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

[Iscah]

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.

As covered in the specific thread, this is incorrect and looking at the wrong list.

[VelKallor]

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.

Or simply he had too much work to do, and wants to focus on the games itself.

You can read that announcement any number of ways, yours being just one of them. Did it ever occur to you that he stepped down in order to concentrate on making the game as best possible?

[VelKallor]

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

A year or so ago, a local community in my area was told about a new developement in the area, they were told it was going ahead because their "polls and statistics" said that a large percentage of people wanted said developement.

The resulting outrage, fury and MASSIVE objections from people WHEN THEY HAD ACTUALLY BEEN ASKED if they wanted it or not was enough to cancel said project. Their "statistical polls" said it would be a welcome addition to the area.

They got the shock of their lives when said community, once they knew of this little concept and its intended implementation, stood up and said HELL NO get this out of here, we refuse and we will protest and fight you on it.

Statistics ( and yes I do know the concepts and the ideas of margins, polling levels, sample sizes etc ) can be useful. They can also be an avenue for a huge mistake when you take a miniscule number of peoples opinions as gospel.

The matter was then quietly and VERY quickly dropped. They polled maybe 100 people out of a community of several thousand, and took said poll results as proof that the majority approved of the idea.

THEY. WERE. WRONG.

Statistics, when done properly, are a useful and at times essential tool for gauging the probability of success or in determining trends in a specific area. Their major weakness is that said figures can then be manipulated or misused or misread....in the end what you get is, guess what. GIGO.

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.

On this we agree, with a caveat. I refer back to WOW, and their trumpeting of their "record sales" and their "successful expac"...leaving out the fact that a few months in , all those new customers walked out the door in disgust.

Their "statistics" said the game was a success. Their horrendous attrition rate, was, however, glossed over or conveniently omitted.

An MMO lives on money, agreed, at the same time is it just as valid an evalulation of said MMO when they consistently and pathologically fail to retain said customers. Acquisition of customers is a "loss leader" as it costs far more to gain new customers than it is to retain them.

I stand by my previous comments on sample sizes, and from my POV, polling 0.2% of a large population is idiotic. 0.2% does not in any way accurately reflect reality. A local council and a specific construction company lost 2.1 million dollars as a result.....which then bled over into the next local council elections, which resulted in those responsible being turfed out on their ear.

Yeah. Ouch.

[Shurrikhan]

A year or so ago, a local community in my area was told about a new developement in the area, they were told it was going ahead because their "polls and statistics" said that a large percentage of people wanted said developement.

So you're using an example of purposely biased selection and deliberate misrepresentation to deny any and all use, also, of unbiased, randomized sampling? The numbers at play here aren't a mere hundred, but rather in the six digits.

That is size enough for a plenty representative sample unless the choice of launcher itself --double-clicking a link from one's Library instead of starting the standalone launcher, entering the password, and pressing Enter-- would significantly affect one's perception of the game.

and their trumpeting of their "record sales" and their "successful expac"...leaving out the fact that a few months in , all those new customers walked out the door in disgust.

These, too, are two separate issues.

Many people can be sold on the idea of a product only to realize soon after that the product is shit or has little to no longevity. That the honeymoon ended quickly doesn't mean initial sales were extremely high and the product's success therefore at first seemed fairly likely.

Case in point: Most expansion drops... into relatively little at-release or near-release endgame content.

[Raoabolic]

Or simply he had too much work to do, and wants to focus on the games itself.

You can read that announcement any number of ways, yours being just one of them. Did it ever occur to you that he stepped down in order to concentrate on making the game as best possible?

He's right, he was butting heads with SE for a long while. The pop up mogstation ad when you went into an inn was the comprise Yoshida and SE had when it came to showing the mogstation in game. I wonder how SE will handle Yoshida since he stepped down and is effectively another employee that answers to SE and their board of directors. I can't wait to see what happens, I bet it will be funny!

[VelKallor]

So you're using an example of purposely biased selection and deliberate misrepresentation to deny any and all use, also, of unbiased, randomized sampling? The numbers at play here aren't a mere hundred, but rather in the six digits.

Im saying that treating statistics as accurate or gospel can lead to major errors.

That is size enough for a plenty representative sample unless the choice of launcher itself --double-clicking a link from one's Library instead of starting the standalone launcher, entering the password, and pressing Enter-- would significantly affect one's perception of the game.

Possibly.

But that ignores the fact STEAM and the launcher are two separate platforms, so sure take STEAM details as data sure...wheres the data on launcher clients? Absent that, that "statistic"

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

is utterly false. GIGO error.

I also note that the VERY SAME topic was posted on the WOW forums a while back. This comment says it all

Also most of the FFXIV playerbase isn’t on steam. Steam has its own codes etc, and doesn’t have the sales that the Mog Station has.

The vast majority of FFXIV use the client launcher.

and

They fail to make it clear that the -13% of the players are those who play the game thru Steam (the smallest group of players), according to the other thread. They’ve disregarded the numbers who play thru the launcher directly from Squenix, as well as console players, as they were told numerous times. My best guess is that Steam is about 2%-3% of the player base…so 13% of that 2-3% - barely a blip.

Makes as much sense as another poster over there saying FF 14 is "dead" because of Twitch viewers.

My point stands.

STEAM as a metric is not in any way representative of the playerbase as a whole.

[Striker44]

So you're using an example of purposely biased selection and deliberate misrepresentation to deny any and all use, also, of unbiased, randomized sampling?

Except Steam users is not an example of unbiased, randomized sampling. Steam users are skewed to a certain demographic that more likely has different general interests than those using the SE launcher, which in turn is a different demographic than console users. Steam data is not reliably representative of anything except Steam users. Period.

[Shurrikhan]

Steam users are skewed to a certain demographic that more likely has different general interests than those using the SE launcher.

By all means, name a factor from choosing to double-click A instead of B just to enter the game that would skew their perception of the game.

What is it about using one launcher over another that'd make a given launcher-derived "group" uniquely less appeasable?

[Vahlnir]

I wonder how SE will handle Yoshida since he stepped down and is effectively another employee that answers to SE and their board of directors. I can't wait to see what happens, I bet it will be funny!

I mean, Yoshi P didn't step down at all. The person who provided a list of board members in that other thread had a list of the wrong board. So, you're just...misinformed here.

[hagare]

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.

you really should edit this out.
Since it's been proven false and all