Square Enix, it's time to come clean about your plans for the future

[Payadopa]

How is this a conspiracy? Back in SB people already guessed that CBU3 was working on a single player FF game because Yoshi P said he would like to make one.

Yoshi P has said he would like to work on a new generation MMO and that FF14 is the last MMO in the "second generation"... Yeah the hints are pretty clear.

Honestly, after XVI I don't want them to make another FF.
Might as well make a movie at this point, oh wait.

That being said, it does not make sense to start making a new MMO if the old one is supposed to be running for the next 10 years.

[Renathras]

https://www.mmorpg.com/news/square-e...les-2000128641
...
We won't see another end Walker busy release unless blizz messes up but they are doing very well with dragon flight

Notably, the company’s MMO segment saw a 22% drop in revenue year over year.

Uh...I don't think this is the argument you think it is.

"Hot MMO 18 months after an expansion has fewer subs than same MMO did 6 months after an expansion!"

...and? That's literally how every expansion works in every MMO ever. Other than Burning Crusade, WoW had the same thing happen. Even at its height of 13 million players in Wrath, the end of Wrath had fewer than the start. And that was the MMO that had uncontested control of the market. All games work this way that have live service. New releases spike numbers which then drift down until the next major release spike.

You have to compare the same point in different expansions, and the game seems to be higher up than it was this same point in ShB and this same point in SB. That suggests the game is, in fact, still growing and not "a shrink or just less".

.

Oh, I'm sorry. My apologies for having the sun shine on your rainy parade.

[MsMisato]

They hardly even maintain ff11 its considered the stepchild to its younger brother ff14 and not even getting updates going further except occasional server maintenance which is covered by ff14s server engineers. There not putting in massive work to maintain ff11 its going to be on life support from now until there contract ends in 10 years for the maintenance for ff11 new server hardware.

Mean ffxi is almost 25 years old they game has ran it course sadly and been on maintenance mode for a good while. When they announced some new content for their 20th anniversary it was nice and unexpected but it’s normal for the game only simply getting only tweaks and minor updates at this point. The thing about ffxi is the numbers have remained steady over years.

[raelgun]

Uh...I don't think this is the argument you think it is.

"Hot MMO 18 months after an expansion has fewer subs than same MMO did 6 months after an expansion!"

...and? That's literally how every expansion works in every MMO ever. Other than Burning Crusade, WoW had the same thing happen. Even at its height of 13 million players in Wrath, the end of Wrath had fewer than the start. And that was the MMO that had uncontested control of the market. All games work this way that have live service. New releases spike numbers which then drift down until the next major release spike.

You have to compare the same point in different expansions, and the game seems to be higher up than it was this same point in ShB and this same point in SB. That suggests the game is, in fact, still growing and not "a shrink or just less".

.

Oh, I'm sorry. My apologies for having the sun shine on your rainy parade.

Revenue is down by quite a margin, this is how you measure.

They are still projecting it to go down further.

Now the relevance to the thread is why the sharp decline as it is sharp.

No content in this expansion to keep people engaged, as such people are done fast and stopped playing.

[Nebelheim]

Mean ffxi is almost 25 years old they game has ran it course sadly and been on maintenance mode for a good while. When they announced some new content for their 20th anniversary it was nice and unexpected but it’s normal for the game only simply getting only tweaks and minor updates at this point. The thing about ffxi is the numbers have remained steady over years.

Yeah i wish they put more resources into ff11 but i also know at this point it wouldn't make financial/business sense and I'm mostly still enjoying ff11 and all the content it has that i can still do. I'm glad that they still managed to pump out one last storyline and some content the last couple years with the little team that they have.

[Renathras]

Revenue is down by quite a margin, this is how you measure.

They are still projecting it to go down further.

Now the relevance to the thread is why the sharp decline as it is sharp.

No content in this expansion to keep people engaged, as such people are done fast and stopped playing.

Again, from your website:

Sales of Final Fantasy XIV were down year over year, which isn't surprising since this marked the post-Endwalker period, and also a greater return to something closer to pre-pandemic life across the world. Sales in 2020 and 2021 were buoyed both by other industry events, but also the pandemic affecting so many around the world.

They even outright acknowledge it. Part of that sales decline is people not buying the game - not subs. Which makes sense. You only buy the expansion once. In June 2022, people were still buying the expansion. In June 2023 people who were going to buy the expansion have already bought the expansion. That's a "decline in revenue", which doesn't even require a decline in subs.

For the game to have "stopped growing", there'd have to be no new sales AND more sub cancellations than additions. This data doesn't support that.

Revenue is down comparing a MMO 6 months after its new expansion to 18 months. That's what's relevant. I get you REALLY want this to be true, but all you're doing is showing an ignorance of statistics, sales, and MMO lifecycles.

They straight up say in the article sales are down because we're further from the pandemic so people that gamed more during it are gaming less, and post-Endwalker, meaning people aren't buying the expansion because they already own it. They straight up addressed the numbers. It wasn't "no content".

.

EDIT:

To put it another way, will you come here a year from now, August 2024, during the height of Dawntrail sales, and tell us all about how FFXIV must be seeing fantastic growth and massive content that is engaging to literally everyone because sales are up year over year?

Because sales WILL be up in Aug 2024 over Aug 2023 due to people buying the expansion and all the people resubbing for the story, new raid fights, and so on. I think we can reasonably predict that their sales will be higher a year from now. Does that mean the game will be marching forward with massive growth that will never end and presages the dawn of a new golden age of gaming?

Of course it won't.

It'll just be the logical consequence of a year with an expansion vs a year without one.

[Jojoya]

Not a single soul believes that CBU3 is back to solely working on FF14. They're working on FF16 for PC and FF16 DLCs at the MINIMUM.

What else are you working on, CBU3? What are you not telling us? Are you hiding the fact that you're working on FF17, the next MMO, so that people will continue to have copium for FF14? Because that's what happened to 11.

CBU3 isn't a single development team for a single game. It consists of multiple teams for multiple games. Of course it's not only working on FFXIV.

If you want to know everything that CBU3 is working on, you probably should invest in Square Enix so you can ask questions and get answers as a shareholder.

As for coming clean with their plans for FFXIV, they did last year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2TWmsce_eg&t=1749s

They can't help it if you don't want to listen to the information they've released.

[TheMightyMollusk]

https://www.mmorpg.com/news/square-e...les-2000128641

The game is no longer growing and more then likely we will see a shrink or just less going forward.

We won't see another end Walker busy release unless blizz messes up but they are doing very well with dragon flight

I was replying to a comment about a super hero team called the Doom Patrol by pointing out that one exists. Not everything is an attempt to start an argument.

[Hurlstone]

[TheMightyMollusk]