only 500k subscribers?

[ShiloEET]

Those numbers ARE abysmal! What a disgrace!

[Haze4dayz]

As a shareholder i'm disappointed how little marketing this game gets.

[greekgeek]

Those numbers are almost a year old, they are from march. Read the article.

[Magis]

Those numbers are almost a year old, they are from march. Read the article.

Read the article, they got an update from SE and they confirmed that's still the case.

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/squar...ribers/0143457

Updated: These MMO figures actually come from an original financial report that was filed on March 31st, 2014. Square Enix tells MCV that the actual number of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn paying subscribers sits at 500,000, with over 2.5m registered users. These numbers do not include the game's performance in China, which charges Chinese gamers on a per-minute pay model. A Realm Reborn will launch in Korea in 2015.

[MasamuneBranford]

Read the article, they got an update from SE and they confirmed that's still the case.

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/squar...ribers/0143457

Exactly what I've been trying to say. People don't know how to read. The 500k figure and the 2.5m registered users figures weren't in the annual report. Those numbers come from an interview in January that merely "discussed" the annual report.

How do we know that the 500k is a current statistic? Because the 2.5M number listed with it is a current statistic. FFXIV didn't hit 2.5M registered users until December of 2014:
http://ap.ign.com/final-fantasy-xiv-...ses-25-million

On March 31, 2014 - the ps4 version wasn't even released yet. Ignore the annual report - you should be looking at the qutoe Magis provides.

[FrogDog]

It makes me wonder where the MMO market is. Granted, I've only been subscribed for a total of 3 months (just recently decided to give the game a try again) but what kept me away was my old PC was having graphics driver crashes that made it too risky for me to do group content. I've always thought the game itself is pretty solid and fun to play - certainly deserving of more subscribers.

F2Ps haven't caught my interest in the same way and ESO and Wildstar seem to have bombed. So what are people playing other than WoW?

[Magis]

It makes me wonder where the MMO market is. Granted, I've only been subscribed for a total of 3 months (just recently decided to give the game a try again) but what kept me away was my old PC was having graphics driver crashes that made it too risky for me to do group content. I've always thought the game itself is pretty solid and fun to play - certainly deserving of more subscribers.

F2Ps haven't caught my interest in the same way and ESO and Wildstar seem to have bombed. So what are people playing other than WoW?

The MMO market was never suppose to have these huge numbers. MMOs didn't have these giant subscription rates until WoW came out. Most of these people aren't MMO players, rather they are WoW players, so this is just seeing the slowdown of the genre after WoW became boring and/or people are getting bored of it. Before WoW, 500K was huge for an MMO, and is why Everquest and FFXI were considered "successful" until WoW. Still, marketing and businessmen saw the money Blizzard was raking in so of course tried to copy the formula and then were bewildered why their shitty MMO didn't get 1+ million and went F2P.

Where are these people going? Not to new MMOs, they are playing their singleplayer/multiplayer games. It doesn't matter how much another MMOs copies WoW, it will never beat the original since well... it's a copy. That and how many times can you play WoW with another skin on it before you get bored of it?

[MilesSaintboroguh]

All this talk about sales and numbers reminds me of the console plebs who always act tough on the video game playground by trying to prove their console sells more than the other.

[StrejdaTom]

Like I really care, if there wasn't a WoW with it's 10 millions we would have F2P MMOs with 100K players, FF with 500K and maybe ESO with 600K? Stop looking at WoW as a measure in subscription based MMO market and you will find out that FFXIV is doing just about fine.

When we will have to wait whole day in queue for low level dungeons and stuff, then there is a time for doomsaying.

[Magis]

All this talk about sales and numbers reminds me of the console plebs who always act tough on the video game playground by trying to prove their console sells more than the other.

It's not a dick waving contest like consoles... it's general worry of the health of an MMO. Maybe for some they don't give a shit cause they only play during patch releases, but sub numbers directly tie to if a MMO will survive the long term. Those that want to play a single MMO for years on out hope for large numbers and steady or climb subscriptions, so that the game doesn't die in it's first or second year (and as a person burned by many MMOs that did just that, I definitely look at sub rates).

I think it burst a few people's bubbles when SE was touting 2.5 million registered users and they assumed active subs, then all of a sudden it's shown the number was in fact 500K.