Can someone clarify this " less than 1mill subs"

[MrSmiley]

The game has a solid and large user base and active servers with players in every zone. That what I know, and it makes me happy.

[Enkidoh]

The game has a solid and large user base and active servers with players in every zone. That what I know, and it makes me happy.

^ This. This thread is just another one of those gloom and doom threads that have shown up even before launch from certain people who just want this game to fail and keep talking it down no matter what SE does or says.

Basically, "don't listen to Ondore's lies!" The game is doing very well and that's the main thing.

[AzakaTonnerre]

Please read the IGN article you linked to properly, I have already posted on this and ignoring my post makes me sad. All the information in that IGN article is quoted from the report, nothing was said THIS week, it was a quote from a report written in March.!

Why on God's green earth would multiple sources put out articles this week on information from 9 months ago. Answer: they would not. SE released their "2014 annual report" this week as he said. Here is the link to it:

http://www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/ir/library/ar.html


There are dozens of articles in the gaming and business environment covering the release. All you had to do was look it up. One of them even starts with... "On January 1, 2015, Square Enix has released the annual report, which covers financial and corporate details from the past year and then toward 2015 plans."

http://www.gamerheadlines.com/2015/0...l-report-2014/]


Here is another from the business community:

http://www.business2community.com/te...tails-01111664


So yes some of the numbers are from the year ending March 2014. However, the report is from this week and also covers 2014 information (before and after March) and 2015 plans, so no one know when the subscription numbers are from because he doesn't specify, and it doesn't directly reference it in the report. Additionally, Matsuda's quotes were from a letter this week in conjunction with the release of this report (pictured in one of the articles I linked).


to quote you:

I think it's interesting that people will blatantly misinterpret news articles to suit their own purposes. Can you please stop posting inaccurate comments? Thanks!

Ya pretty much this. If you're going to call someone out for something, look it up first so you aren't doing exactly what you are being an ass about. Google isn't just a search engine... it is also your friend.

[WizardShotTheFood]

So, let me see if I understand correctly.

Report released on January 1st includes subscription data from a fiscal year that ended roughly eight months ago, because of Reasons.

Polygon misinterprets the data as being rather more contemporary, then adds correction to article after it gets pointed out.

People are now turning it into an endless ragefest about something that nobody else cares about. (In other words, your typical General Discussion thread.)

That about cover it?

[Synthesis]

This thread turned into .. hm I just returned to a game, paid 1/2year sub and let's see. (I quitted with 2.2 or shortly after)...

[Linadae]

Surprisingly it doesn't take as many subs as one would think to make an mmo profitable. FF11 has been doing it with numbers that most would consider to be in the failure range. Numbers that would cause Investors to scream "Go Free to Play! Put in a Cash Shop!"

Mmo's are a long game. Which is something that investors forget/don't know. They don't generate instant profit like Grand Theft Auto and other console games. That's why SE's and Blizzard's mmo's have stood the test of time while other mmo's turned f2p before fading into obscurity. Game investors keep treating mmos like console games and panic when they don't see the instant profit.

As long as SE stays patient, FF14 is going to last just as long as FF11 and stay pay to play.

[Illya]

No one has any respect for Polygon for very good reasons.

Also you should never believe anything Polygon writes about Xbox either, since they are paid by Microsoft to say good things about Xbox.

[Stumpedify]

Why on God's green earth would multiple sources put out articles this week on information from 9 months ago. Answer: they would not. SE released their "2014 annual report" this week as he said. Here is the link to it:

http://www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/ir/library/ar.htmlThere are dozens of articles in the gaming and business environment covering the release. All you had to do was look it up. One of them even starts with... "On January 1, 2015, Square Enix has released the annual report, which covers financial and corporate details from the past year and then toward 2015 plans."

http://www.gamerheadlines.com/2015/0...l-report-2014/]

I did look it up. And I appreciate the attempt to defend previous posters, but what you're stating is different to what was being discussed, and I have no argument at all with the date SE chose to release the document for us to read. The point I was making was that the quotes from the president were not written this week like the previous poster was trying to tell us they were.

Follow the link to the Square page and the title you see at the top above the download links is:

"Fiscal Year ended March 31 2014."

And as for the second link you posted, look at the comments, where the writer of the article herself agrees that the information is outdated yet argues that it can still be useful to us. Which is why SE has released it now, because it still contains useful information -- it's also required of them to release it. Why SE chose so long to wait before releasing the document we'll never know but I suspect they thought it would be a good idea, or maybe it's just protocol to release it to the public at the end of the calendar year. Probably wasn't a good idea, in hindsight.

That Square chose to release the outdated report so late is the fault, and to paraphrase the writer of that Gamer Headlines blog you linked, Jalane Farrington, who said "It should be considered news when the public can finally read [it]." is the answer to your question. They can only write about it now, because they were only given the information now... but the information they were given is old and when confronted with it, not one of the blog authors are contesting that fact.

Additionally, Matsuda's quotes were from a letter this week in conjunction with the release of this report (pictured in one of the articles I linked).

No they weren't. The quotes were pulled directly from the report, not his end of year letter. Open the doc and read it, they are there. And if further evidence is required, here is that letter that was released in conjunction with the report. It's a different letter to the one in the report. In the report he mentions plans to expand the game into China. In the letter he talks about their strong partners that helped the China version debut. Clearly written at two different points in time. And considering that the China version launched in August last year, then we know for a fact that the message in the report was written prior to August 2014.


Please don't accuse me of not doing my research. This is my last reply, I'm beyond caring who gets the last word. The correct answer was given in the very first response to the thread.

/endthread ... please, just let it stop.

[Toranja]

I like how they just now published numbers for a year that ended in March last year, hence they're really 2013 numbers, typical SE doing things all backwards, if anything it's bad investor reporting though Polygon are equally bad on their own.

You know nothing of accountancy.

[Roris]

You know nothing of accountancy.

Why thank you Mr. Professional Accountant. I do know that fiscal years end on that date, what was weird is that investors out of all people weren't notified until now, but now someone clarified this is just making it available to the public in general so that explains that.