18.5% drop in players in only 8 weeks

[DPZ2]

Reading the article (and translating the original Korean article) I do not get the impression Laurent left upon you. Rather than "little faith in the MMO genre", there is this: "Yoshi-P’s personal opinion is that MMORPGs aren’t dead, but rather, they’re just taking a break."

Doesn't sound like he has little faith in their future to me.

[Aword3213]

Another poster also linked interviews containing commentary showing little faith in the MMO genre, as found here:

Excerpt from the source posted by the person you quoted

[Lauront]

Not sure what you're struggling to understand. Games in general are not MMOs, just like 16 wasn't an MMO. He also speaks of 'new generations' of MMOs there. He elaborated on that here:

Jeux Online: What do you think about the future of the MMORPG genre as whole? The 1st gen and 2nd gen MMORPG audiences have gotten older and the newer generation doesn’t seem that interested in MMOs. So, where do you think the future of MMO lies?

Naoki Yoshida: First and foremost, with Final Fantasy XIV, we do believe that this game is at the maybe tail-end of the 2nd generation of MMORPGs. I believe that World of Warcraft was sort of the start of that 2nd generation. Having that kind of strong content-driven MMOs defined the MMORPGs of that generation. With Final Fantasy XIV, I believe this is the newest game within that generation of MMORPGs, but I also feel that we are coming to the very late part of that 2nd generation. So, I feel that there probably won’t be another MMO that is similar to what has already come out.

Even if Final Fantasy XIV were to release further expansions, maybe 3 or 4 more expansions, we don’t believe that FFXIV would evolve into the 3rd generation of MMORPGs.

We would just continue to pursue and perfect what we have so that we aim to become the ultimate MMORPG within our current generation.

In terms of the 3rd generation of MMORPGs, I believe that we would need to have something design that is fundamentally different.

I think there is a very important element, a keyword almost. The younger generation is one thing, but even with those existing gamers that have become older, there is really not a difference between those two parties. Both types of people have become very busy and there are so many different forms of entertainment, a lot of smart devices being out and available and it is more difficult to carve the time to sit down and do content. Previously, we wouldn’t have to worry about it because there weren’t so much distractions that would take us away, we had the time to sit down and do this sort of time-consuming content. But nowadays, when you start playing a game, you might get an email, you might get a text message, friends might want you to go see the latest movie or go out for a drink ; there are so many different things and so much materialistic objects that can distract you. There are all vying for your time.

You may be aware that worldwide we’ve seen games of the MOBA genre or Battle Royale games becoming very popular, games that people can jump in whenever they want, have that sort of instant gratification, and then quit whenever they want. I think that’s a very attractive set-up for the modern gamer or any gamer in this current time basically. And we feel that for MMOs of the next generation, it is important that we capitalize on that. It is something that’s a key element.

We feel that those are very important elements to incorporate if we were to bring a game that moves us into the next generation of the genre. But if we were to divulge more details, I think we would be giving hints to our competitors on our company’s ideas so I think I’m gonna stop right there.

Whatever it is, it is quite a different beast in the way he describes it to something like XIV. You can quibble over what is an MMO or not but his thoughts on "2nd generation" MMOs like XIV or, indeed, WoW, and what he is looking to for inspiration from any "3rd generation" are quite obvious from that (and also the below.)

He reiterated the sentiment here:

Games like Fortnite and Overwatch are vying for dedicated, online audiences like MMOs do - as a traditional MMO creator how does that make you feel?

Naoki Yoshida: This is happening because the video game industry continuously evolves. Just taking this example, traditional JRPGs are based on turn-based games. and especially for the youth, they feel that it's quite outdated, they don't really understand.. Talking about the younger generation, someone up to the age of 25, because prior to the time they were born, there was relatively high-spec hardware for their gaming experiences - their character is rendered very realistically and they can actually control the characters directly - by pressing one button, the character will punch the enemies or fire the gun...

That's why we don't feel those types of games are a threat because the basic game is designed completely differently. Because the audience that's playing Overwatch and Fortnite are probably in their 20s, they're a younger audience. If that younger audience becomes our main audience for FF14 or our current MMORPG, then we may need to cater to that new audience and create the excitement that they want from a game. We feel that FF14 doesn't really need to play that role. It should be the next generation of MMOs. But if we want to make an MMO which doesn't require targeting, that would be really difficult. We'd probably need to make some drastic changes to the game where there are text chats, but people are using voice chat and you can choose your play style, you can quit anything, you can come back any time... That kind of generation and time will definitely come, but personally speaking it looks very difficult so I don't want to do it!

If Theodric is going from JRPGs to MMOs it's because Yoshi himself used them as an example in making this point.

[FairyDJ]

Ok we are 8 weeks out, this is a natural decline, people log in maybe to try the new features a couple times, read up on some content, catch up with friends, log out. I will probably go on break next week until 6.5 because I go on break during patch lulls for like 4 to 8 weeks before a patch during even number patches to prevent burn out. Also, we are smack dab in the middle of the content lull. Finally the game is literally designed so you can play other games during downtime. It is not meant for you to be sucked into a neverending vortex of work to never return to your normal life.

[Aword3213]

Not sure what you're struggling to understand. Games in general are not MMOs, just like 16 wasn't an MMO. He also speaks of 'new generations' of MMOs there. He elaborated on that .

Still don't get the same impression as yours, or his.

[ForteNightshade]

True, this game is getting more solo friendly but then again it is easier for some who does not have all day to wait for a party to come up or those who enjoyed doing content by themselves or does not have any friends to go with, even those who does not trust PF. To me, to each its own in this matter and what should not affected the numbers at all.

For content, I keep wandering how much more content players want. I think this game has more content than any other MMOs I ever seen and we want more??? That can burn out a person in a heartbeat. They should be looking to improve on the content they have now (Better Awards, New Achievements, etc, etc, etc).

It isn't that people necessarily want more content per set. Granted, they do, but it's more an issue of longevity. Take 6.45, which is only now a week old. Everything in it has no longevity whatsoever. Variant can be completed in a few hours or less, the relic is a passive tome farm you can do with zero actual effort and Blue Mage is over in a day or two unless you aim to raid. Speaking of which, Eden Blue and Criterion Savage yet again have zero rewards, thus being relegated to one and done content immediately. While Criterion normal does have a mount, that's very little incentive to farm what is essentially Savage level difficulty. Hence why the previous iteration died within two weeks.

That isn't a whole lot to sink your teeth into, especially for non-raiders. Which is why the relic step has been so heavily criticised and divisive even amongst the more neutral crowd.

[TheOperator3712]

Agreed. What determines growth is "Is it more than it was a this same point in the last expansion", and all of the data seems to say yes, meaning growth. [...]
Again, growth is happening if we're apples-to-apples, expansion-on-expansion-at-this-point higher in number than we were in the last one, and we seem to be. Therefore, the game is growing. /shrug

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. That is not how you measure growth. Growth is a trend metric, and as such you do not measure it by taking two points in exclusion to the rest of the set. Doing so has a high likelihood of giving you an erroneous result. The only thing you can determine from noting that a more recent point is higher than a previous point is that a growth period had happened between the two points. You can not conclude that it is still happening or that it had not reversed at some point between the two points.

To accurately determine the trend of a data set, you must look at the entire set.

As a practical example, consider this chart of the stock market which shows the 1929 crash(Cropped for readability). If I were to look only at the points I have marked in red, using your proposed methodology, I might conclude that the market was in a period of growth at the latter point. When in actuality, the second marked point is towards the beginning of a massive decline.


Original image from this blog via WSJ Online

[Kazhar]

Ok we are 8 weeks out, this is a natural decline, people log in maybe to try the new features a couple times, read up on some content, catch up with friends, log out. I will probably go on break next week until 6.5 because I go on break during patch lulls for like 4 to 8 weeks before a patch during even number patches to prevent burn out. Also, we are smack dab in the middle of the content lull. Finally the game is literally designed so you can play other games during downtime. It is not meant for you to be sucked into a neverending vortex of work to never return to your normal life.

This is not how the survey works. Anybody who logged once between the previous survey (which was before 6.4) and 6.45 is counted as being active. Luckybancho's methodology ignores the natural drop of player which happens between patches and only aggregates the peak.

[TheNight]

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. That is not how you measure growth. Growth is a trend metric, and as such you do not measure it by taking two points in exclusion to the rest of the set. Doing so has a high likelihood of giving you an erroneous result. The only thing you can determine from noting that a more recent point is higher than a previous point is that a growth period had happened between the two points. You can not conclude that it is still happening or that it had not reversed at some point between the two points.

To accurately determine the trend of a data set, you must look at the entire set.

As a practical example, consider this chart of the stock market which shows the 1929 crash(Cropped for readability). If I were to look only at the points I have marked in red, using your proposed methodology, I might conclude that the market was in a period of growth at the latter point. When in actuality, the second marked point is towards the beginning of a massive decline.


Original image from this blog via WSJ Online

Thank you for the fine explanation. And to put another way: if the stock market drops from a high of 50,000, to 20,000, and people say it's a bull market because it was higher than 18,000 thirty years ago... One would question their sanity. Yet this is what many are arguing.

[Striker44]

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. That is not how you measure growth. Growth is a trend metric, and as such you do not measure it by taking two points in exclusion to the rest of the set. Doing so has a high likelihood of giving you an erroneous result. The only thing you can determine from noting that a more recent point is higher than a previous point is that a growth period had happened between the two points. You can not conclude that it is still happening or that it had not reversed at some point between the two points.

To accurately determine the trend of a data set, you must look at the entire set.

As a practical example, consider this chart of the stock market which shows the 1929 crash(Cropped for readability). If I were to look only at the points I have marked in red, using your proposed methodology, I might conclude that the market was in a period of growth at the latter point. When in actuality, the second marked point is towards the beginning of a massive decline.

Actually, right, right, right. Sadly, what you're describing is exactly the utterly flawed approach used by the negative echo chamber around here, where they cherry pick completely arbitrary data points, ignore the context, and then try to act as if it means something. "Hey! There were more people playing this game at Point A (when ShB first launched) than at Point B (a random spot in a late-patch lull for EW). The game is dying!" It's worthless.

Meanwhile, the person you were responding to (Ren) provided a thorough, valid, thought-out analysis using precisely the methodology you claim to want. He looked for trends in entire data sets and consistently compared similar points in time across multiple expansion (i.e. looking at the population precisely after Patch X.2 launched, or right before X.4 launched, etc.), and the data over and over shows steady growth from expansion to expansion, with EW being the most populated one yet at every comparable point along the way.

So, your commentary in general makes a great point, but I'm utterly confused why you're directing it at the person who is actually doing the valid comparison you apparently want, while ignoring that the doomsayers are exactly the people using the invalid approach you show is flawed.

And to put another way: if the stock market drops from a high of 50,000, to 20,000, and people say it's a bull market because it was higher than 18,000 thirty years ago... One would question their sanity. Yet this is what many are arguing.

Agreed. It's why we might question the sanity (or perhaps honesty?) of the doomsayers. Ironically, yourself as Exhibit A, given that your "Steam analysis" does exactly the thing here you say would lead people to question one's sanity, just in reverse. The stock market here is cyclical, and at the same point in the last three cycles, it's gone from 10,000 to 20,000 to 40,000. But you act as if it's a bear market because it reached 50,000 at its peak two cycles ago (while ignoring that it peaked at 80,000 last cycle).