Oops - I'll fix that up. Thanks for the heads up.
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The thing that interests me more is SE might be the first company to actually pull off going F2P then back to a subscription system, AFAIK this hasn't been attempted before. Most games that go F2P get a huge initial boost to their player base but that quickly disappears as players start hitting walls due to certain content or gear requiring micro transactions, that or the game doesn't continue to develop new content. In most cases i feel the games that go F2P die a slow lingering death if Yoshi P does this right the player base will go back to release levels but actually increase making it very successful.
Most companies don't have the option to do what SE is doing. SE produces and develops way more games than the typical MMO company does, and as a result, SE has a lot more money to throw around. Most of these "failed" games end up going F2P permanently, or they get canned because it makes more sense from a business perspective. What SE is doing is gambling. Nobody knows if 2.0 will revitalize the game to the point of profitability, and profitability is what matters. SE seems confident, but even the most confident gambler will lose big every once in awhile.
The main reason SE has the money to dig themselves out, is because they never spent anything to get into this problem.
As generally suggested by Blizzard and other new MMO companies, i think Rifts team and SWTORs team, said something like 100,000,000~ is needed to go in, just to get in the game.
And last I heard, Tanaka slightly hinted at how little he was given, in order to accomplish what little he did.
(Based on my assumption that he doesn't want to just spread rumors of SE.)
And IDR if I'm imagining the number, or if he hinted/stated it before, But I slightly remember it being closer to only 1-10% of that figure.
how did they make it SO different? seriously? Hume,galka,mithra,taru,elf,chocbos,airships,magically teleporting from anywhere you want, only thing this game is different is they made the exp gain much easier besides that it is a copy.
go back to ffxi plz. you ruin NEW GAMES. if SE wanted to market you niche market, then they could have milked ffxi for another 5 years. get over it.
They should just name 2.0 "Final Fantasy XIV : Pheonix Rising"