Quote Originally Posted by Kaurie
All of that said, I think there is some reasoning behind this. Most notably, we are rather far into the expansion at this time. I think that is the general pattern associated with expansions - where it starts off high and gradually decreases throughout the expansion.
This is exactly why I don't see these numbers as negative. Of course the numbers were much higher after 3.0 launched, and they'll be much higher again once 4.0 launches. That's just the ebb and flow of this game's population that we've seen since 2.0.

Now, if you were to compare trend lines from 2015 vs. 2016 (in line with the cycles of 2.x and 3.x), I'm guessing you'd see there are slightly less players overall right now, and SE definitely needs to address that. But the population is still healthy enough that I'm not at all worried.