Steam, LB and Quarterly Estimate Chart

Just for you all, I made a chart of FFXIV's growth and/or decline between 2014-2025.
https://i.imgur.com/FSccjx6.png

Data Used:

• Steam (peak players logged in per month): https://steamdb.info/app/39210/charts/#max
• Lucky Bancho (active non-trial characters over 2-4 month intervals): https://luckybancho.ldblog.jp/archives/cat_1313670.html
• SE (recurring monthly income divided by the sub fee): https://www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/i...financial.html
• Achievements Enabled (invested players with big sunk cost and their behaviour, by Lucky Bancho): https://livedoor.blogimg.jp/luckyban...8/48021bfd.png

For the Quarterly Estimate, I extracted the Ordinary Income for the 3-month period (subtracting any prior months), subtracted estimate of DQX and FF11 (same every time due to lack of data), divided it by 3 and divided it by the monthly fee in Yen. It's not going to be exact because SE doesn't release subscription numbers, but it's the best I can do with my limited understanding of their finances.

I overlapped Steam by putting it on the opposite side for a clearer comparison, otherwise it would appear tiny in comparison to Lucky Bancho.

Old versions:

November 2024 - https://i.imgur.com/EpmHZFK.png
October 2024 - https://i.imgur.com/wzJlfuN.png

Might wanna explain what the data is actually made up of and trying to show.

Are they purchases made of the game?
Are they active players?
What criteria is being used to exclude and mitigate bad data? (E.g. bots)

Just because all I can see from it is consistent growth up until dawntrail breaks the pattern unless I'm misunderstanding something?

The first piece is the peak number of people who actively had the game open via Steam each month over 10 years (this is blue).

The second piece of data is Lucky Bancho's active characters stats, released every few months (this is red). It notices when there is a change on their lodestone profile such as mounts, minions, exp, gear, world. Of course, they do all sorts of work to account for bots and exclude free trials.

These are well known pieces of data, completely unchanged.

The third piece of data is from Square Enix's quarterly reports, which I explained in a lot of detail. It's not sales, but rather recurring income, which should mean things like subscriptions, but I'm not really an expert on their finances. It's divided by the subscription fee in Yen to estimate subscription numbers, but won't ever be exact unless SE releases subscription numbers. It just shows us where the spikes are (ie. people resubscribing).

There is consistent growth as you said. There was a peak at the end of 2021 due to the game going viral on twitch, so it's not entirely fair to count that, but Dawntrail has actually come very close to it and SE said there were more concurrent users in Dawntrail than any prior expansion. After coming close to the 2021 peak, there is a subsequent massive drop according to the Steam data, but it remains to be seen if it will recover when 7.1 or 7.2 releases (it probably will).

But my aim is to show the comparison to everyone here without bias. If the game is "dying" as some people on these forums like to suggest, and the data reflects it, then I won't dispute it. It's just there for all to see and interpret however they want.

Square Enix is very proud of you.
Good boy.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

The first piece is the peak number of people who actively had the game open via Steam each month over 10 years (this is blue).

The second piece of data is Lucky Bancho's active characters stats, released every few months (this is red). It notices when there is a change on their lodestone profile such as mounts, minions, exp, gear, world. Of course, they do all sorts of work to account for bots and exclude free trials.

These are well known pieces of data, completely unchanged.

The third piece of data is from Square Enix's quarterly reports, which I explained in a lot of detail. It's not sales, but rather recurring income, which should mean things like subscriptions, but I'm not really an expert on their finances. It's divided by the subscription fee in Yen to estimate subscription numbers, but won't ever be exact unless SE releases subscription numbers. It just shows us where the spikes are (ie. people resubscribing).

There is consistent growth as you said. There was a peak at the end of 2021 due to the game going viral on twitch, so it's not entirely fair to count that, but Dawntrail has actually come very close to it and SE said there were more concurrent users in Dawntrail than any prior expansion. After coming close to the 2021 peak, there is a subsequent massive drop according to the Steam data, but it remains to be seen if it will recover when 7.1 or 7.2 releases (it probably will).

But my aim is to show the comparison to everyone here without bias. If the game is "dying" as some people on these forums like to suggest, and the data reflects it, then I won't dispute it. It's just there for all to see and interpret however they want.

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My expectation is that player subs will temporarily increase once 7.1 releases, but it'll quickly drop to even lower points than it is now, once people realize its going to be another 4.5 months before we get any real content + the content releasing in 7.1 does not seem to have great replayability value + the fact people are already struggling to find things to do.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

The first piece is the peak number of people who actively had the game open via Steam each month over 10 years (this is blue).

The second piece of data is Lucky Bancho's active characters stats, released every few months (this is red). It notices when there is a change on their lodestone profile such as mounts, minions, exp, gear, world. Of course, they do all sorts of work to account for bots and exclude free trials.

These are well known pieces of data, completely unchanged.

The third piece of data is from Square Enix's quarterly reports, which I explained in a lot of detail. It's not sales, but rather recurring income, which should mean things like subscriptions, but I'm not really an expert on their finances. It's divided by the subscription fee in Yen to estimate subscription numbers, but won't ever be exact unless SE releases subscription numbers. It just shows us where the spikes are (ie. people resubscribing).

There is consistent growth as you said. There was a peak at the end of 2021 due to the game going viral on twitch, so it's not entirely fair to count that, but Dawntrail has actually come very close to it and SE said there were more concurrent users in Dawntrail than any prior expansion. After coming close to the 2021 peak, there is a subsequent massive drop according to the Steam data, but it remains to be seen if it will recover when 7.1 or 7.2 releases (it probably will).

But my aim is to show the comparison to everyone here without bias. If the game is "dying" as some people on these forums like to suggest, and the data reflects it, then I won't dispute it. It's just there for all to see and interpret however they want.

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We also have financials that shows that the EW period made more money than any other expansion, much to this dismay and disbelief of most here. Data isn't really useful on these forums. Most people have made a hobby out of lying in wait for something to complain about, and have been doing so for years. Says more about them than the game.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Some random stuff.

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dude..you have a problem.....

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Originally Posted by keichirou

dude..you have a problem.....

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Not really? I just made this for the community.

I made it in part because I was curious to see a chart that visually measures multiple stats and also to objectively inform the discussions here instead of people throwing unsubstantiated "the game is dying" claims. If it is it will probably get reflected in the chart.

The data is effectively as I predicted.

A whole whirlwind of circumstances around EW's launch along with it being the huge ending to the 10 year saga gave it such a huge hype that DT just wasn't going to be able to match, but DT still had a respective showing at about 85% the player rate as EW's launch. 7.1 vs 6.1's numbers will be the interesting comparison though.

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Originally Posted by undull1

Might wanna explain what the data is actually made up of and trying to show.

Are they purchases made of the game?
Are they active players?
What criteria is being used to exclude and mitigate bad data? (E.g. bots)

Just because all I can see from it is consistent growth up until dawntrail breaks the pattern unless I'm misunderstanding something?

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Bancho's data filters out:
-all free trial players (Anyone who's max level is no higher than 70 on any job, (which also technically filters out "new" players at the same time, but they'll be a minority on this front) Coincidentally, this also filters out the vast majority of RMT bots since they simply use the base game since level 50 is all they need due to ARR dungeons dropping gil, though some more sophisticated higher level bots may get included into this figure, they'll also be a very small minority.
-Any character who's attributes haven't changed since the last census (so no job changing, no gear upgrades, nothing that would change anything in about a 4 month period, so the only characters grabbed are actually 'active' in some way)

There may be a small minority of the characters who are high-leveled raid bots or RP characters or just plain alts, but the majority of the characters the Census tracks with the criteria are actually active players.

And yes, the game has had continued active growth until EW, though that growth was unsustainable given the whirlwind of things going for it, so a dip in DT was expected.

TLDR, game took a minor hit, but its far from dead. Still completely shatter SHB's numbers which were considered successful by Square-Enix. DT is still continuing the trend of being a cash cow for SE.

Even if you have 100000000000000000000000000 people logged in, those aren't "players" because queues at level 100 are still in between 10-15 minutes on Crystal as DPS/Healer w.e

Basically, this game isn't even used as a MMORPG anymore and you know exactly why.

https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/c...mage-asset.gif

I updated this to include the latest Lucky Bancho, Steam and Quarterly numbers. I also added rough data from Lucky Bancho's latest Achievement Hunter chart, which might give a sense of the behaviour of players with a lot of sunk cost specifically.

i think a bar graph would had been better. not to be that person but to me this looks like a child scribbled on this

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Originally Posted by Axxion

i think a bar graph would had been better. not to be that person but to me this looks like a child scribbled on this

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I don't think a comparative bar graph works as well for that many data points.

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Originally Posted by ZephyrMenodora

I don't think a comparative bar graph works as well for that many data points.

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ill give you that,

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Originally Posted by Axxion

ill give you that,

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I will give you that it is hard to read too though. Maybe too much data for one image that makes the messaging harder to understand. Especially the SE line that goes from high to zero and spikes heavily.

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Originally Posted by ZephyrMenodora

I will give you that it is hard to read too though. Maybe too much data for one image that makes the messaging harder to understand. Especially the SE line that goes from high to zero and spikes heavily.

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yeah like for me, i need something a bit more organize? if that the word im looking for? like for instance the sub one for instance its going all over the place

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Originally Posted by Axxion

yeah like for me, i need something a bit more organize? if that the word im looking for? like for instance the sub one for instance its going all over the place

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Yes and I doubt the monthly income is ever actually $0. So it seems like an iffy data point? It also isn't showing a general trend since it's really all over the place how it is plotted. I think if it was removed, the other 3 lines show more alignment than that random one.

From what I see about the data - there was an upward trend up until Endwalker, where we peaked, and now we are in decline.

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Originally Posted by ZephyrMenodora

Yes and I doubt the monthly income is ever actually $0. So it seems like an iffy data point? It also isn't showing a general trend since it's really all over the place how it is plotted. I think if it was removed, the other 3 lines show more alignment than that random one.

From what I see about the data - there was an upward trend up until Endwalker, where we peaked, and now we are in decline.

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i think that is it. like get rid of that one it more understandable ( well for me anyways)

Yeah, from what i can recall alot of people was hyped for endwalker because it concluded an arc. And if i remember from what people has mentioned that endwalker for some was there ending with 14. With dw it was new arc but its not really catching people attention that much

Mao curious. Mao sees lots people arguing abouts if game dying or not and Mao wonderings why. For Mao wondering abouts whether game dying or nots is nots interesting. Mao quit game because game no longer funs for Mao. Does nots mean game nots funs for others. Game just changed into something Mao no longer likes.

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Originally Posted by Eraden

Mao curious. Mao sees lots people arguing abouts if game dying or not and Mao wonderings why. For Mao wondering abouts whether game dying or nots is nots interesting. Mao quit game because game no longer funs for Mao. Does nots mean game nots funs for others. Game just changed into something Mao no longer likes.

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I don't think the game is on it's deathbed, but a downward trajectory is not something those who care about the game want to see. The question is then "why is this happening" and there are many reasons.

I absolutely care about players like you who loved the game but it is now something you don't like anymore. It's sad to see.

i think the problem is and i only speak for myself. I feel like it just stale for right now. Its okay but its just meh. when the new stuff come out yes it will peak people interest but not hold them.

I have not played since mid July and even then, I took a 1 week break after arriving in the final zone because I was so taken aback by what the story did there.

I really have not been happy with the direction and story of the game since Shadowbringers. EW was not horrible but the patches after were no fun.

I muddled through DT and … I … nope…

I really want to play but when I login, I look around, see nobody in my large FC online (many for months), ask myself why am I here and sign out.

That's good.

I wish I still felt the need to log in. I'm jealous of players that are content with the game. I used to be one. I remember what it felt like.

It was really fun.

Was.

Thanks for posting data from multiple sources wish more people learn to do the same.

Not to be the guy putting hot sauce in the curried goat, but...

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

• Steam (peak players logged in per month)
• Lucky Bancho (active non-trial characters over 2-4 month intervals)
• SE (recurring monthly income divided by the sub fee)
• Achievements Enabled (invested players with big sunk cost and their behaviour, by Lucky Bancho)

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...after having conversations like this numerous times on the WoW forum over their census data and whether or not the game was dying, I can't take stuff like this seriously.

Steam might be the most accurate to people actually playing since unlike a lot of games on it you don't need separate Steam accounts to access multiple XIV characters/accounts, but of course that's only an unknowable portion of the playerbase.
Without an ability to read Japanese or get an accurate translation of the page, it's impossible for me to know what 'active' means in this context--on for the majority of time, or logged on a single time? Additionally, does not account for players with multiple characters, players with multiple accounts, etc--a common pitfall of attempting to gauge WoW's popularity purely off of census data.
And the 'Achievements Enabled' link, I can't read, so I have no opinion on it. Too low quality, and in a language I can't understand (that is too low quality to translate).

That just leaves the SE stat, which... seems to vary uncomfortably wildly. I'd love to know the exact numbers you used for calculating this.

The game isn't dying, but it definitely isn't healthy either...

Majority of the players dislike the story of DT, which is one of the main selling points of FFXIV. And gameplay for the most part is just getting worse, and SE barely does anything about it.
Aside from AST getting it's obligatory rework for the expansion and SGE's release in EW... WHM and SCH haven't been touched by the devs since the launch of ShB.

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Originally Posted by NegativeS

Steam might be the most accurate to people actually playing since unlike a lot of games on it you don't need separate Steam accounts to access multiple XIV characters/accounts, but of course that's only an unknowable portion of the playerbase.

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Right, but the most important part is the spikes - and actually, the Steam and Lucky Bancho spikes tend to roughly align pretty well. Steam's spikes tend to run out quicker, due to more frequent data and the fact people login for a patch then stop playing, whereas Lucky Bancho's stats cover multiple months so appear to stretch longer. I just wanted something that showed it all together, instead of trying to imagine them together.

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Without an ability to read Japanese or get an accurate translation of the page, it's impossible for me to know what 'active' means in this context--on for the majority of time, or logged on a single time?

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Lucky Bancho's stats are not "logged in time". They are merely a measure of if the lodestone profile changed at some point in the last 2-4 months. The criteria changed over time, but this is what it currently is:

• Maximum level is 70 or higher (excluding exactly 70) OR Job is a job that cannot be unlocked in the free trial OR Belongs to an FC *
• HP, level, and experience points have changed since the last survey (8/27).
• The number of minions and mounts held has changed since the last survey.
• New characters not present in the previous survey
• Characters who have public profiles, minions, and mounts on the Lodestone
• Own at least one mount
• Characters using jumping potions in their jobs at the time of data acquisition (main weapons at the time of data acquisition with IL390 and max level 70, IL530 and max level 80, IL660 and max level 90) are excluded.

It's worth noting that Lucky Bancho takes these stats before patches in many cases. So it is trying to catch the lowest amount of people right before patch date, not the actual spike after the patch. So post-patch data is a bit staggered.

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Additionally, does not account for players with multiple characters, players with multiple accounts, etc

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True, and that is why I'm combining multiple data sources. However, this subject has been discussed. Lucky Bancho compared the data to leaked subscriber numbers and found about 15-20% of it was alts, but this was before DC travel which reduces the need for them.

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the 'Achievements Enabled' link, I can't read, so I have no opinion on it. Too low quality, and in a language I can't understand (that is too low quality to translate).

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I recall that blue is new achievement hunters, red is continuing achievement hunters, green is people who recorded their last achievement at that point (ie. they may have quit or taken a break).

It was hard to get exact numbers so I had to do it by pixel (which was hard work), but I was able to reflect it. Achievement hunters are overall a small amount of overall active players, as it shows, so it's hard to see the spikes, but I wanted to convey how it's a small amount of players (the alternative method hid the Steam spikes). It appears that achievement hunters stick around more than everyone else though (obviously) since they are busy getting achievements while everyone else takes a break. But if there was a massive drop off among achievement hunters, it would be an interesting data point.

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That just leaves the SE stat, which... seems to vary uncomfortably wildly. I'd love to know the exact numbers you used for calculating this.

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I went to the corporate website (linked) and read their quarterly reports dating back to 2014. I extracted the Ordinary Income (aka Recurring Income). Obviously, this may contain things other than FF14, such as DQ and FF11, but I have limited data for those. Nevertheless, I tried to subtract the fees I could from it.

Each quarterly report adds onto the last, therefore I had to subtract the previous number to get the one for that quarter only. Then I divided it by 3 months (to get the figure for 1 month). Then I divided it by the average subscription fee across countries. The result of this was some of the figures were extremely low, likely due to how they calculate their quarterly reports, 3-month and 6-month subs and patch lulls, etc.

Despite all this manipulation - accounting for other sub fees and dividing it down to account for only 1 month, the spikes were still way higher than even Lucky Bancho's estimate, which could make sense on the basis that people probably subscribe without actually playing.

I'm sure I could do this better in various ways, perhaps by finding specific months where their only sales were FFXIV, but it's a difficult thing to do without knowing exact numbers. Regardless, you can clearly see yellow spikes at major Blue/Red spikes where they made lots of money from an expansion or patch release.

So correct me if I am wrong, but you are basically saying that, aside from the 2021 WoW exodus, the game is pretty much the healthier it has ever been?
Which is just further indication that they have more people to please and should put more effort into it :)
And also an indication that there are more people likely to be unhappy and quit, as the vocal minority is growing with the amount of customers.

This Data shows engament with the product for specific platforms and time frames. Not if the game declines or not. You know data and analytics - why do you still post this WITH THAT HEADLINE?
Ufff, you lost some respect here. Way too many qustions are open to use this for anything then "how many accounts logged" not even people or paying customer and so forth.
Also "dying" for an MMO is slow and not fast. Its a slow decay and it begins with the money aka players that pay and the increase of free to play players and bots.
Nothing of the sort can be proven or disproven with the data presented. Also the data is not "clean".
I dislike those "doomsayers" as much as you do but this is not a good way to talk about the topic or with those people.

My opinion:
Is FF14 dying ? No, but it is in a downward trend.
Can you prove that ? No, i can only say in my "bubble" Dt was disliked to the point of un-subbing.
But that is not proving anything! Correct, its an opinion and valid as any others.

Just a random thought: The game is not you and so the sucess or failure of it does not make you less or more of a person. The most fun is with others - take them and play other games with them.

Likely continue to dip until mid way through expansion cycle like around 7.3 or so. By then more "reliable" content will retain most active players, steady climb until the pre expansion lull hits with another dip. With the announcement of mobile version, seems SE is going a different route than what other companies would with player retention, theyre instead broading the playerbase with a wide net, would not be surprised if we do actually see a nintendo version in future.

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Originally Posted by Banriikku

This Data shows engament with the product for specific platforms and time frames. Not if the game declines or not.

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While it is true it is "just for specific time frames" (ie. a data point taken in isolation could just be people taking a break), the point of the graph is to show the long-term trends and whether, over the long term, it increases or declines. In other words, it DOES show if the game declines or not.

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Also "dying" for an MMO is slow and not fast.

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True, which is why this chart shows the long-term trends for the last 10 years... to see if it has "slowly" declined or "slowly" grown.

Often, people will point to a data source and say it is flawed for one reason or another. But if you have multiple sources of data, measuring in different ways, all showing similar trendlines, it reinforces the credibility of the trendlines. Trendlines like this are reflected on various popular FFXIV websites and discord servers, where the activity obviously spikes after major patches.

You missunderstood me. I mean the data can not show what you said it would not because of the source (it is still problematic in a sense) but because the data do not provide the proof for "decline or no decline" of the game. This data can not tell us this. With this data you can answer : engagement for point in time or timeframe, accounts logged in for platforms, comparability for engagement on platform and overtime,

But the question is "decline or not" and this cant be told with the data you posted. Thats it.
We would need : cost per month, income per month/quarter, accounts total/payed and then how often payed aka recurring or not, budget, and so forth.
We would need to know how much paying customer and how many free to play customer are needed to maintian this game AND then we could start with "decline or not". We do not even have a baseline nor can we do a serious estimate. Based on earnings SE is on a loosing trend but has still a lot of cash/cashflow to maintain business for a couple of years. But even with the earnings report we cant talk about FF14 isolated.

But regarding the topic is "FF14 dying" this does not mean "money" because even the trash of tash makes money (remember money does not equal good - cocain anyone?) but is the game down the drain aka shit (quality).
FF14 has a lot of bad spots now that needs fixing but this game will make money even if they go full kupo-nuts on the mogstation and pay to win garbage. In that time it will earn money, sure less and less but it will do until shout down.

To make it short, the assumption was faulty, the premise was wrong and the data provided are the answer to a topic almost unrelated to the question itself. As i said the game is far from actual dying but in good spot or okay ? I dont think so.

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Originally Posted by Banriikku

You missunderstood me. I mean the data can not show what you said it would not because of the source (it is still problematic in a sense) but because the data do not provide the proof for "decline or no decline" of the game. This data can not tell us this. With this data you can answer : engagement for point in time or timeframe, accounts logged in for platforms, comparability for engagement on platform and overtime,

But the question is "decline or not" and this cant be told with the data you posted. Thats it.
We would need : cost per month, income per month/quarter, accounts total/payed and then how often payed aka recurring or not, budget, and so forth.
We would need to know how much paying customer and how many free to play customer are needed to maintian this game AND then we could start with "decline or not". We do not even have a baseline nor can we do a serious estimate. Based on earnings SE is on a loosing trend but has still a lot of cash/cashflow to maintain business for a couple of years. But even with the earnings report we cant talk about FF14 isolated.

But regarding the topic is "FF14 dying" this does not mean "money" because even the trash of tash makes money (remember money does not equal good - cocain anyone?) but is the game down the drain aka shit (quality).
FF14 has a lot of bad spots now that needs fixing but this game will make money even if they go full kupo-nuts on the mogstation and pay to win garbage. In that time it will earn money, sure less and less but it will do until shout down.

To make it short, the assumption was faulty, the premise was wrong and the data provided are the answer to a topic almost unrelated to the question itself. As i said the game is far from actual dying but in good spot or okay ? I dont think so.

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going to you last point. I think a lot of people are saying the same thing that the quality of the game is not the best right now. I mean you can log in and see people walking around and it not a ghost town

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Just for you all, I made a chart of FFXIV's growth and/or decline between 2014-2024.
https://i.imgur.com/EpmHZFK.png

Data Used:

• Steam (peak players logged in per month): https://steamdb.info/app/39210/charts/#max
• Lucky Bancho (active non-trial characters over 2-4 month intervals): https://luckybancho.ldblog.jp/archives/cat_1313670.html
• SE (recurring monthly income divided by the sub fee): https://www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/i...financial.html
• Achievements Enabled (invested players with big sunk cost and their behaviour, by Lucky Bancho): https://livedoor.blogimg.jp/luckyban...e68406d8-s.png

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- Yellow graph is hard to read so I'll ignore it.

- The other three data sources show a trend of growth until early 2022, after which the game began its first decline. Summer 2024 shows another peak, but on all 3 colors that peak never reaches as high as it was in 2022. Both peaks are also followed by the biggest falloffs in the game's history, when it comes to login numbers (blue).

- Current player activity level seems to be around the same as in autumn 2023.

- In the Lucky Bancho data the number of active characters (red) seems to correlate with the number of invested players (green) even if the number of invested players remains more steady. The more active characters there are, the more invested players there are, and the same applies inversely.

- However, the amount of Steam logins (blue) has seen relative growth compared to Lucky Bancho data since around 2018. It seems that nowadays more people login to the game without making any changes to their character or progression. At first I thought it might be people logging in just to keep their house, but auto demolition was implemented in 2015. Perhaps things like role playing and new game plus have increased the amount of people who log in but do not partake in game content in a way that would be tracked as activity/changes in the Lodestone (Lucky Bancho data source).

- It is hard to make future predictions because the data shows that previous post-launch declines have turned into growth (2020) or kept declining (2022-2023).

I've updated this. I put off updating it for a long time because I wanted to make it better, particularly the yellow (financial report) graph, or find some other data point. But my efforts didn't work and I wanted to update this to reflect the general population trend.

https://i.imgur.com/FSccjx6.png