only 500k subscribers?

Someone who keeps up with how the Chinese servers are doing told me that it's even more hostile in there due to the payment system. You know, on account of people wasting others' time for under performing and causing wipes over and over (regardless of just simply being ignorant or bad or selfish i-play-how-i-want attitudes). I reckon the majority of westerns players wouldn't like that kind of high pressure environment. They also had patches with promised dates that were extremely late and some such too.

This is old. March 2014. It is nearly march 2015.

Let's see an updated report about this please lol.

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Originally Posted by Meier

This is old. March 2014. It is nearly march 2015.

Let's see an updated report about this please lol.

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The report was released at the beginning of January of 2015. The report covered FY14 (fiscal year ending 3/31/14). It takes quite some time for an annual report to be released because all of the numbers / reports need to be prepared and then audited. However - as mentioned in my previous post, the 2.5M registered number is used. The 2.5M registered number is a lot more current than 3/31/14. The PS4 version hadn't even released on 3/31/14. The 2.5M number popped up during the TGS. So because 2.5M is a current number - i'm assuming the 500k is also a current number.

Even if it is 500k, for a MMO P2P, that's a good amount. However, since there is no source for this, there's no way to know if it is 500k or not. I feel we have a good 700-800k.

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Originally Posted by MasamuneBranford

The report was released at the beginning of January of 2015. The report covered FY14 (fiscal year ending 3/31/14). It takes quite some time for an annual report to be released because all of the numbers / reports need to be prepared and then audited. However - as mentioned in my previous post, the 2.5M registered number is used. The 2.5M registered number is a lot more current than 3/31/14. The PS4 version hadn't even released on 3/31/14. The 2.5M number popped up during the TGS. So because 2.5M is a current number - i'm assuming the 500k is also a current number.

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That's a very poor way to back that assumption up. The 2.5m number is in no way proof that the 500k is ligit. That logic does not follow and is flawed assumption.

The fact is this. The numbers are 10 months or more out of date. Period. Anything else past that is an assumption. Even the reddit post I listed is just an assumption using a certain methodology, but still an assumption. 10 months is a lot of patches and a lot of time for people to come and go. For today that number listed in the article is irrelevant. It only serves as a historical account of where things were almost a year ago.

500k is still pretty good.

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Originally Posted by Tiggy

That's a very poor way to back that assumption up. The 2.5m number is in no way proof that the 500k is ligit. That logic does not follow and is flawed assumption.

The fact is this. The numbers are 10 months out of date. Period. Anything else past that is an assumption. Even the reddit post I listed is just an assumption using a certain methodology, but still an assumption.

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You clearly don't get how an annual report works. Most companies have calendar tax years 12/31, others have fiscal year tax years of their picking. SE picked 3/31. Once their fiscal year closes - they have to do all of the accounting to determine their assets, liabilities, revenues, expenses, etc. on hand at the end of the FY. Then that information is audited. Then later an annual report is released. What any company wants to accomplish with an annual report is to reassure their investors. An annual report will typically have an opening letter to the investors prior to jumping into the 3/31/14 numbers. The open letter is a current letter that talks about the past (3/31/14), the present (now) and the future (3/31/15). The open letter to the investors mentions the 2.5M registered users and the 500k subscriber number. This opening letter is for a January report. We know for a fact that the 2.5M number is more current than 3/31/14. Why wouldn't the 500k be more current? An opening letter is where a company tries to save face; ie "our FY14 numbers were bad - but we now have 500k subscribers, etc.).

Neither of us can know for certain - but it's laughable that you call my logic flawed. It's more logical to say that 2.5M is a current number so 500k must not be?

500k active subs is far more than claimed 2,000k players from f2p publishers, as long as a single f2p player can (and will) have open multiple free accounts, plus all the zergload of RMT accounts banned for good, but still good for marketing numbers about how many players have a publisher.

Remove multiple and RMT accounts and 2,000k become much less than 1,000k.

Remove all freeloaders that does not pay a single cent, and 1,000k become 50k but I am still optimistic. If really a f2p have monthly 50k paying players, the game does not close in a six months timeframe, as I witness every day.

Basically you're just not realizing that the numbers are in the opening letter dated January 2015 and not in the report that covers FYE 3/31/14.

That's still a pretty good revenue base considering everyone playing has to subscribe. Coming from DCUO, which went F2P less than a year after launch, they would continually tout the number of accounts created (some 18 million) but not get into the numbers concerning 'Legendary' subscribers who paid anywhere from $9.99/mo to $14.99/mo. Is there any potential for something like that here? Vanity mounts and gear would be the way to go I think (though $24.00 for Slepnir is a bit steep). DCUO made their money off of 'Replay Badges' which allows players to run end game content (to gear up as fast as possible) over and over (instead of being locked out) as long as they have the replay badges to do it. And they sell them for a ridiculous price.

I will say I was interested in this game, but didn't commit, until I got bored of DCUO and had the opportunity to play the free trial. I hope their recent recruiting efforts are paying off - this is a really good game (so far).

Better than most MMO's I played. I'm just a little worried because I didn't know about game until I accidentally saw it on a livestream.
If more people knew about game we could boost subscriptions exponentially!!

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Originally Posted by Elusana_Celah

That's because SE can't tell the difference between gil sellers and actual players from China.

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I LOLed xD

500k * $13 (assumed minimum) = $6,500,000 per month square enix is pulling in from subscriptions at least.

Things do not need to have WoW-level subscriptions.

Is there enough players for people to have an MMO experience? Yes.
Is there enough money to pay for all the servers and staff? Yes.
Is there enough profit left over to encourage the company to make further developments? Considering we're still getting pretty frequent updates to the game, yes.

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500k * $13 (assumed minimum) = $6,500,000 per month square enix is pulling in from subscriptions at least.

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That should be enough to cover the overhead, lol.

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Originally Posted by Thayos

That should be enough to cover the overhead, lol.

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Way more than enough :/.

This report is based off of old information taken from March 2014, not even current numbers etc. Just FYI.

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Originally Posted by Elusana_Celah

That's because SE can't tell the difference between gil sellers and actual players from China.

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Because everyone, who play the china version, is a rmt?

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Originally Posted by MasamuneBranford

You clearly don't get how an annual report works.

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No I do perfectly well understand what it means. You clearly don't understand that it means the data is old. They report was for there activities up to and ending with that fiscal year. Meaning it has zero data from even 1 day past that. Making it old data. Almost a year old at that.

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Originally Posted by MasamuneBranford

Basically you're just not realizing that the numbers are in the opening letter dated January 2015 and not in the report that covers FYE 3/31/14.

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I can only assume you mean the line "These MMO figures actually come from an original financial report that was filed on March 31st, 2014. Square Enix tells MCV that the actual number of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn paying subscribers sits at 500,000, with over 2.5m registered users" in which case that still has nothing to do with the previous fiscal report data that you somehow don't think I comprehend. I find it odd to me that the numbers would be released to MCV at all considering they are tightly held secrets for the most part. Considering also they are in the tens of thousands less than the player estimate I'd also have to say that number is clearly rounded down. To be fair I never said the 500k's is the wrong ballpark number having shared the reddit thread myself that shared a similar number. I simply argue that this is a poor source for valid or even updated info especially considering the only hard data available is actually from that fiscal report. Instead of a real article or an announcement from square we get a tiny blurb in an update on an old article. That doesn't sit well with me.

It's hard to manage Chinese players anyway. they have their own language (very hard to learn one), they prefer to use their own forums, they have their own social media. If they do RMT on those Chinese internet communities, SE will have a hard time dealing with them.

so it's a good decision to let Chineses have their own separated server (same for Koreans).

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Originally Posted by Lanceton

worse than I thought if it's true

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So exactly how many more people do you want to join you for the Hunts? How many more potential early pullers would you like?

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Originally Posted by Felis

Because everyone, who play the china version, is a rmt?

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I was merely stereotyping for laughs. It is called "satire". My words were so obviously ridiculous that you would look retarded for failing to see the satire so I implore you to go have another read, smile and laugh at the obvious non-serious humor :)

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Updated: These MMO figures actually come from an original financial report that was filed on March 31st, 2014. Square Enix tells MCV that the actual number of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn paying subscribers sits at 500,000, with over 2.5m registered users.

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Sounds about right, it was never ever going to break 1 million subs at all, certainly not by being another generic and watered down WoW clone/themepark MMO. It's also no wonder the cash shop is being pushed hard since they need to make back that money those other inactive 2 million accounts aren't making.

The question now is if SE will stick to P2P with a cash shop and still try to pull a WoW, since they seem content enough with both XI and DQX having less than 500k subscribers, the first one because it's more than 10 years old and the second one because it's stuck in Japan and could reach over 500k if it was brought over here. The other option is to do what every other single WoW clone, like ARR is, has done and drop its obligatory subscription, then either go B2P with paid content updates and an optional sub, or F2P with a full cash shop and also an optional sub. It all depends on their investors really, despite previous claims of how they don't have to answer to them, because by now their claims really aren't that reliable.

I'm actually very curious to see whether the shape of endgame content is vastly different in the upcoming expansion. The current endgame being based on small parties and heavy lockouts has always seemed like a head-scratcher for a subscription model that would benefit from keeping more people engaged.

Are we starting the "this game is dying" thread? Please lets not start "this game is dying" thread. :o

Teso has like 50% or more more subs, like 700-900k but still considered failure. I recall SWTOR went f2p even with above 1mil subs.

500k is pretty bad for a multi platform big name game but ff14 subs are lucky SE is not going to pull the plug because they want to save face. So as long as the cost is maintainable they will continue with the content. But it may just have a lot of corners cut or recycled like the current content has been.

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Originally Posted by sharazisspecial

Teso has like 50% or more more subs, like 700-900k but still considered failure. I recall ESO went f2p even with above 1mil subs.

500k is pretty bad for a multi platform big name game but ff14 subs are lucky SE is not going to pull the plug because they want to save face. So as long as the cost is maintainable they will continue with the content. But it may just have a lot of corners cut or recycled like the current content has been.

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The difference between Teso and FFXIV, is FFXIV doesn't own any shareholders anything, they pay everything from there own pocket. Teso from my knowledge has shareholders to pay off. Thats why 700k for Teso is bad. 500k Subs and keeping all the money, that is awesome.

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Originally Posted by Starlord

The difference between Teso and FFXIV, is FFXIV doesn't own any shareholders anything, they pay everything from there own pocket. Teso from my knowledge has shareholders to pay off. Thats why 700k for Teso is bad. 500k Subs and keeping all the money, that is awesome.

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LOL thats twice FFXI subs (more then a decade old outdated game). Im sure FF14 cost alot more then ff11 to develop
Awesome is not the word i'd use .Especially since we are getting lackluster/recycled content to make up for it.

Maybe with the boom from the expansion they can make the game more appealing to more subs and maintain them.

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Originally Posted by sharazisspecial

LOL thats twice FFXI subs. Im sure FF14 cost alot more then ff11 to develop
Awesome is not the word i'd use .Especially since we are getting lackluster/recycled content to make up for it.

Maybe with the boom from the expansion they can make the game more appealing to more subs and maintain them.

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Well the term " lackluster" is all based on each person opinion. I am having fun with all the new content.

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Originally Posted by Starlord

Well the term " lackluster" is all based on each person opinion. I am having fun with all the new content.

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Yeah hunts are so fun and grinding for my relic is also fun.

You do know those numbers came from March 2014, in other words 10 months ago...

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Originally Posted by sharazisspecial

Yeah hunts are so fun and grinding for my relic is also fun.

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"In your opinion" sure. and you only speak of 5% of the content.

China has the largest online gaming market. For example, when WoW peaked at 12mil subscribers 7million of those users were from China. The other 5mil divided among North America, South America, Oceanic, EU, EU East, Korea and Taiwan.

There could be 500k users in China.

Edit:

Given how China has strict regulations on online game time, Adults > Students > Children > NEETs. FFXIV is not going to be very popular in China.

I don't know why people care so much about sub numbers.

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Originally Posted by sharazisspecial

500k is pretty bad for a multi platform big name game

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No it isn't.

Depending on how the game is designed your subscription numbers/players do not need to skyrocketing high. MMOs almost 20 years ago with just a few thousand were considered successful and easy to enjoy.

People who are new to the MMO scene within the last 10 years have this idea that big subscription numbers are required for every MMO these days which they aren't depending on how the MMO is designed.

It took about a 2 million player/subscription base to keep just around a dozen or more 40 mans consistent on WoW, during Vanilla. We only require 8 consistent individuals here. 20% of a 2 million player pool is 400k subscriptions.

Keep in mind, WoW was considered successful way before it hit the 10 million mark.

Steam Numbers for Today

Current Peak
4,031 6,603 FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn

http://store.steampowered.com/stats/

It's sad to see that the servers are empty and content has stopped getting released. I just can't take it that I don't play the most popular MMO, what are all the cool kids doing now?

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Originally Posted by KaedrianLiang

China has the largest online gaming market. For example, when WoW peaked at 12mil subscribers 7million of those users were from China. The other 5mil divided among North America, South America, Oceanic, EU, EU East, Korea and Taiwan.

There could be 500k users in China.

Edit:

Given how China has strict regulations on online game time, Adults > Students > Children > NEETs. FFXIV is not going to be very popular in China.

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I know, reddit, but apparently it's doing really bad in China

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...oing_in_china/

Hasn't Yoshida said before that they would make profits with just ~300k subs in FFXIV? This was awhile ago also, so they may be well on their way to getting back the money spent on initial development back, meaning there is even more leeway. SE really doesn't need crazy sub amounts like 1 million to run a P2P MMO, because they are in control of it all, there are no outside forces like shareholders to keep happy, etc. This is one of the biggest differences between other MMOs and why they weren't able to stay P2P, along with it being made by a Japanese dev who has built a fanbase for almost 30 years in both the West and the East, and being not only on PC, but on consoles like the PS3, PS4, and most likely Xbox One soon.

(Also keep in mind the data posted is from almost a year ago, there could be more or less subs these days.)

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Originally Posted by Recaldy

Steam Numbers for Today

Current Peak
4,031 6,603 FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn

http://store.steampowered.com/stats/

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The game isn't only available through steam. I for instance don't have it through steam. Those numbers are wildly inaccurate for usage.

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Originally Posted by Tiggy

The game isn't only available through steam. I for instance don't have it through steam. Those numbers are wildly inaccurate for usage.

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Yep. I imagine there are many people in my situation, where I wanted it on Steam but I had already bought it digitally directly from SE. There are too many factors to use Steam numbers as a way to determine the amount of players anyway(Keeping in mind that in Japan, Steam is nowhere as big as it is in the West, and Japan is where a good amount of FFXIV players are from, along with all of the different ways you can get the game; SE, Amazon, Best Buy, etc).