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

[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.

[DPZ2]

I'm not so sure that Activision/Blizzard overcoming their current woes by releasing a better updated game is going to be problem for Square Enix. I suspect it will drive other competitors to up their game and bring about another round of gaming companies considering releasing some form of MMORPG, since the top two such companies appear to be doing well.

As always there will be winners and losers. The "losers" still bring in a hefty amount of money, or you wouldn't see older MMORPGs still churning out content releases. Even Ultima Online is still up-and-running as a subscription-based MMORPG. Some games retire after a few years, some continue on for decades. There is no right or wrong game to play, nor is the gaming community stuck in a zero-sum competition for players.

At least that's what I see, based on about 40 years of playing multiplayer RPGs. (Circa 1983: Scepter of Goth: a text-based multiplayer RPG with 16 maximum concurrent players with a subscription to play).

[Shougun]

I'm not so sure that Activision/Blizzard overcoming their current woes by releasing a better updated game is going to be problem for Square Enix. I suspect it will drive other competitors to up their game and bring about another round of gaming companies considering releasing some form of MMORPG, since the top two such companies appear to be doing well.

As always there will be winners and losers. The "losers" still bring in a hefty amount of money, or you wouldn't see older MMORPGs still churning out content releases. Even Ultima Online is still up-and-running as a subscription-based MMORPG. Some games retire after a few years, some continue on for decades. There is no right or wrong game to play, nor is the gaming community stuck in a zero-sum competition for players.

At least that's what I see, based on about 40 years of playing multiplayer RPGs. (Circa 1983: Scepter of Goth: a text-based multiplayer RPG with 16 maximum concurrent players with a subscription to play).

Eh I don't think FFXIV would fail even if WoW did AMAZING. I just like if we can keep a lot of the people who left lol. :3

Yet I feel if WoW was able to take some of the best features of FFXIV, fix some of their major issues, and they've already have that massive gravity - would be like 'aw man'. Since I'm rooting for FFXIV lol.

Of course FFXIV could take that as a hint to do better, so it's not entirely bad for us. For me personally Blizzard needs to put work into their image before I bother with them again, so many things happened that were big jokes (and I even tried to give them some benefit of the doubt during their initial investigations).

Before all the moral drama, and diablo immoral, I was seriously bothered by how dirty they did WC3 (which was like a teenage years defining game for me).

[anhaato]

-

"Realistically speaking" and "a survey should include at least half of a large population" don't belong in the same sentence. Good luck getting more than a couple thousand responses on any voluntary survey. Have you also considered that maybe you're part of the 15%? Like, how are you offended by something inferred from a survey? No one is telling you you're part of the majority, but it seems that the simple notion that you might not be absolutely grates on you.

And all of this has very little to do with the matter at hand; these Steam numbers may be a representative cross section of the playerbase. Steam numbers are a minority of the players, yes, but this minority may be enough to be statistically reliable. Unless you can provide other reasons why the sample would be unreliable without creating some made up cutoff as to what qualifies as a "true representative sample?"

[Lauront]

Realistically speaking?

If the survey is to include a population of over 100,000, then an acceptable sample would be at least ONE HALF.

Source: trust this guy I know bruh.

[Iscah]

If the survey is to include a population of over 100,000, then an acceptable sample would be at least ONE HALF. Telling me that I am in the group that agrees with some idiotic claim after a sample of 300 people in a population of 300,000 ( the local area I am in ) is absolutely bizarre.

"We sampled a group of 300 people and have concluded that 85% of a population of 300,000 agree with it" is to put it bluntly, idiotic.

Ask 5000 people and you get 5000 DIFFERENT answers.

Ask 5000 people a "yes or no" question and you will get two answers: yes and no.

The proportion of yesses and noes is what gives you your statistic, and at no point is it ever claiming that you are in the group that gives the opposite answer to what you personally think.

If you would answer "no", and the statistic is "70% say yes and 30% say no", that means you are (theoretically) in the 30%.

[Kolsykol]

Eh I don't think FFXIV would fail even if WoW did AMAZING. I just like if we can keep a lot of the people who left lol. :3

FFXIV has increased in players with every expansion even way back before peoples views on Blizzard and WoW changed so drastically.
So even when WoW was doing amazing it didn't seem to negatively affect FFXIV in this regard.

It's pretty crazy to think that Blizzard actually lost players even during the peak of Covid tho.
It does feel kinda absurd tho with a lot of the doomsaying about FFXIV ( which has been happening since ARR ) in contrast to that.

[Hyperia]

"And all of this has very little to do with the matter at hand; these Steam numbers may be a representative cross section of the playerbase. Steam numbers are a minority of the players, yes, but this minority may be enough to be statistically reliable. Unless you can provide other reasons why the sample would be unreliable without creating some made up cutoff as to what qualifies as a "true representative sample?"

The numbers sound real to me based upon FC activity. We have a totally new dynamic right now taking place in the game so all past numbers can have their weight reduced.

The game officially ended the 10 year story arc and from what I have seen so far in 6.1, the “new start” has been lackluster. I normally play every day but even I have had trouble playing due to the sheer amount of despair in the 6.0 content.

At this point, I think it was a mistake to end everything in 6.0 as we basically have to wait two years for major new content. Few hours of MSQ and a few new dungeons is not going to feel like a good relaunch.

I have a bad feeling that they lost interest in XIV and have been focusing on XVI instead.


Players want to have fun playing a game and the sheer magnitude of despair from 6.0 is probably making them leave, had it not been for my friends, I probably would have too.

[anhaato]

The numbers sound real to me based upon FC activity. We have a totally new dynamic right now taking place in the game so all past numbers can have their weight reduced.

The game officially ended the 10 year story arc and from what I have seen so far in 6.1, the “new start” has been lackluster. I normally play every day but even I have had trouble playing due to the sheer amount of despair in the 6.0 content.

At this point, I think it was a mistake to end everything in 6.0 as we basically have to wait two years for major new content. Few hours of MSQ and a few new dungeons is not going to feel like a good relaunch.

I have a bad feeling that they lost interest in XIV and have been focusing on XVI instead.


Players want to have fun playing a game and the sheer magnitude of despair from 6.0 is probably making them leave, had it not been for my friends, I probably would have too.

I can kinda attest. My fc tried to pick itself back up recently for stuff like maps and reclears, but there was a good few months where I was the only one online whenever I logged in for some gposing because there's not much otherwise content I haven't already done. My non fc friends, though, have been radio silent after the first couple weeks of 6.1.

The issue with them "ending" the story in 6.0 and starting a new story in the following patches is they're still beholding themselves to the patch schedule, and that affects how much story drops at once. And if it turns out that 6.1's story is only relevant for the trial series and not the next expansion, that'll make it seem even worse. If it's just a lead in that doesn't actually start anything new, then why couldn't they hold out until 6.4 after concluding the story in 6.3? They really shot themselves in the foot with this one. And 6.0's story has had more mixed reviews than any other expansion I've seen.

Most of the notable talent from the XIV team has been dropped off at XVI since 2017. That includes Maehiro (HW writer) and Koji. It's starting to become painfully obvious that the game is run on a skeleton crew, and even if people are saying they still enjoy the game and find something to do, the enthusiasm just isn't there like it was a couple years ago.

In other news, Yoshida stepped down from the board of directors 2 days ago. Maybe the game isn't doing as hot as they would have us believe.