Quote Originally Posted by Teraluna View Post
As the author of the original post, I'll repeat my position of dt damaging the brand.
Now, that damage doesn't have to be unilateral, it just has to be noticeable and relevant to the time.

Some people may not like Stormblood and may say so here, but that won't really affect players decisions to carry on subscribing for the next 7.xx patches.

Any dt damage is of course highly relevant, as it's immediate - affecting present and future.
That damage doesn't have to be perfectly mirrored in subscription losses. Once again, it just has to be noticeable and in today's globe spanning multi-forums environment that is enough.

So a generalised repeat of the original question: What do we think SE's behaviour will be at their next ffxiv live letter?
I think Yoshi may actually address the situation, which I realize is the opposite of what most everyone else thinks. Yes, he's a PR master, yes, he avoids being pinned down, yes we're only at 7.05 so there's alot left. That being said...

No, there's not 'alot left.' Square Enix works expansions on a 'early access' business model, they need people buying 60 dollar expansions who are willing to wait two to three years for what they bought to unravel. That requires trust, and it's the only reason their business model works: Yoshi earned a great deal of trust.

But now Square Enix stocks are crashing. Steam concurrent player-count, a very flawed metric but the only active player count metric we have, is down 16% in 30 days. Dawntrail is the first expansion where from the forums, to the shout chat, from the US to Japan, everyone is unhappy. It is the worst recieved expansion for FF14 ever created, by user reviews and metacritic, and it shows.

If FF14 dies here, Square Enix ends as a company inside of a year. So yeah, I think we may see Yoshi get in front of the bullet. I don't think we'll hear why this happened or anything, but I think there's a good chance they panic and try to stop the hemoraging cash. But even now that may be fantastical to think, which may in itself be part of the problem.

Edit : To be clear I don't think SE is going to die, and I don't think the natural fall-off of new expansion completion covers the decline we're seeing. I think SE will do everything they can to survive, including shoving Yoshi out to the crowd to fix things, etc.