Quote Originally Posted by XiaoliVorgan View Post
Pretty sure that keeping any player, retention wise, is better than keeping just old players.
It's a common misconception that if your product has a high buy in but low retention that everything is ok because people are still buying it. But what happens when you exhast your resource of new customers?

There are only so many people interested in MMO's in the first place (Don't quote wow numbers it's really an anomally statistically in the MMO genre, as much as developers all want to be it they never will, I doubt even Blizzard will be able to replicate WoW's numbers with Titan)

The "Casual" crowd while large doesn't really have a "Long term" buy in rate, they hit the game when it's new if they like it they play it until they get bored of it and leave. You don't see many casual players picking the game up years after release they are more often than not interested in newer products that have been advertising for their attention rather than a MMO that is a few years old and starting to show it's age.

The hardcore crowd while having a overall lower adoption rate, tend to stick with a game for a long period of time (Often the games entire lifespan) can generate more revenue for the company than 10x the same number of customers who all quit 3 months in.

Having both is the holy (WoW) Grail...but it's never been replicated in the MMO genre after WoW. Most games try to target the casual players, can't retain them and have to resort to alternative methods to bring in money to support the game, as the hardcore player base isn't there to keep them afloat during times of turmoil or during large exoduses of casual gamers.

Hardcore MMO's generally don't see the same numbers but remain profitable over time, hell FFXI was (And still is) Square Enix's most profitable venture in the gaming market. Cry about it's mechanics all you want and paltry subscription numbers, it's heralded as being one of the biggest money makers for Square Enix to this date. FFXIV has alot of time to try and catch up to that number and only time will tell if they happen to make it there, while they try and focus on hardcore and casual players I don't think they will.