FF14 player count reached the lowest point in 4 years. We lost 75% of the playerbase.

[gw1fan]

As of august 2024, there were 42181 players on average playing the game on steam, as of today we are at 16481 which is a decrease of 60%. (and yes steam is a big enough sample)

While about 95k peak players is a large enough sample to be significant, is it a REPRESNETATIVE sample? It's hard to get exact numbers, but Steam has only recently started growing in JP, mainly with Steam Deck adoption which XIV is playable on SD but not optimized. Therefore, my interpretation is Steam users are more likely to be NA players than any other region which does not match the estimated population distribution between regions. Thus, the Steam numbers are more likely to reflect the highly fluctuating NA population than an overall trend slightly more accurately depicted in the Lucky Bancho chart which displays the 28% shift

[Red-thunder]

or maybe.. the servers where collapsing and people weren't playing due to the multitude of issues preventing them?

Is this actually for real right now

Other than the high graphics requirement are you seriously saying people didn't play 1.0 because of server issues

We have gone so far that forum white knights are now saying that 1.0 was actually a success and people didn't play only because the servers kept crashing.

I think I need a moment, I'm like actually dazed for real

[Divinemights]

Isn't Steam a bad indicator for FF14 since Japanese is heavily on PS5 and a lot of players do not like Steam-SE restriction and play on non Steam PC version?
Steam also not a good indicator
Most of Steam players are made up by non FF14 fan or wow refugee who got attracted during last expansion
If you are saying we lost 75% of WoW Refugees, that I would agree.

[Clockworks]

Isn't Steam a bad indicator for FF14 since Japanese is heavily on PS5 and a lot of players do not like Steam-SE restriction and play on non Steam PC version?
Steam also not a good indicator
Most of Steam players are made up by non FF14 fan or wow refugee who got attracted during last expansion
If you are saying we lost 75% of WoW Refugees, that I would agree.

"steam is not the entire population so it's not a good indicator"

"lucky bancho is not a good indicator because it doesnt include every single character that is playing now and has been playing since 1.0"

[PercibelTheren]

While about 95k peak players is a large enough sample to be significant, is it a REPRESNETATIVE sample? It's hard to get exact numbers, but Steam has only recently started growing in JP, mainly with Steam Deck adoption which XIV is playable on SD but not optimized. Therefore, my interpretation is Steam users are more likely to be NA players than any other region which does not match the estimated population distribution between regions. Thus, the Steam numbers are more likely to reflect the highly fluctuating NA population than an overall trend slightly more accurately depicted in the Lucky Bancho chart which displays the 28% shift

I think if anything, Steam is likely to be EU players because consoles, broadly speaking, are not as common here as they are over in the US, where I assume a lot more people play on PS or, recently, Xbox. Japan is only a small chunk of the playerbase, though. Most of it is the other regions. SE may not care but it's a significant drop either way.

[hydralus]

Who here hates every aspect of the game?

I for one love many aspects of the game, but I’m here complaining a lot, you know why?…………..because square never fixes anything

Sure, that's you, but then we have people who have said they hate the story, they hate the battle content, they feel everything is a grind, they feel the devs don't listen, and yet they still pay their monthly subscription. It boggles the mind. If you like some parts of the game and feel it needs improvements then hey, that's great. But someone who hasn't found a reason to log in for the last 3 months I wonder what the Hell they were doing the last 7 years.

[Oizen]

"steam is not the entire population so it's not a good indicator"

"lucky bancho is not a good indicator because it doesnt include every single character that is playing now and has been playing since 1.0"

Sample sizes aren't real. Its all just propaganda, please stay sub, please buy mogstation

[Striker44]

As of august 2024, there were 42181 players on average playing the game on steam, as of today we are at 16481 which is a decrease of 60%. (and yes steam is a big enough sample)

Sample size can be relatively small (1000 people or less) and still be quite accurate at predicting general trends, or it can be relatively large (over 100k people) and be next to worthless for making predictions. What matters is whether the sample you are looking at is statistically random or not. Unless we can confirm that people playing the game truly choose the method they use in a way that would be considered "random" (and/or that the "profile" of Steam gamers matches the profile of those who use other login methods), then it doesn't matter how "large" the sample is - it's next to worthless.

[Ath192]

Sample size can be relatively small (1000 people or less) and still be quite accurate at predicting general trends, or it can be relatively large (over 100k people) and be next to worthless for making predictions. What matters is whether the sample you are looking at is statistically random or not. Unless we can confirm that people playing the game truly choose the method they use in a way that would be considered "random" (and/or that the "profile" of Steam gamers matches the profile of those who use other login methods), then it doesn't matter how "large" the sample is - it's next to worthless.

Serious question for people like you, who refuse to accept what is an obvious truth to most of us (That steam users are regular people who behave like any regular gamer), Why does the "profile" of Steam gamers NOT match the profile of those who use other login methods?

The thing is the world I live in is a world where I and most others use common sense. So if I see the store half empty, and I have the statistic of mastercard credit card holders telling me the store is half empty, even though I don't have the data for VISA and CASH users I am fairly certain the store is half empty. But here you are, arguing it's not. Thus, instead of just denying the truth we can all see, can you provide conclusive evidence that we shouldn't believe the obvious?

[gw1fan]

I think if anything, Steam is likely to be EU players because consoles, broadly speaking, are not as common here as they are over in the US, where I assume a lot more people play on PS or, recently, Xbox. Japan is only a small chunk of the playerbase, though. Most of it is the other regions. SE may not care but it's a significant drop either way.

Good points. Like I mentioned, there's no real way to tell what regions those Steam numbers are capturing an in what proportions, so I will admit that it could be some combination of EU and NA that is unknown. However, I would like you to know that Japan is the second largest population of the XIV player base, so unless you were referring to Japan being smaller player base on Steam, this point I have to contest.

Looking at the raw numbers by server that includes totals per region in Lucky Bancho's data, only 40k of the estimated 437k that have been marked "inactive" were in JP servers. The largest population shifts were in NA servers, Gilgamesh alone losing 3.6k. For comparison, the first closest JP server in decline was Tonberry with a loss of 1.7k.