TIME: Interview with Yoshi

[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.