Quote Originally Posted by Eyrilona View Post
I was just clarifying why I had written what I had before you made the post that this was a direct reply to, not further arguing against you. We are quite on the same side in that I too hope that the game will be fine.

But I can not be without genuine concern because there is a difference between 1.0 and the current state of things, and that is the balance in goodwill and confidence that the company still has.

XIV 1.0 was given the benefit of time to improve because of XI and a broad confidence in what SE was capable of at the time. By contrast, today the antics of a company that keeps trying to make for more games that nobody wanted them to make, rather than successful ones, combined with a general suspicion over how they still have a leadership that is all in on NFTs even when that has been almost universally panned by the real gaming audience.

Also, SE almost bankrupted itself in the effort to retain community confidence while they worked to salvage 1.0, including waiving subscription fees entirely for the interim. It is doubtful they would be able to do that a second time, with the tangled web through which FFXIV is cross-funding a lot of their other developments.

And lastly, that was over ten years ago, before the Live Service Model started turning the gaming landscape into a place where even winning the game of the year award doesn't guarantee that a game will not still fail to meet 'expected margins' and get cancelled.
I do get what you are saying and yeah, 10 years ago was a different time. But you also gotta look at today. FFXIV has grown exponentially since Endwalker. It has had the most subscribers it has ever had, even the WoW exodus in 2021 added to that playerbase... Hell, Stormblood wasn't as well received either, but look what happened, we got Shadowbringers and Endwalker, which alot of people praise it for. FFXIV saved SE from financial ruin when it became better thanks to Yoshi P. I really doubt they are going to shut it down just because one expansion received mixed reviews or had a slightly smaller playerbase. Heck, FFXI, which came out in 2002 still has subscribers despite not getting a new expansion for almost a decade now....so yes, I do believe FFXIV will be fine.