So SE has officially stated their MMO profits have tanked.

[BlisteringFrost]

That's true, but I want to give you some context here to explain why this decline isn't related to post-Covid.

1. Every expansion has grown by a persistent population of around 200,000 or more, especially since Stormblood. Stormblood likely benefitted from a huge amount of marketing, since the game was still not as mainstream as it could be then.
2. Shadowbringers catapulted it into the mainstream between its epic trailer, a WoW exodus that began in their "BfA" expansion and continued into further expansions due to the disturbing press. To this day, a lot of current players started in Shadowbringers. The gains, however, were relatively consistent with Stormblood's.
3. Covid did not have much impact throughout 2020. There were just the normal patch spikes and that's it.
4. In February/March 2021, the game went viral due to the Blizzard scandal and everyone fleeing to FFXIV, which culminated in Asmongold finally deciding to play. So intense was this gain, that we have yet to surpass it. It was easily the game's peak population. And it had nothing to do with Covid whatsoever.
5. Endwalker maintained gains, often double what we normally get from an expansion release. Up from the 900k in Shadowbringers, we didn't just settle on 1.1 million, we often reached levels of around 1.4 million, due in part that it was the "end of the arc" and over 50% of former players returned at some point or another to see the end of the story (source: % of past players with Endwalker minion on collection sites). But it was obviously in part due to it going viral and Asmongold. By the end of Endwalker, we were long past Covid and could no longer attribute 1.1+ million to Covid.
6. Dawntrail release very nearly reached the peak it did when Asmongold played. It seemed as if the standard expansion gains in Endwalker (of at least 1.1 million) were going to permanently increase to 1.3 million or so, because each expansion usually grows the game that much.
7. That didn't happen. The game has shot down to Shadowbringers levels of around 900k.

And we don't need to say why, do we? Despite all the complaints and pessimism, people returned for Dawntrail, then immediately dropped the population below Endwalker's extremely stable population levels - because people obviously were not happy with the Dawntrail story. And they have struggled with difficulty that is not catered to a wide range of difficulty levels, that SE are trying to solve starting with Pilgrim's Traverse.

Your break down is enlightening, I'm one of the Shadowbringers babies because I never even thought to try this until then when people started yapping a lot more about FFXIV. So my perspective is naturally tilted a bit when it comes to how things were and how they felt prior. I can only go off what I'm told.

[Mecia]

The mogstation slop will continue until profits improve

[Haru304]

I can only imagine the feeling of playing in a world where nations mattered, everyone had their own thing. The possibilities of adventure from land to land. Now everything is just a blob of boring peace called the Eorzean Alliance where they casually forgot they had issues in their own nations.

And when its time to adventure? Why bother. Sharlayan the writer pet nation KNOWS everything. Has DISCOVERED everything and has a spaceship that shouldve been IMPOSSIBLE to build. WHY do we even bother anymore as the WoL? We have space bunnies that can do CREATION MAGIC. Endwalker ruined this games world so badly

Consequences, friction and world building? What? You're crazy. That'd never sell.

[Reolio]

100% agree.

YoshiP should be ashamed of himself for pushing raid mechanics into MSQ-required 4-man NORMAL dungeons to pander to vocal streamers.

And for hiring clearly unqualified writers to take up the torch of a beloved franchise that built its reputation on the writing.

Of all the ways to cut corners and cheap out, they picked the two absolute WORST for the long-term profitability and reputation of the IP.

Gating non-raiders out of the base game MSQ if they don't prog through Twitch streamer raid mechanics is unforgivable.

I would really like to know what you mean by "Raid-Like mechanics" in normal content? I've done all of the new stuff and its as standard as it gets, its the stuff we've been doing since ARR, none of this is anything close to what raiding actually has to offer

[Gwenkatsu]

I would really like to know what you mean by "Raid-Like mechanics" in normal content? I've done all of the new stuff and its as standard as it gets, its the stuff we've been doing since ARR, none of this is anything close to what raiding actually has to offer

Some people are struggling with the new dungeons, there are more then enough threads about it.
Nothing special, just follow this forum's lofty standard and call them whiny crybabies.

[EusisLandale]

I would really like to know what you mean by "Raid-Like mechanics" in normal content? I've done all of the new stuff and its as standard as it gets, its the stuff we've been doing since ARR, none of this is anything close to what raiding actually has to offer

Being very generous here guessing that maybe they're just referring to splitting the party as "raid mechanics", along the lines of Atomos or the Superior Flight Unit trio.
Because if it isn't that, I've got nothing.

[Rinoa_353]

The biggest problem is having bean counters running things, all they care about is profits and it has affected all major gaming studios. When the top were actual gamers, the games were great, it's why I consider the 90s and 00s the golden age of gaming in terms of creativity and more. It was in this period when Final Fantasy was at it's best in terms of storytelling and more. They need to bring true gamers back to the top, I hate when gaming studios are taken over by bean counters who could care less about the quality of games made as long as they are profitable. Don't get me wrong, profits are always good but when it's the sole focus, it has led to the games feeling bland and more when it's missing the love of gaming during it's development. SE needs to stop taking money away from this game and tell the other divisions to make good games without taking money from FFXIV that has suffered from the lack of funding. I want this game to succeed and SE needs to give it the money it has rightfully earned.

[LyrisAdamanteia]

A lot of people in this thread just looking at numbers without the context. The context being that its YoY, that is the numbers are compared to the same time last year. What happened the same time last year? We had a major expansion release. This year? We have a patch release. Of course the numbers aren't going to be growing, its typical for mmos to lose profitability and playerbase over a patch cycle only to rebound when the big expansion comes out. We all know that one player who unsubs as soon as the expansion is done and then you don't see them until a month before the new one when they rush through the patch content. Especially for a game like this that's dependent on msq players.

[Ephremjlm]

If we are here commenting, regardless of our feelings towards the game, or our personal preferences about how the game should operate, I think ALL of us want the game to get better and we don't want it to die.

That said, to date these are things we know based on what has been admitted by Yoshi P. and/or the team.
1. Some of their proven top creative leadership and have been working on other projects and they haven't been able to replace them.
2. They have expanded their teams but don't have the required new leadership to manage them properly while keeping creative fresh.
3. They have blatantly ignored current player feedback for years (assuming that those who comment on forums, reddit, or even FB groups are arguably the most invested)
4. They have successfully attracted many audiences, but have spread the game too thin.
4a. They cannot keep with with either the proper volume or quality of the content need for all of the audiences they have attracted.
4b. They forgot the golden rule that games made for everyone are inherently made for no one.
5. The team seems overwhelmed as though we have seen the team size increase, we have seen the amount of content go down since development on ff16 started, now the complete remake of tactics, and others.
5a. Really weird bugs, and mistakes are making it through, so much so that Yoshi P. had to admit it. (recently the spell speed instead of skill speed comes to mind)
5b. Creative content like OC comes out feeling less complete or fulfilling, like in the instance of forked tower. Play testing would have revealed that.

Don't hold me word to word on this one as it is just off the top of my head, and there are probably more examples/points to pull from. But I think most of us can agree that the direction of the game at this point is questionable. I think maybe for everyone except for maybe a small handful of players.

[Absurdity]

I can only imagine the feeling of playing in a world where nations mattered, everyone had their own thing. The possibilities of adventure from land to land. Now everything is just a blob of boring peace called the Eorzean Alliance where they casually forgot they had issues in their own nations.

And when its time to adventure? Why bother. Sharlayan the writer pet nation KNOWS everything. Has DISCOVERED everything and has a spaceship that shouldve been IMPOSSIBLE to build. WHY do we even bother anymore as the WoL? We have space bunnies that can do CREATION MAGIC. Endwalker ruined this games world so badly

Don't forget everything being ancients all along.

The Allagan Empire? Ancients. Garlemald? Ancients. The gods? Ancients. Preservation and consequently the entire reason we had conflict with Alexandria? Ancients. Yes, I am technically equating Ascians and Ancients here because what are the Ascians at their core?
I honestly can't remember but I wouldn't be surprised if the War of the Magi was caused by the ancients in some form as well.

Having a highly advanced civilization that fell to ruin hundreds of years in the past can be interesting, it's what initially made Allag so interesting in the early days of XIV.
But when that civilization is responsible for every conspiracy, every antagonist, every major event in the history of the world? It becomes stupid.

And to a certain extent it also kills my sense of adventure, because wherever we set foot in the future it's just going to be ancients again.

Endwalker really is the gift that keeps on giving.