Quote Originally Posted by Jeeqbit View Post

That graph is specifically for people with achievements enabled on the lodestone ie. achievement hunters enable these for collection websites, who are usually veteran players. So yes, it is fair to say that veteran players are taking breaks or quitting due to a perceived lack of content. But it doesn't change that the general active player count is stable, even if that is due to casual new and returning players replacing the veteran achievement hunters.
I feel like the graphs aren’t quite as definitive as they seem either because they’re only showing one side of the picture. Endwalker has seen a huge drop off, but that doesn’t really matter long term if the majority of those players resub at Dawntrail release, right? The graph only shows us who left; we don’t know who’s coming back yet lol. The only thing we can really conclude is ‘there may be a possibility that the game is dying’.

I mean if we get to Dawntrail and suddenly none of those people return, then sure, one can reasonably conclude ‘the game is probably dying’ lol. But I don’t think there’s any point in trying to draw that conclusion currently, especially right at the end of an expansion when the game is usually ‘dead’ lol. I mean, it’s by design. Play some ffxiv, let sub lapse, play something else, repeat cycle. It’s worked for them so far I think.