1 million subscribers

Square made an announcement a few days ago that FFXI, FFXIV and Dragonquest 3 combined have 1 million subscribers.

How many do you think each title has? My guess is 300k for D3, FFXI 100-200k and FFXIV about 550k

http://www.pcgamer.com/square-enixs-mmos-arent-doing-great-but-theyre-not-dying/

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Originally Posted by Pixela

Square made an announcement a few days ago that FFXI, FFXIV and Dragonquest 3 combined have 1 million subscribers.

How many do you think each title has? My guess is 300k for D3, FFXI 100-200k and FFXIV about 550k

http://www.pcgamer.com/square-enixs-...yre-not-dying/

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Hmm IDK, FFXIV's main page a few months back advertised having more than 2.4 million subs. So I'd like to think FFXIV was a little higher.

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Originally Posted by PlumbGame

Hmm IDK, FFXIV's main page a few months back advertised having more than 2.4 million subs. So I'd like to think FFXIV was a little higher.

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That was registered players not subscribers, but yeah might be a little higher than 550k.

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Originally Posted by Pixela

FFXI 100-200k

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Very generous of you. Try <80K.

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Originally Posted by Dazusu

Very generous of you. Try <80K.

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I would say at least 100k is the minimum honestly, that's about 6.2k subscribers per server which given the 24/7 nature of the game sounds about right to me.

No, Square made no such recent announcement. Read the article.

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Correction: Square Enix's annual report was released on March 31, 2014, when the company's fiscal year ended. We apologize for the error.

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Nearly a year old.

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Originally Posted by Zenoxio

No, Square made no such recent announcement. Read the article.



Nearly a year old.

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I think you need to read it again, Square did make this announcement and they used these figures themselves. They decided to use the figures from last March for whatever reason but it's obvious they aren't much different now or they would of used the more upto date ones which they have access to.

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2015/01/0...and-the-future
http://news.yahoo.com/square-enix-an...230935823.html
http://www.business2community.com/te...tails-01111664

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Originally Posted by Pixela

Square made an announcement a few days ago that FFXI, FFXIV and Dragonquest 3 combined have 1 million subscribers.

How many do you think each title has? My guess is 300k for D3, FFXI 100-200k and FFXIV about 550k

http://www.pcgamer.com/square-enixs-...yre-not-dying/

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never heard of this announcement but Dragon Quest 3 is not an MMO. You're thinking of Dragon Quest X (on Wii, Wii U, and PC). So something's not quite right here.

FFXIV has been very successful, not merely "not dying."

Also, as noted, that financial report was released early last year, which means it includes very little data on FFXIV because that game was in its infancy at the time the report was likely being worked on. FFXIV has been out for nearly a year if not a full year, since the report data was probably compiled.

I don't know much about dragon quest, but I'd say those numbers are waaaaaaaayy out of date, FFXIV's lodestone page used to state clearly 2.5m subscribers.

So I would say thats where XIV is now, give or take a few thousand. I would bet it's going to keep increasing in the next few years.
FFXI I would estimate is around 120k active accounts. Likely stay around the same population for the next few years.
Can't speak to DQ as I know little about it as I said.

So yeah, definitely not dying.
Though FFXI isn't growing much, but that's better then declining.

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Originally Posted by Bluestar2kx

I don't know much about dragon quest, but I'd say those numbers are waaaaaaaayy out of date, FFXIV's lodestone page used to state clearly 2.5m subscribers.

So I would say thats where XIV is now, give or take a few thousand. I would bet it's going to keep increasing in the next few years.
FFXI I would estimate is around 120k active accounts. Likely stay around the same population for the next few years.
Can't speak to DQ as I know little about it as I said.

So yeah, definitely not dying.
Though FFXI isn't growing much, but that's better then declining.

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The 2.5m number was never correct because it was never subscribers, that's why they removed it and why they gave the numbers they did last week.

The numbers are from last March because those are the numbers Square CEO chose to give, so I presume they are lower now (even if marginally lower) or they simply would not of used them.

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Originally Posted by Pixela

The 2.5m number was never correct because it was never subscribers, that's why they removed it and why they gave the numbers they did last week.

The numbers are from last March because those are the numbers Square CEO chose to give, so I presume they are lower now (even if marginally lower) or they simply would not of used them.

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I can't believe those are accurate.
The fiscal year being quoted was dated march 31st 2014, this is not march, nor 2014, so those numbers are useless. Their next fiscal year report is listed to be after march of 2015.

So nothing you've listed or Pc gamer (why their linking to an almost year old report in 2015 is beyond me), is new, or even accurate almost a year later. Until march we likely won't have accurate numbers of current subscriptions to SE mmos and their operating costs and profit margins.

Pc gamer likely just did it for click bait because everyone's mad at SE for not remaking FFVII and instead doing some weird re-release of a re-release.

aye, its nearly time for the next fiscal report to come out, so why PC Gamer or anyone here wants to have debates about old numbers is beyond me.

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

aye, its nearly time for the next fiscal report to come out, so why PC Gamer or anyone here wants to have debates about old numbers is beyond me.

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They are using the numbers Square used last week, not the medias fault Square decided for whatever reason to use those numbers is it?

If things have changed so much why would they use them?

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Originally Posted by Pixela

They are using the numbers Square used last week, not the medias fault Square decided for whatever reason to use those numbers is it?

If things have changed so much why would they use them?

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Where is this statement that this is even current information somehow magically released just now?
And the reason why they might use this to any degree is because 2015's report is not out yet, what are they suppose to do? Pull numbers out of their butt and call it fact without having all of them? No, they'll reference last years report on anything that isn't complete yet for 2015's report, which again, is coming in a few months.

I've also seen nothing recent to counter SE's claim of 2.5m FFXIV subscriptions. Esp since their worlds are heavily populated, and they have well over 20 servers active.

So yes, it is the media's fault for reporting on this like it happened yesterday, when it's clearly marked that this is almost year old information. The media is trying to make hype out of dated information and presenting it as "just released", when it's not, and from the thread, so are you, unless you can back it up in some other fashion then irrelevant internet sites. I'm sure me and others reading this thread want a link to a statement by SE themselves, not old info reposted to gaming sites.

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Originally Posted by Bluestar2kx

So yes, it is the media's fault for reporting on this like it happened yesterday, when it's clearly marked that this is almost year old information. The media is trying to make hype out of dated information and presenting it as "just released", when it's not, and from the thread, so are you, unless you can back it up in some other fashion then irrelevant internet sites. I'm sure me and others reading this thread want a link to a statement by SE themselves, not old info reposted to gaming sites.

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You're really being a blind fan boy you know? It's like the words "Square Enix released this information less than a week ago themselves" is beyond your comprehension. Whether the information is accurate as of this moment or not is really of no relevance, because that's the info they used, again, less than a week ago. They reported it to the media. They sat down and said "this is what we got, this is our plans" etc. None of this was drummed up, false reporting, etc.

As far as "pulling numbers out of their butt" maybe the company I work for is just ages ahead in this digital age we live in, but I can pull up the balances, credits, debits, time that accounts have been opened, pending orders, processed orders, etc, all while ordering and sorting them in many numbers of ways for over 50,000 accounts within seconds. I'd expect that if an international company wanted to give accurate up to the minute numbers, they would. Obviously, for one reason or another, they didn't. Wouldn't hurt if you understood the difference between "accounts" and "active subscribers" as well, vastly different numbers.

*shrugs*
As if I care.
But whatever. We'll find out in 3 months who is really right and who is really wrong.

Arguing semantics here with this information is pointless.

p.s. Yes i know the difference. FFXI has 3m+ accounts. But only about 120k subs. Simple yeah? But readily available information doesn't dispute my point of FFXIV, could always login to XIV and prove me wrong.

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Originally Posted by Pixela

They are using the numbers Square used last week, not the medias fault Square decided for whatever reason to use those numbers is it?

If things have changed so much why would they use them?

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Changed or not it doesnt make much sense to use them when they are probably already in the midst of preparing their next financial report. Though it's worth noting, one of the articles linked above has them stating "over 1 million subscribers" rather than the "nearly 1 million subscribers" which suggests either they're using data from some later point in time, twisting the numbers, or misstated the original numbers.

Oh, and I'll give you one guess which game is responsible (or most responsible) for the increase from "nearly" to "over" one million.

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You're really being a blind fan boy you know? It's like the words "Square Enix released this information less than a week ago themselves" is beyond your comprehension.

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A more accurate way of stating this is "Square Enix commented on / discussed information that was previously released nearly a year ago less than a week ago themselves." They threw a number around, but that number was based on data from long before that. Again, why they would comment on old data when new data is due to be released in the next few months is beyond me.

As of right now the official word is that all 3 games have 1 million subs combined (which is very generous given the company is using old figures), they would not of used old numbers when trying to speak to share holders if they had ballooned since then.

Simply put, when a CEO of a company uses 1 year old figures when they can easily use numbers that are available to him now that are more recent there is a reason.

As I stated in the OP, I would think XIV has around 550k Dragon quest has around 300k and FFXI probably has around 100 to 150k. I highly doubt those numbers have changed much, or at least not in a positive direction. No CEO would of used old numbers if they were worse than what they have right now, and don't say a CEO of a company can't get upto date figures until March that is silly. Also if the figures in march turn out to be a lot less you can expect them to be very vague so don't hold your breath.

Either way it's nice to see thta XIV isn't the juggernaut XIV players suggest it is and that it's just another MMO in their arsenal. FFXI is as relevent and important to Square as it always was, which proves it will be heavily supported for many, many years to come.

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Originally Posted by Pixela

As of right now the official word is that all 3 games have OVER 1 million subs combined

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/10characters

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Originally Posted by Pixela

FFXI is as relevent and important to Square as it always was, which proves it will be heavily supported for many, many years to come.

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Let's hope they can allocate some of that support to their broken billing department.

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As of right now the official word is that all 3 games have 1 million subs combined (which is very generous given the company is using old figures), they would not of used old numbers when trying to speak to share holders if they had ballooned since then.

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You say this as if you think they're trying to mask lower numbers but in fact they implied the number has increased given the change from "nearly 1 million" to "over 1 million".

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

You say this as if you think they're trying to mask lower numbers but in fact they implied the number has increased given the change from "nearly 1 million" to "over 1 million".

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Well the important part is that it's around 1 million combined, whether they are trying to hide lower numbers or not is another matter really. It is still fishy that a CEO would talk to the media and share holders and use figures from last march when he has no real need to do so (there is no way in hell that he could not get more recent figures), the reason he did so it up for personal opinion.

It's possible the over 1 million is adding on the chinese release numbers (from what I gather XIV flopped pretty badly in China) to give a total but we don't really know for sure other than currently it's around 1 million for everything.

As I stated before though the real thing to take away from this in regards to FFXI is that it's still important and still brings in a large share of their monthly revenue. Many have the mindset that XIV is a juggernaut and XI doesn't really matter anymore, this pretty much stomps on that idea and shows why XI is still incredibly relevent to the company.

I doubt that he would use figures that haven't been officially released in a financial report that isn't due out for another 2 months.

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

I doubt that he would use figures that haven't been officially released in a financial report that isn't due out for another 2 months.

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Why? If the reality was 3 or 4 million he would of cleared it and used those figures, you act like it's hard to get current figures for the CEO of a company talking to share holders at a very important time. This is the CEO addressing a very important crowd, if the company had significantly higher numbers he would of used them. If they were greatly better than last March there is no way he would of not used them or given far better numbers (even with the SE norm of being vague).

You may not like the numbers but they are what they are, all their titles together have around 1 million paying users as of last week.

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Why? If the reality was 3 or 4 million he would of cleared it and used those figures,

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Why? because if a new financial report is due out soon, it would make a lot more sense to wait for that to be released to make any sort of announcements or proclamations regardless of what the numbers are.

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Originally Posted by PlumbGame

Hmm IDK, FFXIV's main page a few months back advertised having more than 2.4 million subs. So I'd like to think FFXIV was a little higher.

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I believe FFXIV has been off and on with subs. I, myself, subbed every month. After beta on PS3 and moving to PS4, I subbed every month when they began subs (about September or October 2013) until I stopped in December 2014 in favor of FFXI again.

Many people in chat on FFXI also mentioned how they let their FFXIV subs expire.

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

Why? because if a new financial report is due out soon, it would make a lot more sense to wait for that to be released to make any sort of announcements or proclamations regardless of what the numbers are.

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The statement the CEO made last week was at the end of year financial report to the people he answers to, the shareholders and keep in mind that the current guy recently took over because the last one failed.

If the figures were higher he would of stated them at this point and it's frankly stupid that you are arguing he wouldn't just because they want to hold the numbers back for the official report. There is no way in hell he would of not painted the best possible picture he could at this event, if that required him giving paying users numbers a little early he would of done it.

This was not a press release only, it was an end of year announcement to the shareholders at a time when the company was reeling from massive losses that lead to the last CEO quitting in disgrace.

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Originally Posted by Kimble

I believe FFXIV has been off and on with subs. I, myself, subbed every month. After beta on PS3 and moving to PS4, I subbed every month when they began subs (about September or October 2013) until I stopped in December 2014 in favor of FFXI again.

Many people in chat on FFXI also mentioned how they let their FFXIV subs expire.

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I no longer play FFXIV either, and the last time I did, there did seem to be a lot less pop than normal.

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If the figures were higher he would of stated them at this point and it's frankly stupid that you are arguing he wouldn't just because they want to hold the numbers back for the official report.

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I dont think he would be holding anything back, because as we've noted, they have a financial report coming up in two months (as stated for the 328479324th time. It is unlikely that report is actually already completed, and therefore unlikely that the numbers he is using in the quotation are very recent.

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I no longer play FFXIV either, and the last time I did, there did seem to be a lot less pop than normal.

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There isn't less pop but more people stacking on the most populated servers- there are many that are currently at official capacity and are locked down to CC at most hours of the day (you have to make a character early in the morning to get on). Even though these servers are technically over capacity as a result, you have this syndrome of everyone wanting to be on the most populous server even though 1) that's not necessary for a good game experience and 2) too many people on a server is not always a good thing. The Duty Finder system in XIV enables players to get their boss fights etc. done regardless of their own server's population.

Also it is very common, especially with power gamers, to play the crap out of a game when a new patch comes out, and if they conquer everything there is to conquer before the next patch comes out, they gradually play less. It happens here too, and it happens in every big MMO, thus you see higher pops when a patch is new and lower pops late into the patch before the next one comes out. The only bad thing that can say is that it's taking them longer than optimal to release patches (but they're only human and can only work so fast)

I currently have active subscriptions to both games and often am playing one during downtime in the other. :p

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

I dont think he would be holding anything back, because as we've noted, they have a financial report coming up in two months (as stated for the 328479324th time. It is unlikely that report is actually already completed, and therefore unlikely that the numbers he is using in the quotation are very recent.

There isn't less pop but more people stacking on the most populated servers- there are many that are currently at official capacity and are locked down to CC at most hours of the day (you have to make a character early in the morning to get on). Even though these servers are technically over capacity as a result, you have this syndrome of everyone wanting to be on the most populous server even though 1) that's not necessary for a good game experience and 2) too many people on a server is not always a good thing. The Duty Finder system in XIV enables players to get their boss fights etc. done regardless of their own server's population.

Also it is very common, especially with power gamers, to play the crap out of a game when a new patch comes out, and if they conquer everything there is to conquer before the next patch comes out, they gradually play less. It happens here too, and it happens in every big MMO, thus you see higher pops when a patch is new and lower pops late into the patch before the next one comes out. The only bad thing that can say is that it's taking them longer than optimal to release patches (but they're only human and can only work so fast)

I currently have active subscriptions to both games and often am playing one during downtime in the other. :p

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They don't have vastly more players now than they did in March, the CEO does not need a financial report to be finalised to be able to know how many paying players they have lol These are numbers he can work out within days at any time if he gives the order for them to be calculated. He gave the numbers he did out of choice.

It's kinda silly to assume an mmo would have more players now than it did last march honestly anyway, that's not how these games work. Even if it makes people feel better to think it is, it's just not reality.

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It's kinda silly to assume an mmo would have more players now than it did last march honestly anyway, that's not how these games work. Even if it makes people feel better to think it is, it's just not reality.

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I'm not sure what exactly you find about it that's silly. Also their total subscribers did increase unless you want to tell me that he didn't just get new numbers and instead just made them up. So unless he's just flat out lying, it actually IS reality.

The fact you're being so general about MMO populations is also silly- If a game does well, of course its population will increase. Unless the game is bad, it is not at all reasonable to see a game's potential peak population more than a year out. I don't think WoW peaked until a couple years in. I dn't know why people "feel" anything about the numbers. They're just numbers, and while they're interesting to look at, it's really not that important. There are too many MMOs out there for them to all have several million subscribers (p2p) or active accounts (f2p). To make a decision about what game you're going to play based on sales or population statistics or to judge it based on them is beyond silly. I've played many fun MMOs with smaller total populations than XI.

While that nearly or over 1 million number doesn't sound high, It's still higher than a pretty long list of MMOs to have come out in the last several years.

So just for funsies, I'll take a stab at the original question. Let's be a little generous and assume that "over 1 million" means 1.1 million total subscribers to SE MMOs. My breakdown would be:

30k DQXO (This game is only avialable in Japan and South Korea)
70k FFXI (possibly generous, taking current concurrent users and multiplying it since not all players are active at the same time or play everyday, plus mule accounts)
~1m FFXIV (They were prolcaiming over 3.2 million "players" on the Lodestone at one point, assuming that number is accounts created, I don't think a sub conversion rate of one third is overly generous)

XIV is also approaching its first expansion in 3-4 months, and as with any MMO that will trigger a number of resubs and new accounts.

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

I'm not sure what exactly you find about it that's silly. Also their total subscribers did increase unless you want to tell me that he didn't just get new numbers and instead just made them up. So unless he's just flat out lying, it actually IS reality.

The fact you're being so general about MMO populations is also silly- If a game does well, of course its population will increase. Unless the game is bad, it is not at all reasonable to see a game's potential peak population more than a year out. I don't think WoW peaked until a couple years in. I dn't know why people "feel" anything about the numbers. They're just numbers, and while they're interesting to look at, it's really not that important. There are too many MMOs out there for them to all have several million subscribers (p2p) or active accounts (f2p). To make a decision about what game you're going to play based on sales or population statistics or to judge it based on them is beyond silly. I've played many fun MMOs with smaller total populations than XI.

While that nearly or over 1 million number doesn't sound high, It's still higher than a pretty long list of MMOs to have come out in the last several years.

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MMO populations simply don't increase this way and not by silly large numbers as people seem to be implying (yes, even if they are good) even if they add lots of new content and expansions. Modern mmo players get bored quick and leave an mmo at a faster rate than new ones join, there is simply way too much competition these days.

A film doesn't make more money a year later than it did at launch, a game like destiny or Assassins Creed Unity don't sell better after free dlc and patches than it did during launch and an mmo doesn't have more players a year later.

Square said a while back that DQXO had 300k subs, and FFXIV had 500k. If FFXIV really did have a large increase they would of said it because there is a huge amount of prestige in doing something that difficult in the modern mmo world, especially in one that is linked to their most important franchise.

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MMO populations simply don't increase this way and not by silly large numbers as people seem to be implying

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Within an MMOs first year ( or longer if it's really successful) yes, they do indeed increase that way, unless the game is a flop.

Also, we aren't talking about "silly large numbers here." They suggested a modest increase ("nearly 1 million" to "over 1 million." I'm not sure where you're getting this idea that we're exaggerating the numbers or misinterpreting them.

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Square said a while back that DQXO had 300k subs, and FFXIV had 500k.

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FFXI never had 500k subscribers. They had 500k ACCOUNTS, and that was several years ago. There is no way DQXO has 300k active subs. FFXIV has more servers than both games combined and there are easily thousands on each compared to several hundred on the XI servers. A simple search of each zone will reveal that (cant /sea all it doesn't give a total number), and that doesn't count the number of people in instances (which is a lot since its a heavily instance based game)

DQX is only available in a very localized area so I'm pretty confident that "300k" is accounts not subs as well. as previously mentioned, the last time the numbers were given FFXIV had at least 3.2 million accounts.

So if you want to (insert negative verb here) on FFXIV, at least use current data and understand what data you're using when you do it.

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Many have the mindset that XIV is a juggernaut and XI doesn't really matter anymore

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While XIV almost certainly is a juggernaut compared to the other two games in terms of the share of that statistic, as long as the games are profitable, they are all benefitting SE's bottom line and should all be considered "important."

I guess you must hate XIV or something- it barely takes 5 minutes of playing it to see that there are far more players on each server than in XI. then you can go peruse the server list here: http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/worldstatus/

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

Within an MMOs first year ( or longer if it's really successful) yes, they do indeed increase that way, unless the game is a flop.

Also, we aren't talking about "silly large numbers here." They suggested a modest increase ("nearly 1 million" to "over 1 million." I'm not sure where you're getting this idea that we're exaggerating the numbers or misinterpreting them.

FFXI never had 500k subscribers. They had 500k ACCOUNTS, and that was several years ago. There is no way DQXO has 300k active subs. FFXIV has more servers than both games combined and there are easily thousands on each compared to several hundred on the XI servers. A simple search of each zone will reveal that (cant /sea all it doesn't give a total number), and that doesn't count the number of people in instances (which is a lot since its a heavily instance based game)

DQX is only available in a very localized area so I'm pretty confident that "300k" is accounts not subs as well. as previously mentioned, the last time the numbers were given FFXIV had at least 3.2 million accounts.

So if you want to (insert negative verb here) on FFXIV, at least use current data and understand what data you're using when you do it.

While XIV almost certainly is a juggernaut compared to the other two games in terms of the share of that statistic, as long as the games are profitable, they are all benefitting SE's bottom line and should all be considered "important."

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They said all 3 mmo titles combined had around 1 million. Also please tell me any mmo released in the last 5 years that has gained subscribers over a 1 year period, it just doesn't happen and you can't name one. MMO titles have player retention issues because of massive competition and lots of new titles and as such it's a decrease over time, the success of a title is how fast or slow the decrease is.

If you think Square are not liars then DQXO had 300k subscribers and FFXI did have 500k SUBSCRIBERS (FFXIV barely beat the best FFXI managed but cost vastly more to create so FFXI will always remain the most profitable FF title ever). If you're going to argue this much you should go check your facts.

Please don't go linking servers, most of those servers are very quiet and let's not forget that SWG had 4 times as many servers. You don't count servers, you count the words from Square themselves.

As I said, FFXIV is a moderate success (and if you calculate in the massive losses from v1, not even that) but FFXI and DQ are both still huge money makers which makes them very important to Square and will be supported for many many years to come. Which is good news!

"They said all 3 mmo titles combined had around 1 million." They said in their march 2014 financial report that they had "nearly 1 million." They later stated in one of the linked articles above that they now have "over 1 million." That by itself implies an increase. Are you trying to suggest that DQX and FFXI are responsible for that increase and not FFXIV?

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Also please tell me any mmo released in the last 5 years that has gained subscribers over a 1 year period, it just doesn't happen and you can't name one

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Every MMO starts with zero players, therefore every MMO gains subscribers over its first year period, unless it doesn't last that long. If you want to skip past the first initial influx, I'm willing to bet that most MMOs that did not die (either outright or essentially) within that year saw an increase from their first month at the end of their year. XIV had been out for maybe 4 months when SE likely began to compile the data for its financial report (which, if you look at how elaborate the report is, it probably took weeks to create with all the data finalized). Considering that it has been successful enough to have not just one but three fan events, something that XI never had, I'd say the odds are pretty damn good that there was an increase between then and now.

On my server in XIV, I can find more people in one zone than Shiva on XI has in both of the game's most populous cities (which comprise several zones) combined, and that number by itself represents around a third of shiva's population.

If you'd like, I'll continue counting up the players to show you how much whatsit your argument is full of. :)

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Please don't go linking servers, most of those servers are very quiet and let's not forget that SWG had 4 times as many servers. You don't count servers, you count the words from Square themselves.

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Dude, you're talking out your behind. "most of those servers are very quiet?" No, they're not. SE closes servers to character creation when they have too many people online. There are more servers closed to character creation at this very moment than XI has period.

I'm really not sure how you're deluding yourself into thinking that DQX and FFXI are more successful than FFXIV, but whatever you're taking to make yourself feel that way, I want some of it!

If you search in XIV, you can look in each of 8 different regions (the three city regions, and the 5 field regions) On my server all of them except one return well over 200 users, that's 1600 players not counting the ones that are in instances (which can't be searched directly), and this isn't even prime time. Every single Legacy world is like that, and many others are as well. Additionally, 16 worlds are currently locked to character creation, and this isn't really a peak time for either the JP or NA datacenters.

/sea all in Shiva/XI just turned up 705 players for me. Hyperion/XIV I'm still adding it up as you can't /sea all but my estimate is probably not to far off (again excluding players in instances)

Clearly you don't play the game since you really don't have the slightest idea how many people are on a server.

So please, keep telling yourself DQX and XI have the lion's share of players. Don't get me wrong. I love XI and I'm sure DQX is great too. I wouldn't be here posting if I didn't have an FFXI sub. But you really need to face facts.

Your comments just have so much fanboyism injected in them... I literally am playing both games at the same time right now. I think that's a pretty good indication I like them both and can look at them objectively. So I'm going to stop things here and let the other people reading this stuff decide.

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Every MMO starts with zero players, therefore every MMO gains subscribers over its first year period, unless it doesn't last that long. If you want to skip past the first initial influx, I'm willing to bet that most MMOs that did not die (either outright or essentially) within that year saw an increase from their first month at the end of their year. XIV had been out for maybe 4 months when SE likely began to compile the data for its financial report (which, if you look at how elaborate the report is, it probably took weeks to create with all the data finalized). Considering that it has been successful enough to have not just one but three fan events, something that XI never had, I'd say the odds are pretty damn good that there was an increase between then and now.

On my server in XIV, I can find more people in one zone than Shiva on XI has in both of the game's most populous cities (which comprise several zones) combined, and that number by itself represents around a third of shiva's population.

If you'd like, I'll continue counting up the players to show you how much whatsit your argument is full of.

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I'm glad you agree with me that no mmo would have more players a year later (I'm assuming you agree since you posted pretty much nothing to argue against it). Did you really try to make an argument about an mmo starts with 0?..

The truth is that FFXI has a way to count total servers players, FFXIV does not. Of course FFXIV has more players than FFXI though, nobody ever argued anything else because it's 12? years old now (I already said an mmo loses players as it ages). You just got upset that I pointed out it's not a juggernaut and simply a modest success. Is that so horrible for you to hear? FFXIV is currently doing as well as FFXI did when it was new, just a pity it cost such a vast amount more to make...

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Dude, you're talking out your behind. "most of those servers are very quiet?" No, they're not. SE closes servers to character creation when they have too many people online. There are more servers closed to character creation at this very moment than XI has period.

I'm really not sure how you're deluding yourself into thinking that DQX and FFXI are more successful than FFXIV, but whatever you're taking to make yourself feel that way, I want some of it!

If you search in XIV, you can look in each of 8 different regions (the three city regions, and the 5 field regions) On my server all of them except one return well over 200 users, that's 1600 players not counting the ones that are in instances (which can't be searched directly), and this isn't even prime time. Every single Legacy world is like that, and many others are as well. Additionally, 16 worlds are currently locked to character creation, and this isn't really a peak time for either the JP or NA datacenters.

/sea all in Shiva/XI just turned up 705 players for me. Hyperion/XIV I'm still adding it up as you can't /sea all but my estimate is probably not to far off (again excluding players in instances)

Clearly you don't play the game since you really don't have the slightest idea how many people are on a server.

So please, keep telling yourself DQX and XI have the lion's share of players. Don't get me wrong. I love XI and I'm sure DQX is great too. I wouldn't be here posting if I didn't have an FFXI sub. But you really need to face facts.

Your comments just have so much fanboyism injected in them... I literally am playing both games at the same time right now. I think that's a pretty good indication I like them both and can look at them objectively. So I'm going to stop things here and let the other people reading this stuff decide.

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Yes, most of those servers are very quiet. Most people want to transfer to the few busy servers which causes congestion on those few servers, this isn't news to anyone that actually plays the game and wants to be truthful. Is this really that hard to understand?! o.O

You seem to be taking this oh so personally and I'm not sure why, even going to the point of trying to give peak numbers form one game to off-peak in another XD

As I said in the OP, FFXIV probably has around 400-500k, DQ probably around 300k and FFXI has around 100-200k. I'm just telling it like it is and what the CEO told us all last week.

It's good news to post on the FFXI forum, FFXI is still a major money maker and still makes up a large share of their monthly paying users. Many think FFXIV is massive, but it's not and that's good news for us XI players because it means we are still very important to the company.

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I'm glad you agree with me that no mmo would have more players a year later (I'm assuming you agree since you posted pretty much nothing to argue against it). Did you really try to make an argument about an mmo starts with 0?..

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If you think that quotation constitutes an agreement of any kind, well, I can't really say what I'd like to say because it would be against the forum rules, but you're wrong.

Yes, all MMOs start with 0. All games of all time start with 0. There's no players until somebody buys it. I also explicitly stated that we can skip past the initial sales if you want, but seems like you ignored that.

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Yes, most of those servers are very quiet. Most people want to transfer to the few busy servers which causes congestion on those few servers, this isn't news to anyone that actually plays the game and wants to be truthful. Is this really that hard to understand?! o.O

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False. Everyone wants to move to the most populated server even if their own server has plenty of players on it. It happens in every MMO ever.

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You seem to be taking this oh so personally and I'm not sure why, even going to the point of trying to give peak numbers form one game to off-peak in another XD

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I'm not taking this personally, but you are twisting some vague numbers to mean whatever the hell you want them to mean and not presenting any actual truth. Any numbers brought up, you respond with vague statements.

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As I said in the OP, FFXIV probably has around 400-500k, DQ probably around 300k and FFXI has around 100-200k. I'm just telling it like it is and what the CEO told us all last week.

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You're not "telling it like it is." You're just making up numbers. The closest I could possibly come to agreeing with anything in that statement is the notion that DQX might have more players than XI. That's possible, but I'm also considering the fact that XI has a worldwide release where as DQX is only available in two countries.

FFXI does not have 100-200k active subscriptions. Unlike with the other two games, its pretty easy to make a ballpark estimate based on concurrent users. There is no way to bend or twist XI's active subscribers to that kind of a number.

You see, there's a confusion here between "subscribers" and "accounts." Accounts is everyone who's ever bought the game and played it for any amount of time. Subscribers are currently paying customers. That is, total accounts minus accounts with no active subscription. A couple years after its release, XI bragged about having 500,000 players, which was later revealed to be accounts, not subscribers. XIV's lodestone at one point proclaimed 2.5 million players (again, not subscribers) Actual subscribers would probably half that at best, more likely 25-33%. DQX we don't really have much info on. please do cite this article where SE can be quoted as saying that game has 300,000 *subscribers* (not accounts). Back up your vague claims with verifiable sources. I at least came up with ballpark figures by counting up the people I actually see playing in the game.

Remember, subscribers, not accounts. The CEO in both cases of stating "1 million" referred to subscribers (because that's what's giving them money). make sure that whatever numbers you're pulling refer to subscribers.

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If you think that quotation constitutes an agreement of any kind, well, I can't really say what I'd like to say because it would be against the forum rules, but you're wrong.

Yes, all MMOs start with 0. All games of all time start with 0. There's no players until somebody buys it. I also explicitly stated that we can skip past the initial sales if you want, but seems like you ignored that.

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Well I assume you agreed because you had no counter to my post and just posted pretty much nothing.

As I said, no modern MMO grows its sub base and you can't put any valid argument against me. So aside from what you seem to specialise in (just posting WORDS) I see no other conclusion.

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False. Everyone wants to move to the most populated server even if their own server has plenty of players on it. It happens in every MMO ever.

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It's not false, it's fact but you don't like it so it just becomes false XD There are very many underpopulated servers and a few over populated ones. Have you even tried to play on some of the JP servers? They are really low pop.

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I'm not taking this personally, but you are twisting some vague numbers to mean whatever the hell you want them to mean and not presenting any actual truth. Any numbers brought up, you respond with vague statements.

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I'm not twisting numbers, you are. When I call you out on your rubbish numbers you totally ignore it from that point on because you know you're wrong. Also stop stating vague numbers when the CEO of the company stated them to share holders and the media. You not liking them does not equal to "twisting vague numbers". All numbers I have given have been stated in financial reports, media reports and CEO statements.

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You're not "telling it like it is." You're just making up numbers. The closest I could possibly come to agreeing with anything in that statement is the notion that DQX might have more players than XI. That's possible, but I'm also considering the fact that XI has a worldwide release where as DQX is only available in two countries.

FFXI does not have 100-200k active subscriptions. Unlike with the other two games, its pretty easy to make a ballpark estimate based on concurrent users. There is no way to bend or twist XI's active subscribers to that kind of a number.

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The rock solid numbers are all 3 MMO titles have 1 million combined, that DQx has around 300k and that FFXI has around 100-150k players. That leaves 500-600k for FFXIV.

FFXI very much could (and probably does have) have 100-200k subs, keep in mind that FFXI servers are worldwide so has many peaks to count and FFXIV is regional so only has one peak. unless you think just over 6k subscribers per FFXI server is crazy and out of reality? I doubt many others would agree since as I said there are NA peak, JP peak and EU peak to count and they don't all play at the same time either.

As I say, to have a basic idea of a FFXI server population you have to count player numbers at each prime time (you know, those crazy worldwide servers) and then you still don't have a good number because a lot of players don't play every day or are subbed but not currently playing.

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That is, total accounts minus accounts with no active subscription. A couple years after its release, XI bragged about having 500,000 players, which was later revealed to be accounts, not subscribers. XIV's lodestone at one point proclaimed 2.5 million players (again, not subscribers) Actual subscribers would probably half that at best, more likely 25-33%. DQX we don't really have much info on. please do cite this article where SE can be quoted as saying that game has 300,000 *subscribers* (not accounts). Back up your vague claims with verifiable sources. I at least came up with ballpark figures by counting up the people I actually see playing in the game.

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I'm counting subscribers, not accounts. FFXI peaked at 500k subscribers and DQ at 300k (and the fact this game has 300k subs for one region says a lot about XIV), these numbers are really easy to find in official announcements so I'm not sure why you're arguing against them at all.

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As I said, no modern MMO grows its sub base and you can't put any valid argument against me.

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Every modern MMO grows its sub base for some amount of time, and you can't just dismiss any argument you dont like as not valid. Every MMO had to start from somewhere. They didn't have their thousands or millions of subscribers the very first second of release. Depending on how successful that MMO is, it may grow for a short time or it may gro from longer. The point is, every population curve starts at 0, increases up to a certain peak over some period of time, and then eventually declines.

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It's not false, it's fact but you don't like it so it just becomes false XD There are very many underpopulated servers and a few over populated ones. Have you even tried to play on some of the JP servers? They are really low pop.

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It's not a fact because you have no data. There is no data, no statistics have been provided by anyone other than subjective comments.

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FFXI peaked at 500k subscribers

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that was accounts, not subscribers.

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and DQ at 300k

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You still havent posted a source that explcitly states this.

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(and the fact this game has 300k subs for one region says a lot about XIV)

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You can't infer anything whatsoever about XIV from that comment one way or another.

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these numbers are really easy to find in official announcements so I'm not sure why you're arguing against them at all.

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If they're so easy to find you should have no problem posting your sources.

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I'm not twisting numbers, you are. When I call you out on your rubbish numbers you totally ignore it from that point on because you know you're wrong.

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I havent posted any rubbish numbers. The only numbers I've given (that I didn't explicitly state as guesses) were the two numbers given by the CEO ("nearly 1 million" in the 2014 financial report, and the article linked earlier in the thread where it was said "over 1 million").

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As I say, to have a basic idea of a FFXI server population you have to count player numbers at each prime time

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I'm aware of this and factored that in (all times, actually- not just prime times.)

You're just making baseless attacks and not backing up what you say with sources. You also talk like you are some kind of authority figure and that everyone should just believe what you say without question because since you said it, it must be fact!

When you stop pulling numbers out of nowhere and post actual links to actual reliable sources, then maybe people reading this can take it with something less than a giant mountain of salt.

Your next post better contain some good links to good sources.

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It's not a fact because you have no data.

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All 3 games combined have 1 million subscribers, this is according to the CEO of the company.

FFXI peaked at 500k subscribers (FINAL FANTASY XI has a robust community of 500,000 subscribers and more than 1.7 million player characters).

DQ peaked at 300k subscribers from an interview in 2013 with the director of that game.

I can link them but why should I baby feed you? Go google it yourself.

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You can't infer anything whatsoever about XIV from that comment one way or another.

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Well if one MMO has 300k for one region and another has around 500-600k for the world I kinda can.

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I'm aware of this and factored that in (all times, actually- not just prime times.)

You're just making baseless attacks and not backing up what you say with sources.

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Sure you did XD So are you saying that 6k subscribers per FFXI server is out of the realms of possibility? Given they are worldwide and that many players only play on certain days etc.

I'm not making attacks, I'm simply stating numbers. Just because you don't like them does not make my post attacks lol