only 500k subscribers?

[AckersFury]

500k only sounds low because people compare it to WoW which is an anomaly, SE are still making millions per month in subs + cash shop and other things, game will be supported for many many years to come, just look at XI

[Tiggy]

And they got their source from Polygon, which got their source since March of 2014...

This guy has a point. Those numbers don't take into account most of 2014. That article isn't relevant to today's numbers. If anything it shows FFXIV has had a steady and slightly growing player base since then when compared to the other reddit threads that used lodestone to try and figure it out.

[Erudain]

Great... pay by hour sounds like a cool idea actually.

Come to think of it, with the Korean version coming this year..

So you guys think we can actually bypass Fantaisa potions and alter our character's face ingame? Prermanently of course. (>_>...

No, it's not, check some of the old Korean MMOs and you'll see why (Aion, Lineage, Blade & Soul, etc).
Pay by minute is the most common subscription plan in South Korea, the games are extremely grindy either by repetition or RNG, the objective of course is making you pay and play the longest possible.
Imagine ATMAs with 10% de drop rate it originally had (not the new drop rates), or needing to do 50 books instead of 9, or even more common.....needind 100 jillion XP to get one level.

[Kyomagi]

not sure how this matters. Even at 500k @ the minimum $9.99 legacy price thats roughly $5mil. Obviously you have R&D and other expense, but that is not including china anyway.

But even if the game had 10m subscribers, you would not be seeing 98% of them anyway. The game at its current level is fine.

[Ahmbor]

And they got their source from Polygon, which got their source since March of 2014...

THIS!!! This guy is right!

[Elusana_Celah]

Lol @ pay per minute / hour subscriptions. Thank god the NA population would vastly reject and boycott such a system. I would NEVER pay for that. How can people allow themselves to be ripped off by RNG / grindy gameplay while paying by the minute/hour??? I'm really confused at the stupidity of consumers... I mean the money making scheme is so obvious lol.

[StrejdaTom]

Lol @ pay per minute / hour subscriptions. Thank god the NA population would vastly reject and boycott such a system. I would NEVER pay for that. How can people allow themselves to be ripped off by RNG / grindy gameplay while paying by the minute/hour??? I'm really confused at the stupidity of consumers... I mean the money making scheme is so obvious lol.

Also the time spent in game with such payment model would be like second job. I highly doubt we would spent our times forming fat chocobosquare in Mordhona or dancing in Limsa Lominsa.
I have also heard that it is expensive AF.

[Evangela]

Is it 500k "active" subscribers? if so, it's impressive.

[Xystic]

Is it 500k "active" subscribers? if so, it's impressive.

Its definitely enough to make Famfrit, once a low population server, to see the "Queue in line screen" for the last 3 weeks or so.

[MasamuneBranford]

500k is likely the correct current active-subscriber number. I agree that the 1,000,000 between FFXI, FFXIV and Dragon Quest X came from a fiscal year 14 report (fiscal year ending 3/31/14) and therefore should not be deemed a current figure.

However - see the update:

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.

The 2.5M registered users is a current figure (there were less than 2.5M registered users at 3/31/14 as the PS4 version hadn't even been released). Therefore I think it's safe to assume that the 500k number is also a current figure.