Thank you Matsui

[Vyre]

Thanks for your hard work, Matsui. I hope you enjoy your next adventures outside of Vana'diel.

[Monsuta_Man]

/salute...................

[Vonima2]

Thank you for everything Matsui-san!

Fujito-san,
You are now responsible for dreams. Dreams we dream from our mog houses, from amongst the crafting stalls of those veteran crafters with dusty aprons and a hate for synergy fewell; from those fledgling adventurers, adventurer coupon still crisp in hand; from those counting the last number of alexandrine, metal slabs, or ancient coin collections left to meet the pinnacle of their job. Take this energy and let it give you imagination and the drive to keep Vanadiel expanding and the limitless potential this game brings to so many. Best of luck to you.

[Immortal]

Thank you Matsui, you did what you could. I really wish they would realize how much potential revenue this game can have, you could have two really successful MMOs if you put forth a respectable budget and expanded your services for this game. This news was not good and will have lasting effects, sadly... Lets try to keep hope and remember that this game has "died" before and worse than this because before they said "no major updates, maint mode" and we kept hanging in there and supporting the game and eventually got new stuff. Hopefully by some miracle they are able to get a budget approved after this year and we get stuff.

[ClownyCobalt]

Thank you Matsui!!! I'm a quite recent player and I've had so much fun with FFXI!!! It has so much lasting appeal, and I think that's in part because of the commitment to supporting the game all these years! It really is insane to imagine the dev teams having to work on PS2 Devkits to make content for a game in 2023? That really is quite the task I imagine! I don't blame many of the devs for wanting to work on more modern projects heh, coding is hard enough without dealing with such arcane technology!

Anyways I hope Fujito can carry Matsui's legacy! I'm sure he can as he's worked on the game for quite the while as well! I'm sure the game is in good hands!

[Rinuko]

To all the doom and gloom individuals, I wouldn't expect the game to shut down any time soon. We will see new stuff added and not just ambuscade rotation.
I can't imagine the game is that expensive for SE to operate given the running cost would be much lower than XIV. They already share engineers and developers between both projects.

Likely not a whole lot will change cause we get a new guy at the helm.

[Allestra]

Thank you Matsui!! ♥

[Teraniku]

Thank you for your hard work Matsui-san. m(. .)m

[Pixela]

I would bet Matsui does not want to leave the project, my guess is inflation (and a recent loss in subs due to certain things we can't mention here) has taken such a bite into the profit margins that he decided to step down to lower costs to keep the game running. In his position that's what I would do.

My original reaction was they should lower the sub fee if we are going to get less content, however since a lack of profits is already leading to this situation we face now. An even lower sub (just to please principle) would make it even less profitable and potentially lead to the game being shut down.

[Immortal]

Yeah, I share a similar opinion. I think its all a smokescreen, the reality is they are cutting back after their hardcore losses and maybe he didn't want to continue under those conditions or they forced him out. Its not surprise considering the massive losses SE has had lately and I can't imagine their assets being stolen to support some fake server has helped at all with their bottom line. They don't have to lower the fee, there are so many ways to profit off this game, its insane they haven't already to continue support. How many people have been asking for paid race changes? Why not take some inspiration from their other MMO and instead of cutting back content and budgets, just implement a dinky cash shop. If it gets the game funding to continue expansions or storylines or real content, I wouldn't mind. Story skips, level cap skips, etc. At the least they could bundle XIV/XI subs and it might incentivize them, they are not making wise choices lately.