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

[Exmo]

4% down from the previous month? D:

[Davixxa]

What is the variable that makes Steam users quit but not PC launcher users? Lol

You can't name one

To be fair, we should be seeing the same kind of drop percentage wise in the LuckyBancho surveys. We don't. It shows a decline yes. But once you factor out changes made to privacy settings on the Lodestone.

To preface this; I'll be using two iterations of the Dawntrail numbers for this from LuckyBancho's surveys. I've translated the images for this thread for reader convenience. I've linked the originals as well.

These numbers cannot by definition go down, as you cannot "unclear" Dawntrail or "unown" the Dawntrail Early Access bonus.

LuckyBancho Numbers as of August 27th, 2024 (https://luckybancho.ldblog.jp/archives/58615522.html) :




LuckyBancho Numbers as of December 29th, 2024 (https://luckybancho.ldblog.jp/archives/58883226.html):




The data isn't 1:1 comparable however, due to changes to how the Lodestone changed privacy settings in 7.0 (according to LuckyBancho). Thankfully, we can adjust for this. We see a drop in players who had Dawntrail Early Access or had cleared Dawntrail between the surveys taken on August 27th 2024 and December 29th 2024.

On August 27th, 2024,

1,092,592 people had Dawntrail Early Access. On December 29th, only 785,035 people had Dawntrail Early Access. I doubt Square Enix gave out 300k refunds of Early Access between 2 months after expansion release and 6 months after expansion release. It's pretty safe to assume these were changes in privacy settings. I would assume this would mean a change in a default for these settings, though, as I also find it hard to believe that 29% of the playerbase changed their privacy settings.

That being said, with the recent things about the account ID third party tool could explain why more people than you'd expect changed their privacy settings.

In total, we see a 28.16% drop in Early Access numbers being counted. As Early Access was long over by August, this number should be constant.

Percentage Drop = [(1,092,592 - 785,035) / 1,092,592] * 100

Percentage Drop ≈ (307,557 / 1,092,592) * 100

Percentage Drop ≈ 28.16%

Ratio = 1,092,592 / 785,035 ≈ 1.39177488902 - This is the factor that we'd need to multiply the December numbers with to get somewhat comparable data.

And sure enough, if we multiply 1,092,592 with 1.39177488902, we get 1,092,592.

So, multiplying the Active player number from December 29th with the factor gives us

1,003,091 * 1.39177488902 = 1,396,076.87 ≈ 1,396,077.

And let's compare this to the August number: 1,440,997.

That is indeed a slight drop. But it's only by 45k players. That's a 3.12% drop. Not a 75% drop like the OP would suggest.

[Red-thunder]

....

Maybe you'll fool amateurs but while 75% is an exaggeration and is more about player activity as it measures concurrency, your method basically rests on a correction factor that assumes every single movement between two samples all boil down to the privacy settings change, which is completely absurd and a nonsensical assumption.

[brinn12]

While we probably did not lose 75% of the playerbase, the loss is still much higher than pointed out by LuckyBancho. Their post is old now, and FFXIV did not release any content since then.

[Davixxa]

your method basically rests on a correction factor that assumes every single movement between two samples all boil down to the privacy settings change, which is completely absurd and a nonsensical assumption.

It doesn't really. Even if we didn't perform the correction at all, we're looking at a ~30% drop. Not 75%. And on top of this, Dawntrail's early access number should be entirely unchanging. If Square Enix were giving refunds for Dawntrail out in the magnitude that the drop in privacy settings, or even 10% of that, and more than 3 months *after* there would have been an announcement.

I STRONGLY doubt they gave out over 100k refunds over the course of a month (data from November 4th)



Do you really think it's realistic that in 7 months, they gave out 300k refunds? That's ~43k refunds a month. Even half that sounds absurd.

There's three ways this number can change:

1. More people preorder Dawntrail (physically impossible given that both samples were after the Early Access period - also won't ever cause a decrease)

2. People get a refund of Dawntrail - and thus also get Wind-Up Zidane removed from their account. This is unlikely, as this would mean at least a €8,400,000 loss in revenue (assuming a 70/30 split between publisher and platform - at Square Enix's size, they probably get a better cut, meaning even more money lost). And this is assuming nobody among those refundees bought the collector's edition, and nobody bought it from the Square Enix store. To be frank, that estimate is a low ball, and quite frankly I wouldn't be surprised if that would be an existential level threat to CS3 if not Square Enix as a whole.

3. People change their privacy settings en masse. Normally, I'd also count this as unlikely, but considering there have been aggravating circumstances for this as of late, I'd feel pretty confident in attributing the majority of the drop to this.

Just to remind you what Occam's Razor is: "of two competing theories, the simpler explanation of an entity is to be preferred."

The first explanation is the simplest, but it is also one which does not pertain to decreases, and as such, would be cut by the razor.

The second relies on the assumption that Square Enix is willing to give out refunds to Dawntrail, that people actually want to refund Dawntrail (tbf, sentiment does suggest yes), and that 100s of thousand players actually did that.

The third relies on the assumption that hundreds of thousands of players changed their privacy settings of which there are aggravating circumstances to suggest to be true.

Don't get me wrong, but even 10% of the players getting a refund would represent a large loss in revenue for CS3. I just don't see the same company known for releasing multiple gacha games refunding millions of euros worth of sales or even close to a million.

[Hallarem]

Honestly, if money is the only thing they listen to, I hope it keeps dropping.

[Red-thunder]

It doesn't really

Is this the first time you're using LB? They revise their figures retroactively all the time, and the most recent period often gets retroactively adjusted in the neighborhood of 20-30%.

[Manamaru]

Look on the bright side. 75% player loss might mean the housing situation might open up to people that want it, right? Right?

[AshtonCrowe]

And we will lose more, They ain't learning.

The "GreatCommunityBtw" players are still coping, Hurr de durr! Steam doesn't even have 1% of the playerbase DURR DEE HURRRRRR

And where do you get those numbers from? Cause SE doesn't publicly release active playernumbers whenever requested. When they do you get the highest number they can get away with.

Aside from exploration zone and new crafting they're forcefeeding more of the same stuff nobody wants from Dawntrail, And forcing the Dev Self Insert OC into story even more, Lamat from Dawntrail alone has equivalent voicelines to Alphinaud from ARR -> Dawntrail.

[AshtonCrowe]

Look on the bright side. 75% player loss might mean the housing situation might open up to people that want it, right? Right?

I wouldn't even care that we were bleeding players if SE got off their butt and fused Dynamis into Aether or Crystal. You can't sell anything on Dynamis unless you severely undercut and even then you're at the mercy of someone just popping in to find a good deal.