Unofficial Census 2016 for FFXIV

[Vantol]

Has SE ever actually said how many active paying subs there are or do they only boost about the 5 million registered accounts?

They said once "2.7 million players", but it was proven to be a complete lie with actual number 600k~800k (by that time). And after that SE stopped giving any numbers.

[Yurimi]

Has SE ever actually said how many active paying subs there are or do they only boost about the 5 million registered accounts?

They have never released sub numbers even to us investors. Only registered accounts and even that we are unable to determine if its actually accounts registered or characters created as they like to dance around with their wording.

[Kosmos992k]

No retraction will be issued.

That's your privillege, I found it to be a fairly rude and insulting characterization of a long established poster on this forum. Your inability to muster a retraction speaks volumes.

[Keramory]

Sorry but even assuming players could hide their data on lodestone, you honestly think enough are (or even use/care about the bloody thing) blocking their characters to make a difference? I find it highly ... Highly unlikely.

[Enkidoh]

stuff

Firstly, I know I said I was bowing out of this thread, but I just want to make it clear that I am sorry if it seemed I was personally attacking anyone here on this forum (which was not my intent - I try to post on this forum by the simple ideal of 'attack the arguement, not the poster', but sometimes sadly that goes astray), my point was to question the validity of a player-created poll that was evidently only based on data from the Lodestone. My comment about being possibly hacking of course is now clearly not true so I am sorry for that insinuation and redact that (I completely forgot SE themselves allow direct linking of Lodestone data to be displayed on third party sites). However, my point still stands that this poll is not necessarily unbiased given the fact it is unofficial - as demonstrated by the comments of several posters on this forum there is clearly an ugly undercurrent at work that 'reads' certain numbers to grind an axe about the success of this game or not.

Of course it could then be argued that SE's own official censi are not necessarily unbiased either, as they too have an agenda to promote the game in a more positive light, but as the official census is taken directly from raw server data rather than player profiles on the Lodestone, it's clear where the accuracy would be.

As I mentioned before, each player of this game is different and has different goals in this game. One person might be obsessed with endgame and speedruns everything to get world-first clears with their FC. Another person might just like minion collecting. Another person might only be interested in farming or crafting items and has not really proceeded that far in the actual storyline. Another person might just be interested in glamour and finding the perfect outfit for their character. Each of these player archetypes and countless more are equally important to SE and equally important as statistics.

But the arguement being made by several people in this thread that is apparently derived from the numbers of this poll, suggests that is not the case, that it's all 'endgame or GTFO'. Hell, one person all but shouted that, that unless you're doing endgame you're not important to SE. I'm sorry, but how could I not be infuriated at this comment? (I know a cooler head should have prevailed here and that I should have just turned the other cheek, but I have a head cold at the moment and I'm finding myself more irritable than I usually am).

Anyway, again I am sorry for coming across as somewhat harsh in my earlier comments, but my point still stands. This game is not failing, despite whatever numbers players pull out of thin air to refute SE's numbers. It seems that some people here just want to see this game fail for whatever reason. Which saddens me gladly.

P.S. Thank you Kosmos for taking my side and standing up for me. My faith in this forum community is restored.

[Tolmos]

It's amazing what people view as successful games vs dead games these days. There has to be literal millions of people for players to think the game is thriving, despite the fact that your average MMO server will barely house 15,000-25,000 at a time TOPS. Thats literally all you need for your server to feel like it's exploding with people.

And if it's money concerns, I can't see that being a big issue either. 500,000 players paying 15 a month (minimum of $11 and maximum in the $20s with retainers) just for subs comes out to an average of ~$7,500,000 of sub money a month. That's not even counting people buying stuff off the Mogstation.

For real folks; even if these numbers are accurate, FFXIV is leaps and bounds above most of its competition out there. There may be probably 4 or 5 MMOs ahead of it in terms of numbers and income, on a bad day.

The game ain't dying. Let it go, like Elsa, and log in to have some fun!

[MilesSaintboroguh]

It seems like a lot of people tunnel vision the end game and use that to determine how active the player base is. Everyone plays the game for different reasons and if they never want to bother with Heavensward, that's their own choice.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Every single one of these surveys has shown a surprisingly low number of people who've actually finished the most recently storyline missions. That's not a good indicator at all of active players (which, like you, I honestly find surprising).

EDIT: This survey puts the active playerbase right around 500k, which sounds about right given how late we are in 3.x's cycle. Seems down slightly from where we were before HW, but not by much.

You also have to consider multiple factors on why we've seen a drop. Last consensus came during a dry spell for big time releases, whereas right now No Man's Sky just came out, BDO is still fairly new despite all its issues, FFXV was supposed to come out next month. There are plenty of games to lure people away from FFXIV, which is at the end of its current patch cycle. The other is, undoubtedly, remnants of Gordias still rearing its ugly head. That fight did a lot of damage to the community, and we won't see a quick bounce back from it. Housing also likely drove away some if they didn't get one in the 3.3 mad dash. So it's hardly a doom and gloom scenario, but the developers need to step up their game.

I've followed each of these though, and this certainly isn't a new thing.

[Yurimi]

I don't really care how people choose to spend time in this game, I do care as far as the game health and playerbase go hence why I only look at the active and pretty much ignore the rest. I felt the need to point out how this data is gathered and why it is a fairly accurate representation of the current playerbase as far as active characters go.

I do NOT believe this game is dying, 500k is far and above the numbers I was playing with during 1.0 and about the same I would guess as FFXI during its peak and that game is still running as a sub model and is a little over than 14 years old at this point. While not a blockbuster hit I will say its fairly well off when taken into view of the overly saturated marketed that is MMO's.

[Ametrine]

When I asked about the data, I was asking more on how it was gathered, which was answered later in the thread.

The lack of housing is frustrating on good days, even a "dead" server like mine (lamia) has no plots open. My FC has all of us nashing our teeth at how we are just sitting on the gil and furniture, checking every day for something to free up so we can finally garden and use a stable.

Even with that, most of my FC isn't at 3.3 MSQ either. My Nidhogg rage was raged alone since no one else could join me, so I agree it's a lopsided way to look at data.

And I recall in the 2.0 days that even barely100k players was enough to keep the game afloat. I'm really not concerned.