Development Team Downsizing and Justification Makes no Sense

[Alhanelem]

Where is the evidence?

The evidence is in player activity prior to the game's release, along with the server merges and other signs that the game's popularity was decreasing, again prior to FFXIV ARR.

You don't have server merges when your game is super successful and copies are flying off the shelves. FFXIV 1.0 came out in 2010 was a massive flop, which should have been good for FFXI, but it didn't do much. By the time ARR came out in september 2010 and bombed hardcore. And yet not long after this, FFXI had server merges, despite that it would be quite some time before FFXIV's much more successful relaunch would happen in 2013. This means the game's population was already declining, there's no way that would happen within 4 months because of the launch of a critically panned game.