idk about it being on the way out the door just yet. I typically see upwards of 2600-2800 people on our server any time I check--some people thinking about coming back have been asking, so I've been hitting /sea all every now and then to check for them. That's upwards of 33k/month in revenue just from one server--not exactly chump-change if all servers are following close to the same population statitistic. At a conservative average of just 2500 active accounts per server, that comes out to over 500k in revenue per month just from FFXI base subscriptions alone--not including mules and other sales of software/merchandise. That should be a resonable enough incentive for them to continue working on improving the game. Especially with it being done with a skelton crew now in comparison it should be easy enough for them to justify continuing to support/tweak a game bringing in upwards of 500k /month in recurring revenues.

Subscriptions are also slowly going back up with people returning and new players coming in---yes, that's right....we are still getting new players to this old game. Don't forget that if and when they finally fix the snafu with the payment systems, we are likely to revive an entire sector of players that effectively got frozen out of the game simply because they were left with no way to play--a large number of players from the Oceania region (among others)simply just fell off the radar back in September because of this mess. If they bring back a viable payment method for those disenfranchised players, it will be a big jump in subscriptions right away.