LuckyBancho data shows that FF14 is in decline

[Noumenon]

but how do you untangle it from the general decline from the anemic state of the content

You make a good point. But that will be effectively impossible since using macroeconomic data to control for variations caused by macroeconomic conditions randomly is effectively junk science, because the lag follows an unknown distribution and we have zero way of determining that distribution, unless one embarks on a grand project to interview millions of people to track their consumption choices on digital entertainment over time, specifically gamers, who are unrepresentative of the general population, and generate a large time series dataset where we can then feasibly recover the distribution of the lag.

However I'm hesitant to say that that is actually a major contributor, in fact in the absence of data it could even be pulling it in the other direction.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...us-consumsers/

Digital media consumption has actually stayed steady since the sharp increase during the pandemic. Holding the effects of everything else constant, I find it unlikely that macroeconomic trends have that much of an impact on consumption of FF14 in EW, although it did almost unquestionably have a large impact during ShB. It seems like the pandemic has induced habit formation among a lot of people such that they would still dedicate some time to their FF14 hobby if everything else was equal (same content schedule, same story etc.).

Your explanation may actually explain the Steam numbers instead. A person playing FF14 for five hours a day and a person playing FF14 for two hours a day because he has to commute once again are treated differently in both data: in LuckyBancho they are counted as the same person. Each person in LB's dataset is treated equally regardless of their content consumption, so long as they clear a bare minimum bar (to play the new content in a patch for an hour to get the free achievement, most notably the MSQ for each patch). These people will be treated differently in Steam numbers because it tracks concurrency. I think the discrepancy between Steam numbers (70% decline) and LuckyBancho (20% decline) can be explained by macroeconomic trends, but a 50% discrepancy is too large to be explained by that alone.

[Sindele]

(i'm not quoting the entire post and taking up half a page, just scroll up)

You're right that it's almost impossible to pull them apart, but that's basically my point - the timeline is too short, the situation is too unclear, and the data isn't good enough to make a comfortably definitive assessment of exactly what is responsible for exactly how much and therefore how much one should panic. The situation is bad, but when it comes to making or predicting decisions based on it, you want to know what makes it this bad.

Do note that the digital media consumption numbers for '22+ are pure projected conjecture. I'm always on the conservative side when it comes to these kinds of projections, but even so, I wouldn't hitch my wagon to the idea of '23 and '24 being stably predictable increases - those 65 minutes were not simply freed up from nowhere, and in certain sectors, life is trying very hard to claw them back. It doesn't help that digital media consumption is a hellishly broad brush, though - hours spent on a dedicated machine and hours spent on a mobile device both show up the same, but are not at all the same when we're talking about a console and PC MMO. XIV on the Steam Deck and its assorted clones doesn't seem likely to take the world by storm.

People really want to keep their pandemic habits. It's just that from what I've been seeing, they're not all getting their way. (Bitterly, me included.)

[Atelier-Bagur]

its definitely seeing some decline, but for me it comes down to how successful Dawntrail is. Im sure it'll sell well in its release but what happens after 7.0 and if the data still sees going downward without reaching the peak it had then yeah.