Stop Hand-Holding me!

[Abriael]

So, you are afraid to put your money where your mouth is, that's what I am hearing?

I'm just a simple guy, I am not even sure how marketing has anything to do with the whole point! perhaps you should come on the show and enlighten me?

I don't need to go be a clown in a podcast. I'm already trying to enlighten you and be informative on the tricks used by company CEOs to try and give an impression of "success" to their products. Normally the harder they try, the more they have to hide.
And going around flaunting numbers "between paid and free subscribers" (which translates in "I can't really tell you the numbers of paid subscribers, because if I did you'd laugh in my face") and other exceptionally generic data (no clear indication if the amount of income for instance, replaced by "higher than expected") is the perfect indication of that.

EDIT: btw what is it you do for a living?

Contrary to you. I don't feel the need to spell my resume on the internets. Let's just say I work in a field that has given me quite a bit of experience in the topic at hand. You probably should have noticed it by now.

Oh, I forgot to mention. The "Big million" is revenues. Not income. Take operating expenses and taxes off that, and profit must be even more of a pittance. It's doubtless that FFXIV made several times that amount even just with box sales (and mind you, despite that, at the moment FFXIV is NOT a commercial success by any stretch of the imagination).

Again, you're very free to like AO, I personally didn't even dislike it. But between a niche-game being liked by an undisclosed amount of people and a commercial success there's an abyss of difference.