Congratulations Square Enix! FF4 surpasses WoW this year. (Source inside)

[linayar]

The issue here is that after 5.4 LB census was at ~900k. If we want to consider that number legitimate; that would mean a majority of MMO-P's active playerbase is outside of LB's wide criteria meaning they are mostly F2P, sub-60s, or level 70 boosts with no activity on them.

You would be very very very hardpressed to make the claim that about 1.5 million people fit either of those three criteria since all three would be considered the lesser end of the spectrum; especially since LB estimated around 100,000 new player created which would be a decrease.

So either:
1) There was some random huge surge of players in 5.5 that wouldnt match any projection of data possible going into a 6-month major patch drought
2) MMO-P numbers are complete BS.

My point is that the "no activity" part should be the relevant factor here, not the free-to-play/sub60 part.