Disaster in the Darkhold

[giftforce]

Many MMO's, even some with excellent launches, will arrive and fail during the time FFXIV continues to grow.
Starcraft, FFXI, WoW and Counterstrike continue to live on.

I fully agree with the poster who pointed out that FFXI had a slow start as well.

I think FFXIV will be the same.
The active user count will slowly rise to a modest plateau of anywhere between 300,000 and 1 million players by about 2014-2017. A combination of new purchases in combo packs, returning users, the PS3 launch, and disgruntled players from other MMO's that live and fail while FFXIV quietly trudges on will stream into the game. Meanwhile Yoshi and co will continue a deeper level of content at a more refined level of awesome.

Meanwhile a modest profit margin from both the more largely developed FFXIV and the small crew on FFXI will allow FFXI to continue operations, even with a dwindling player base. 24 servers may merge into 16, then 8, and maybe even 4. The relative cost however, of upkeep on an aging FFXI, will continue to work in synergy with a naturally dwindling player base. In any likelyhood it will never dwindle entirely, because those that play it will have invested so much time into such a tightly developed game.

I cannot prove my theory in the dawn of the MMO era, but i suggest that in about 10-15 years time, after FFXIV has properly plateaued and dwindled, FFXVII will be the third main FF MMO by Square. It will take the reigns as the primary profit giver (i'm sure they wanted FFXIV to be that sooner, but hey, it goes). FFXIV and FFXI will fall to the background as self sustaining worlds with secondary, but strong development.

My point is this.
I don't think FFXI or FFXIV will ever go offline unless the world ends or SE goes bankrupt.
That is real job security from something that will only get better. I LIKE IT.

Back in the real world...