Quote Originally Posted by Jeeqbit View Post
The problem with the 1.7m stat is that it was a spike that didn't hold since it was riding off the back of the game going viral. It fell down to more like 1.4m ish after that.

I agree that the long-term concurrent population of the game has grown by about 200k every expansion (more in EW), but in order to properly see that with Dawntrail we really need a longer term view, not this short term view. For example, what will it look like at 7.2? Etc.

If we're comparing stats to the past - literally a time when Covid was more relevant, then yes it's relevant, and it's being in denial of this fact to not consider it.
The spike didn't hold because the game didn't hold people's interest. The game "went viral" in 2021. It seems silly to try to attribute changes in player behaviour in late 2024 to that.

This was 6.0 to 6.1:



Obviously player numbers fell off after the expansion released but people came back for 6.1 and stuck around for a solid month afterwards.

This is 7.0 to 7.1:



You can barely even see where 7.1 is on the chart. Hardly anyone came back and a lot of them left after only 2 days.

Trying to suggest that there are fewer people playing games post-COVID just doesn't work when FFXIV achieved its all time peak player count in 2024. WoW is sitting pretty at 7m active players. OSRS just broke its own concurrent player record in November. Counter-Strike 2 has 1.5m concurrent players every day.

Why does FFXIV seem to be the only game in existence that is somehow still experiencing long-term effects of COVID?