stated that. The company is going to support the game long term for sure. What I meant is that the player base itself is kind of a rotation affair. The added content adds more value for new players than older ones because of how fast established players are going to go through that new content. I'm sure we are going to disagree with each other on this because that's part of life with the internet, but that is how I view the game after playing it through.
I think Yoshida is aware of this, being that he calls the game "extremely casual" in nature. He doesn't seem surprised that people will drift off and play other games in between major patches.
It's kind of funny, because there's only a very small percentage of people that are able to actually complete content while it's relevant. There's still people struggling to push through the hardest content the game originally launched with, even with a 15% global buff.
I guess it's casual in the sense that it's easy to pick up and put down without having to invest the hours of a second full time job to be able to accomplish something, because the game certainly isn't lacking for challenge in the top tier content.
All content has a shelf life: it's simply up to the players to complete that content before it expires. Usually expiration in this case is either the players growing tired of trying to beat it, or the developers releasing newer content that renders the older stuff redundant or into a new part of the gear ramp.
This is true with almost every themepark, but the key here is that the shelf life and expiration has to only apply to a very small percentage of the playerbase. The amount of people that have turn 9 downs is small, and still to this day there are people that haven't beaten turn 5 believe it or not which is content that came out in 2.0.
I am pretty certain YoshiP clarified this. 2.2 million active accounts, with 7 million registered accounts. Something along those lines anyhow.
Personally, I don't really care. When I go on the game is active and more and more content is coming out which I pleased about. I think YoshiP also had something like 300-500k subs in mind when it was put together, so either way its a win for the team and for the community.
I am pretty certain YoshiP clarified this. 2.2 million active accounts, with 7 million registered accounts. Something along those lines anyhow.
Personally, I don't really care. When I go on the game is active and more and more content is coming out which I pleased about. I think YoshiP also had something like 300-500k subs in mind when it was put together, so either way its a win for the team and for the community.
It helps to read a few posts before throwing in random numbers, you would have found this link:
game is doing pretty good for a game with a sub. I'm on one of the new servers and sometimes i will get a queue to log in. considering its being released for steam,ps and more to come. i wouldn't be surpized for 2mill subs.
Comments
I think Yoshida is aware of this, being that he calls the game "extremely casual" in nature. He doesn't seem surprised that people will drift off and play other games in between major patches.
It's kind of funny, because there's only a very small percentage of people that are able to actually complete content while it's relevant. There's still people struggling to push through the hardest content the game originally launched with, even with a 15% global buff.
I guess it's casual in the sense that it's easy to pick up and put down without having to invest the hours of a second full time job to be able to accomplish something, because the game certainly isn't lacking for challenge in the top tier content.
You are letting perception get in the way of facts Square Enix made a number of forecasts, as publically held companies do.
Yoshi P already answered that question in a recent interview. Its 2 million registered accounts.
No, there are around 8 million characters total (according to lodestone and what yoshi has said), and this is in a game where alts are completely pointless for everything except RP. Also a lot of people on this forum seem to forget that it is extremely common for people to let their subs fall off in between expacs or content patches. It's not like it's impossible to re-sub once you aren't subbed anymore. Active subscribers isn't the end all be all number for MMOs.
Funny how you call vagueness a "weapon of marketing" then follow with your own small anecdotal evidence.
In any case, regardless of how many subs there are(which are prob in the 500k - 1M range) the game is completely active, there is surprisingly also no sign of lack of people even when near the end of a patch cycle, like the one we are in at the moment, there's still queues to log in at prime time and weekends and even character creation restrictions on servers(specially in the japanese ones).
So yeah on the topic of whether or not the game is doing well even as we are approaching the 10 month mark, i can say with quite a bit of confidence it is still brimming with people playing.
2.2 million accounts registered includes all 1.0 accounts, which were carried over to 2.0. If you purchased FFXIV during 1.0's time, you did not have to re-purchase Realm Reborn. You got it free. Those 1.0 accounts are included in that 2.2 million as well, which brings the total Realm Reborn purchases down a bit.
As to why they haven't released actual subscriber numbers yet...
Well, for one possibility, they might be waiting for their first yearly Census to come out. They release those every year for FFXI and so they may do the same for ARR.
On the other hand, assuming the active sub numbers are under 1 million, that could actually end up looking bad for them - even if it's actually good. Why? Because we live in a time where any MMO that doesn't achieve WoW-like numbers, or at least have a population north of a million, is automatically dismissed as a "failure". Look no further than these very forums for evidence of that. Public opinion, however inaccurate, carries more weight than any official PR release.
Doesn't matter what SE says, or how little sense it makes. Pointing out that WoW's success is an anomaly gets you nowhere. People tend to hold any new MMO up to WoW as a gauge of "how successful it is". Hence, you see SE throwing around the "2.2 million registered accounts" and "7 million characters" numbers.. Because they look more impressive to someone reading them (but not necessarily thinking critically about them).
It's all calculated PR.
+1
Why? Partly to suggest to other potential buyers that the game is alive and well - which it is and that's fine - but also to reassure shareholders. FFXIV was an unmitigated disaster. A tale of a company that had "lost its way". They want to put out the message that they have recovered the situation; stability has been regained; that all is well..
Now a server being busy says nothing - one server says nothing. What speaks volumes, imo, is SE support for the game when it crashed and burned. The brand mattered to them. They invested heavily in it. vested in it. A strong message and one that current subscribers should be very happy with.
He got hit with some serious dive bombs...
Played-Everything
Playing-LoL
The 1.0 accounts that make up that 2.2 million number aren't even 100k so I don't think thats worth bringing up in this case. Additionally, every MMO that comes up that you hold side by side with WoW will of course be a failure in terms of numbers but why would this be any different one would ask? Because its not trying to compete with it for space in the market where as games like Rift ran into that issue.
I look at this as the EVE online of themepark MMO's, its got its hardcore fanbase, and its own agenda, and this is due to Yoshi-P who is concerned with FFXIV:ARR and nothing else and that's the key. The issue we see now is that too many companies out there are worried about the rest of the market and blizzard instead of trying to figure out how to establish their own space within it.
Played-Everything
Playing-LoL
All content has a shelf life: it's simply up to the players to complete that content before it expires. Usually expiration in this case is either the players growing tired of trying to beat it, or the developers releasing newer content that renders the older stuff redundant or into a new part of the gear ramp.
This is true with almost every themepark, but the key here is that the shelf life and expiration has to only apply to a very small percentage of the playerbase. The amount of people that have turn 9 downs is small, and still to this day there are people that haven't beaten turn 5 believe it or not which is content that came out in 2.0.
Played-Everything
Playing-LoL
I am pretty certain YoshiP clarified this. 2.2 million active accounts, with 7 million registered accounts. Something along those lines anyhow.
Personally, I don't really care. When I go on the game is active and more and more content is coming out which I pleased about. I think YoshiP also had something like 300-500k subs in mind when it was put together, so either way its a win for the team and for the community.
It helps to read a few posts before throwing in random numbers, you would have found this link:
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/446/feature/8606/page/2
MMORPG: On the newest trailer that just came out it says there are two million adventurers. Is that subscribers? Total accounts?
Yoshi - P: That’s our total unique account number. 2.2 million is the number of registered accounts.
7 mil registered accounts with 2.2 mil active...