TIME: Interview with Yoshi

[SecretCrowds]

4 million accounts? I doubt that, maybe 4 million characters.

4 million registered accounts.

6 of which are mine. Weird people like me buy the game 6 times.

[Starlord]

4 million accounts? I doubt that, maybe 4 million characters.

Edit I should have said 4 Million ACTIVE accounts? Who cares about Registered Accounts. Cause I know a lot of people who played the free trial and that was it for them. It says 4 million Registered account, Registered and Active accounts are two different things. There could be 10 million Registered accounts but if only 1 million are Active that's a big deal. I mean even with less than a million subs SE is still making enough money. SE is shady when it comes to releasing this info, I remember last year around this time there was only like 500k active subs.

While there probably isn't 4 million "active" subs. there is probably at the very least 1 million of those users active. Which is still great considering what Yoshi-P was aiming for 250-300k.

The game is a great success.

[tocsin]

While there probably isn't 4 million "active" subs. there is probably at the very least 1 million of those users active. Which is still great considering what Yoshi-P was aiming for 250-300k.

The game is a great success.

If they have that many active subs, ill eat my boot. asking for a 25% retention rate, with three systems worth of free trials, plus 5-15k accounts banned per week for RMT, is ridiculous.

I would probably say it is closer to 700k-750k.

[Bluevann]

If they have that many active subs, ill eat my boot. asking for a 25% retention rate, with three systems worth of free trials, plus 5-15k accounts banned per week for RMT, is ridiculous.

I would probably say it is closer to 700k-750k.

Last I've read, 4 million read accounts is "across FFXI, DQX and FFXIV". Last I've read, the active accounts are around 500k, though I don't remember if it's JUST on XIV, or across all their MMORPGs again.

Plus, they're counting bots in there too.

[Starlord]

If they have that many active subs, ill eat my boot. asking for a 25% retention rate, with three systems worth of free trials, plus 5-15k accounts banned per week for RMT, is ridiculous.

I would probably say it is closer to 700k-750k.

Well, no one knows how many subs this game has but SE. I am just making an educated guess. having a 25% retention rate from the number 4 million is actually not that ridiculous. 4 million--->1 million, that's a big dip. Only SE knows how many they have, I am merely taking a guess based on the 4 million registered accounts and making a decent deduction ( minus 3 mil) to arrive at 1 million.

Could be 700k like you say, but 1 mil isn't ridiculous :P.

[tocsin]

Could be 700k like you say, but 1 mil isn't ridiculous :P.

I could investigate further, but just to name a single source http://www.ics.uci.edu/~tdebeauv/fil...Wretention.pdf average retention rate of games over 6 months old is 75% quitting in the first month, and 70% of the remaining playerbase left within a year and a half.

That would imply a final retention rate of 7.5%, for the average MMO (WoW, EVE, LOTRO, D&DO). Now, I would assume that FFXIV, being a more casual based MMO, may have a SLIGHTLY higher retention rate, but I wouldnt bet money on the number being higher than 15%.

Based on that number, 600-700k subs sounds about right. if you think about it, since January, we have had a LOT of veteran players become disinterested and move on, especially with the lack of new persistent content for non-casual players (gold saucer is casual content.)

Since 2.5 (now 3 months ago), we havent had a new gear set, new raids, new crafting content, new gathering content, not even so much as a QoL improvement for our RMT spam. Plainly put, there just isnt a lot to do, once you finish capping out your gear, if you arent a fan of minigames.

[Acyd]

The fact he mentioned Red Mage on his own, kinda like a teaser. Made me soooooooooo happy =)

[Drako]

The fact he mentioned Red Mage on his own, kinda like a teaser. Made me soooooooooo happy =)

Ya all I saw in that whole article was Red Mage. If they bring it to XIV, I'm hanging up my other jobs! <3 RDM.

[Alipoprocks]

I don't know if I'm happy or sad about the mention of the spec tree.

[HeavensSword]

I don't know if I'm happy or sad about the mention of the spec tree.

I'm the same way. I read that and just paused a bit, trying to figure out how I would feel if that became a thing in this game. I'd really rather they just try and design the support/hybrid roles.