There is actually a dose of truth to this thread, despite the doomsaying and fact the game certainly isn't about to die.

Steam isn't accurate, but 70% is a lot and at least somewhat of a rough indicator of current trends. After all, it's unlikely that 70% of steam users randomly dropped the game while users on other platforms spiked. For those mentioning they still have small log-in queues, that's simply a ddos anti-measure where players are logged into the game in batches, rather than an indicator of the population. On the other hand the massive launch queues, which many predicted would return in 6.1 and never did, are probably gone for good.

I'm not sure why anyone who wants to see this game succeed is treating this like a personal attack. FF14 was handed a goldmine of an opportunity with the collapse of WoW and large rush of new players and failed to grasp it. That's a nasty blow, particularly if it means all the emergency investment SE put into obtaining new servers is going to go to waste. The game is "fine" but the same tired, safe formula we've had for a decade can't cut it forever, but they fully intend to roll it out for another decade.

The same thing is happening as in WoW. Players will parrot "those statistics aren't accurate" as numbers slowly decline, then when a few years down the line the evidence can't be ignored they'll change their tune to "the game is old, MMO's aren't popular, game is fine" as it trundles along a shadow of its former self.

WoW isn't dead either and still somewhat profitable, but it's a living meme at this point. FF14 won't die, but I'd rather not see it reduced to a joke one day.