TIME: Interview with Yoshi

[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.

[Starlord]

-snip-

That is only if this game is like WoW ( as it would seem the site you provided is talking about WoW only ( granted I am not reading all the small print, as I am not about to read a contract worth of info lol). WoW also has/had 10 million active subs at one point. FFXIV had 4 million accounts (that people are trying the game out to see if they like it.) Naturally there is always a "fall off" phase where after there free trial is up, you will see people leaving because the game isn't worth it to them. Is it really 70%? From the link provided this is showing only 1 game.

Every game is different, has different sub numbers/accounts, That has to be taken into account.

Anyways, like I said, no one really knows but SE, The game is a success with your 700k or my 1 million, both are successful numbers in SE eyes.

Edit: Also, people do take breaks and come back in a month or 2 and stay for 3-4 months then take another 2 month break.

It's hard to really accurately see the retention rate of a MMO. People come, people go, new players join and stay, others find it not appealing.