FFXIV is too simplistic and bland

[zcrash970]

That's dumb and demonstrably false. 1.0 had the name/brand recognition and full backing from SE yet was a huge flop. What? Wasn't it FF-ing hard enough? Maybe because the aforementioned factors are marketing and the game has to be actually good in order to hold and grow its player base? Funny that.

There are a lot of reasons 1.0 reasons failed and I was there to watch it. A ridiculously high pc hardware minimum for the time, being unfinished on release, bad ui, that list goes on. The game was completely inaccessible for most. Of course it was going to be bad, but let's be fair, people gave it a chance because it's FF. It's what brought me and many others to the game. Most of my original group from FF11 stayed around simply because SE always took care of FF11.

Conversely you have modern xiv. Relatively low system minimums even at release and playable on the ps3 and later the ps4. The game did the biggest 180 on accessibility possible. Even if the game was a heaping trash pile like 1.0, it would have somewhat successful due to it being a mainline FF title.

[Auryan]

There are a lot of reasons 1.0 reasons failed and I was there to watch it. A ridiculously high pc hardware minimum for the time, being unfinished on release, bad ui, that list goes on. The game was completely inaccessible for most. Of course it was going to be bad, but let's be fair, people gave it a chance because it's FF. It's what brought me and many others to the game. Most of my original group from FF11 stayed around simply because SE always took care of FF11.

Conversely you have modern xiv. Relatively low system minimums even at release and playable on the ps3 and later the ps4. The game did the biggest 180 on accessibility possible. Even if the game was a heaping trash pile like 1.0, it would have somewhat successful due to it being a mainline FF title.

You just contradicted your entire original point. First you stated that XIV is only popular and well-liked because of name recognition (conveniently ignoring 1.0 having that too and still flopped) and now you backtrack and say 1.0 failed because...it was bad? And 2.0 was smart enough not to scare away its potential subscribers with antiquated and frustrating systems? That's all true, but one gets the feeling that you're trying to run away from your easily disproved original statement. Attributing XIV success solely due its FF name is reductive and, you know, dumb.