We lost 70% of our player base half a year in

[Shougun]

"We surveyed 300 people out of a population of 10 million

Every time I see these polls that say "85% of the population agree" i just sit and laugh myself hoarse..see. NOT ONCE in 50 years have I or anyone I know ever been polled...soo..they dont speak for me as I was never asked.

There are lies.

Damned lies.

And statistics.

You do not need that many people to have VERY accurate statistics.



The biggest issue is having biased samples, biased questions (leading to biased results), and of course either really cleverly worded or lying statistics (like you can tie unrelated things together and make them appear strongly related, those fun stories about how you drink coffee and so you're a psycho or whatever lol).

A fun one that isn't lying is good stuff like you could have a 5,000% increase but if you're going from .005 to .25.. It could still be relatively meaningless to people (particularly if you were using smaller % like "50" or "100" lol, then combined with purposeful wording like 50% larger, but forgot to mention there is 30% more air and the tube was already tiny and the box is huge, etc, :3).

Forums for example, if they were a good sample, would very easily represent the game. Of course due to their nature they can't be a perfect sample cause it's all voluntary / away from the game and there are specific biases to why you'd be here then, like to complain because most people don't post to state what they like (data, imo, still VERY useful but you couldn't let the forum, reddit, twitter, etc, blindly lead you).

Steam drop off in and of itself wouldn't help you too much. Like you'd have to see if this drop off happens before, as we know people come and go to games as content is hot / whatever reason (big game comes out, like Elden Ring, etc). If majority players are on steam then the drop would be a bit O_o;; but I assume that's not true (have not bothered to look it up, this is the best form of statistics I tell ya.. lol), so then you'd have to contend with what that means (if that introduces issues, like 'can you pool steam data into all the other data and it doesn't introduce flaws?' perhaps steam does represent the game, maybe it doesn't - I don't think we have the data to really determine it, and even if it did again it could be 'mmo as expected').

If we wanted to determine the health of the game I feel an easier way to do this is just to wait for their financial reports, rather than guess at something that could be business as usual or misleading us given some interesting relationship we're not seeing because we don't have a good full picture.

[DPZ2]

If we wanted to determine the health of the game I feel an easier way to do this is just to wait for their financial reports, rather than guess at something that could be business as usual or misleading us given some interesting relationship we're not seeing because we don't have a good full picture.

Fiscal Year 2022 for Square Enix (ending 31 March 2022) shows an increase in net sales for their MMO properties of a bit over 150% from FY2021. There were two major expansion pack releases (for FFXIV and Dragon Quest X) in 3rd quarter of FY2021, which will account for some [yet] unknown part of that increase.

I expect that any great losses due to mass player exodus (as opposed, say, to players simply not playing as much two to three months after a major patch release) would be reflected in the FY2023/Q1 and FY2023/Q2 reports.

Interestingly, there is again reference (slides 28/29) to what Square Enix now calls their "Blockchain Entertainment" domain, including creation of a Blockchain Entertainment Business Division back in February 2022. A second season of Shi-San-Sai Million Arthur is being produced. The company appears to have had a successful first season of that NFT business venture.

(Source: https://www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/i...22q4slides.pdf)

I would note that most Blockchain experiments in gaming cannot involve the same resources utilized for the Digital Fiat Exchange popularized as "Crypto Coins". Instead, they are in-house properties. Which makes sense since it costs a large amount of virtual coin to actual 'mint' an NFT for the general speculative market.

[Shougun]

Fiscal Year 2022 for Square Enix (ending 31 March 2022) shows an increase in net sales for their MMO properties of a bit over 150% from FY2021. There were two major expansion pack releases (for FFXIV and Dragon Quest X) in 3rd quarter of FY2021, which will account for some [yet] unknown part of that increase.

I expect that any great losses due to mass player exodus (as opposed, say, to players simply not playing as much two to three months after a major patch release) would be reflected in the FY2023/Q1 and FY2023/Q2 reports.

Interestingly, there is again reference (slides 28/29) to what Square Enix now calls their "Blockchain Entertainment" domain, including creation of a Blockchain Entertainment Business Division back in February 2022. A second season of Shi-San-Sai Million Arthur is being produced. The company appears to have had a successful first season of that NFT business venture.

(Source: https://www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/i...22q4slides.pdf)

I would note that most Blockchain experiments in gaming cannot involve the same resources utilized for the Digital Fiat Exchange popularized as "Crypto Coins". Instead, they are in-house properties. Which makes sense since it costs a large amount of virtual coin to actual 'mint' an NFT for the general speculative market.

Thanks for looking into!

I was like "I think that's where I'd look if I wanted to find out, but I haven't had my morning coffee yet so.. no thanks" lol. I agree we need 2023 for a good idea of what the trend looks like.

Personally not too worried about it. If Blizzard was working hard on their image, which they are not lol . . ., then hearing some of the changes they're making in Dragonflight would have me more concerned (I mean SE should still keep an eye out, but that's just good practice). When I first heard they were doing some even more alt friendly stuff, and refining some of the more unfriendly systems, I was thinking 'they're coming for FFXIV's target audience' but unless Dragonflight is superb my 'vibe' isn't too many will exodus back when that releases. Now if WoW did some superb changes, including making what is akin to a job system out of alts, and Blizzard improves their company narrative... More worrisome.