Another MMO?

[Commander_Justitia]

Digital Entertainment sector makes like 70-80% of their sales, next to smaller sectors like amusement, merchandise and publications.

Of that sector one part are MMO net sales, which are down, just btw - to the people here saying it was never more popular and is peaking right now. Financially it isn't really.



MMO are a good basis for their income ofc, but it is not like it is changing too much. Where they make profit is mobile games, and every major gaming company knows that nowadays, even though I personally dislike it completely. Covid19 restrictions ended at a lot of places, which made them lose out in that category too.

Technically only by releasing FF16, they could keep netsales at a similar level, though due to dev cost, operating income went still down. Barely positive, which made their stock market price crash a little over time.

MMO customers provide a steady income, so it makes sense keeping them happy longterm instead of making new MMO. I think there is a market opportunity for a revolutionary MMO that could become one of the main games played globally, but technology wise it is still too early. I really doubt they have interest to make a FF17 MMORPG right now. They might make completely new other games, not FF related.

A question you can ask is, which game is actually the most profitable for them, where are dev costs low and is still yielding good results... And if it is FF14, would profits rise if they would spend more on devs? (which would be nice for us) Or is it mobile games in the end...

[Jeeqbit]

Of that sector one part are MMO net sales, which are down, just btw - to the people here saying it was never more popular and is peaking right now. Financially it isn't really.

That often fluctuates, but it doesn't just include FFXIV and it can include actual sales of the game such as an expansion release. The most specific measure we have is the observed lodestone activity of characters so that's what I've based it on. It has been consistently higher throughout Endwalker than throughout Shadowbringers (except immediately before Endwalker release when it went viral).

MMO customers provide a steady income, so it makes sense keeping them happy longterm instead of making new MMO.

I think that has always been the reason to want to have an MMO, especially for SE. The consistency of the income is better than a lot of game companies have it, where their income comes from the sale of the game and then they have to struggle when they run out of money and are still developing the next game.

A company famous for finding an alternative way to prevent themselves going bust was EA, who instead of making an MMO, consistently released brand new but rushed sequel games every year or two, as well as rushed games for movie releases.

Now companies choose the "neither" option and just release DLC (which is very similar to MMO patches/expansions and releasing a new sequel regularly) or sell virtual items in the game for real money.

I think there is a market opportunity for a revolutionary MMO that could become one of the main games played globally, but technology wise it is still too early.

Probably one of the most popular iterations of the MMO genre at the moment is the Battle Pass genre, which is similar in that it brings in a consistent income while offering updates and changes every few months. The other popular iteration of it has been DLC.

Microtransactions are just kinda altogether different, even in the MMORPG genre itself, but can sometimes amount to the same thing ie. buying all the things expansions/DLC with the microtransaction currency.

[Striker44]

Digital Entertainment sector makes like 70-80% of their sales, next to smaller sectors like amusement, merchandise and publications.

Of that sector one part are MMO net sales, which are down, just btw - to the people here saying it was never more popular and is peaking right now. Financially it isn't really.

The people pointing out how FFXIV is doing "now" are comparing the active player population at similar points in each expansion, which has indeed shown steady growth from each expansion to the next throughout the game's life. And EW has likewise continued that trend, significantly surpassing ShB, and even following the same general growth line when you account for the "WoW exodus" anomaly.

It's also noteworthy that the data shown in your graph lumps all MMO's together. SE has multiple MMO's running, including ones like Dragon Quest that aren't even localized to be sold outside of Japan (but are still "active" games getting new expansions and such). Meaning - the overall "MMO" data isn't necessarily representative of FFXIV specifically, and shouldn't be assumed to be so.