At this point will FFXIV collapse if all mods and third party tools disappear?

[raelgun]

Game will be fine if all of the modders left the game.

If anything we need those people gone esp the ones for RP and ERP purposes.

Its not like any increased subscribers to the game actually amounts to the budget going back to the game so I am fine if 40% of the playerbase up and goes ( not like the the development direction will change at all )

[Stormpeaks]

Game will be fine if all of the modders left the game.

If anything we need those people gone esp the ones for RP and ERP purposes.

Its not like any increased subscribers to the game actually amounts to the budget going back to the game so I am fine if 40% of the playerbase up and goes ( not like the the development direction will change at all )

say you want to see the game die without saying you want to see the game die

[Theodric]

say you want to see the game die without saying you want to see the game die

It depends. If the 'venue' and 'mod' crowds left, the development team would be forced to design content with staying power. It's something that they've proven capable of doing in the past so I don't doubt that they could do it again if backed into a corner. They just lack the incentive to do so when a not insignificant portion of their subscriber base play the game as something completely different to what it is intended to be.

I do think it's something that'll backfire in the long term. I know quite a lot of people who have mentioned, in passing, that they never bothered checking out FFXIV precisely because of how much explicit modded screenshots of the game are floating around on social media.

[Jojoya]

say you want to see the game die without saying you want to see the game die

Modders leaving won't cause the game to die.

It's bizarre how many think that gaming revolves around mods.

[raelgun]

say you want to see the game die without saying you want to see the game die

The game was profitable with less then half the current player base and at a time when it delivered more content per patch on an actual 3 month cycle.

[CStrife912]

The game was profitable with less then half the current player base and at a time when it delivered more content per patch on an actual 3 month cycle.

FF11 and Everquest even SWTOR got new content regularly or still do even now with a fraction of the player count...it takes a massive drop for a game to die...even if they had 100k players in total not even at once I bet the game will still live on in some capacity. Maybe a refocus onto something new but yeah...the game would need to loose a loooooot to constitute that as a possibility...the modding numbers would be a chunky loss but not enough.

[Nebelheim]

The game was profitable with less then half the current player base and at a time when it delivered more content per patch on an actual 3 month cycle.

I think they stated the game would still be profitable enough if it maintained 200-300k players back when arr first launched and had around that number of people playing during launch. But with how big the player base is now and how long mods have been around and allowed as long as it remained hush hush they would lose a decent chunk of players. They would still have a large playerbase but would lose a good chunk if they decided to go hardcore full ban mode on modders or had some software to detect mods. They seem to not mind mods as long as people don't openly talk about it then that's when actions get taken.

[SomeGuy22]

Would it collapse? I don't think so. A bunch of people play the game completely vanilla or aren't too attached to mods to care.

Now would it result in a shitstorm, lead to immediate loss of revenue and create a rift between the devs and a significant part of the playerbase, including but not limited to raiders, RPers, "extreme" RPers and people with latency issues? Yes.

[Emitans]

There are absolutely some players that would quit if mods were gone but I don't think it would cause a mass exodus or anything. That said, it would upset a decent chunk of the playerbase even if they stay so I don't think it would be in Square's interests to ever lock down the client.

[SquishyPlushie]

Aren't PS4/PS5 and Xbox (soon™) locked down platforms, yet FFXIV is there?