The answer to the question everyone has been asking.

[Enla]

This is 100% absolute rubbish. Even at 600,000 subs (which is conservative), that's $7.8 Million a month. Almost 100 Million a year.

FFXIV is their cash cow and they should treat it's paying customers better.



They're not as successful because they're constantly making poor management decisions. Greenlighting massive, expensive projects only to cancel them mid project (FF Versus), barely advertising what they do put out, and then setting expectations so high and not meeting them (Tomb Raider anyone?)

Creating new in house engines(read: expensive) instead of using tried and tested engines. Then scrapping the new engine and going to the tried and tested engines they should have been using from the start.

This. Anyone who questions why SE is having money issues needs only look at their handling of FFXV, the FF7 reboot, Kingdom Hearts 3, the Hitman reboot, and even the Tomb Raider reboot as you said to see that they practically bleed money on inconsequential shit. The first Tomb Raider reboot was considered a financial failure when it came out because it /only/ pushed four million copies in it's first few months. A number most other AAA games would kill for, but far below their decided estimates which at the time only games like CoD could hit. Hitman on the other hand was sold as piece meal because they couldn't push out the full game all at once or some other excuse I'd have to dig for. Though if I recall it was a joint matter of funds and wanting to milk the rest of the game as DLC.

This is a pattern with SE. They overly invest in things that ultimately don't matter, sometimes scrap the project halfway through, or even just let the team meander about without any direction until it becomes clear that the money is finally running out. FF7's remake is currently mired in a sea of unease from the various rumors that have been bouncing around about it and it seems to be slowly turning into the same development hell that plagued XV. Only time will tell if they can get themselves out of this hole or if they sink.

[ShinMetsu]

But at least all the Mog Station revenue is going straight back into FFXIV's servers, so that we can have better and more (EU) datacenters.

[Destati]

But at least all the Mog Station revenue is going straight back into FFXIV's servers, so that we can have better and more (EU) datacenters.

[InkstainedGwyn]

But at least all the Mog Station revenue is going straight back into FFXIV's servers, so that we can have better and more (EU) datacenters.

You forgot the /s.

[Floortank]

Considering Eureka is an optional sidequest, it represents 100x more content than was in previous relic chains, and is more involved than Hildibrand.

People want to construe Eureka as a main, centerpiece attraction, because that's how they perceive the relics, but it's NOT, and they're not, central to this game.

Main content = savages, primals, 24 man raids, MSQs. That is where the money and energy goes, because it is main content.

That we get four whole zones and three (possibly four?) entire subsystems designed for a completely optional content is evidence of boom development, not bust development.

[Iscah]

That we get four whole zones and three (possibly four?) entire subsystems designed for a completely optional content is evidence of boom development, not bust development.

Except for the fact that (to my understanding) resources had to be diverted away from central content such as dungeons to work on Eureka instead.

I signed up to the game because I enjoyed playing dungeons. Because I played the free trial and discovered that contrary to my previous understanding of MMOs being about going out into a field area and killing lots of monsters, it was a style of gameplay I actually enjoyed. I also liked that you are automatically grouped with players instead of having to seek out a party.

Now here's the new, exciting gameplay of Eureka... where you go out into a field and kill lots of monsters. And really need to organise a party to do it successfully.

This isn't the game I wanted to play, and yet I "have" to play it for hours on end if I want to obtain something that has previously been acquired via core gameplay. In my case, I'm not so interested in the relic weapon, but the fate of the island of Val has been a hanging question from the MSQ right back in post-ARR.

If nothing else, that sets Eureka apart - no other "optional gameplay with a different play style" has story gated behind it. PVP and the Diadem are 'just there', with no need to pursue them if you're not interested, and no sense of missing out on anything important as a latecomer who can't easily access Diadem missions.

[Kinazu]

Considering Eureka is an optional sidequest, it represents 100x more content than was in previous relic chains, and is more involved than Hildibrand.

People want to construe Eureka as a main, centerpiece attraction, because that's how they perceive the relics, but it's NOT, and they're not, central to this game.

Main content = savages, primals, 24 man raids, MSQs. That is where the money and energy goes, because it is main content.

That we get four whole zones and three (possibly four?) entire subsystems designed for a completely optional content is evidence of boom development, not bust development.

Then why during the whole announcement of Stormblood, during the FanFests and the interviews, Eureka was being sold as a main attraction of Stormblood. If it's as "optional" as you said it should have been, why did they hype it up so much? Why did they sell it as if it's part of the main content in Stormblood?

Sure, it's not a raid nor a dungeon. But the amount of hyping they did and how eager they were for us to try Eureka, it doesn't feel like it was just optional. It feels like it was part of the main content in Stormblood.

Even though the Relic is optional in all expansion, that doesn't mean it's truly "side content". Considering the Relic is meant for the casual group, to slowly obtain a weapon that'll be on-par (or better) than the Savage weapon in due time. We've had Relics in all expansions, I fail to see how a Relic can be optional if we expect it to be there.

I completely agree that the Relic weapon itself is optional, but to consider the Relic quests side content, I wouldn't say so, especially after all the hyping up they did, it's surely one of the main courses of Stormblood.

[Riardon]

XIV is limited not only by a fixed relatively conservative budget but by its own technical weaknesses (poor engine) and SE's own internal culture.
Whenever the team tries to do something more they always bump onto some of these walls.
I still think that the upper SE management don't really realize that XIV can grow even further and they still treat it like a small game that just survived the meteor apocalypse of 1.0.
XIV needs more effort and money to avert some of these limiting factor.
Its graphics engine is one of them. Yoshi mentioned that in a recent interview.
In order to make more "new" and more exciting things the graphics engine needs to be revised and updated to allow more gameplay features and systems.
It also doesn't help that the game still supports 32bit archaic system and is limited by 2GB of RAM. (still no TP numbers, small amount of visible maximum objects/PC/NPC etc)
The game can be better if SE takes it more seriously and start investing on it more instead of funding crapware or purring money on Nomura's ad infinitum development projects.

[Crysten]

snip

I'd only disagree in the sense that XIV is not the only cash cow here - Brave Exvius on mobile churns out more money than XIV does.

That said, completely agreed here - if SE stopped giving unrealistic expectations and budgets to their western titles and stopped giving hacks like Tetsuya Nomura projects to manage nstead of just letting him draw pretty pictures, the company might be in a better position.

You cannot sustain a business model when your big projects (FFXV, KH3, FFVII remake) are taking nigh decades to develop!

Their project management is abysmal at best and it's hurting them immensely.

[Dragoon4life]

One word. Eureka. They pooled so many resources/time/energy into side content or relic if your picky. And it has been so negatively Received it’s considered to be a massive failure on their part for the game as a whole. Every raid is trying to live up to Bahamut but never will. Eureka was make or break, and man did it break. Pagos left a really bad taste in a large number of ppl. Eureka could have been amazing but when Devs punish players and refuse to fix bad content this is what happens.