Game population by the numbers.

[NefarioCall]

I read in a different post that roughly 600,000k people purchased FFXIV, and that less than 30k now remain. For the purposes of this topic, i will consider those numbers as fairly accurate.

I understand that a few angry players will have by now thrown their copy of the game into the trash and vowed never to come back, however i will argue that those people were also most likely to quit no matter how good the game was at launch. I back this up by pointing out they would not have been willing to consider the game would eventually be good. Take for example the 'crowd' that waits for a new franchise product to come out hoping it will be bad so they can flame it. Or lets say, Boston Red Sox fans jeering at the Yankees, but only when the Yankees lose. Or perhaps Red Sox fans who jeer at the Red Sox at every loss.

Okay, enough of that.

The rest still own the game and have accounts. In fact, by the fortune of free play, they can, simply choose at any time to give it another try without even thinking about payments. Has anyone else noticed that every time there is a new patch, or every now and then, the 'Is this game worth playing yet' topics come up?

Is it fair to argue that Final Fantasy is a console brand. That the PS3 sales were, prior to the PC launch, expected to be bigger than the PC sales.

How about the obscene system requirements to play this game at max settings with 30FPS or better in all areas. Does it seem ludicrous, or perhaps hopeful that 600,000 people somehow managed to purchase this game despite that at launch?

Given that FFXI reached about 500,000 at peak, do you think this game will ever better that total. Can it achieve 1 Billion? Of course game quality comes into play on this, but i am quite certain SE will die before they leave this game unfinished. We don't know what kind of quality this game will achieve, but we know that it will eventually reach a state of ridiculously more than it is now.

There are plenty of topics about content and will people come back yadda yadda.
I am discussing numbers. What do you think is realistic? What trends have you noticed with the game so far? What about other MMOs?

I personally believe this game will easily surpass 500,000, but not until sometime next year.

[Abriael]

1 billion? I hope that's a typo lol.

I wouldn't call the system requirements "obscene" by the way. They are pretty much in line with the fact that it has the most detailed graphics in the market (even for the foreseeable future).
I, and I'm sure, quite a few others, am quite happy that there is ONE MMO in the market that actually uses the power of the gaming PC I invested with, instead of having absolutely crappy graphics in order to run on every soccer mom's laptop.

As a final note. I would like to make you aware of the fact that the "30000" figures are entirely arbitrary, based on empyrical ways of gathering data with absolutely no statistical value. The population dropped, and that's a given, but we don't know any numbers that have any solid base. So speculating on them is pretty much like speculating game sales data based on VGcharts. Scratch that, actually on much worse methods than VGchartz (that uses an at least slightly statistically viable method to pull their numbers out of their rear).

[Nephera]

They need to really sell it when they do the ps3 release.

[Skeeter]

Holy assumptions batman.

I understand that a few angry players will have by now thrown their copy of the game into the trash and vowed never to come back, however i will argue that those people were also most likely to quit no matter how good the game was at launch.

Some people would have quit because the game probably wouldn't have been to their taste but not the astronomical amount that did, the game was/is just bad in its current state. The game sucked so they quit, that simple.

I back this up by pointing out they would not have been willing to consider the game would eventually be good

Customers shouldn't have to wait for it to be good. If it wasn't good enough they shouldn't have released it so early. No one will convince me they actually thought this game was good enough for release. People are getting sick of Devs releasing half finished games with plans to patch, the past years of failed MMOs will testify for that. It isn't 2002. If the game isn't playable right out of the box they won't stick around. Look at Rift for christs sake, that game is booming right now, it hasn't even done anything new for the Genre but it was polished and worked.

Take for example the 'crowd' that waits for a new franchise product to come out hoping it will be bad so they can flame it. Or lets say, Boston Red Sox fans jeering at the Yankees, but only when the Yankees lose. Or perhaps Red Sox fans who jeer at the Red Sox at every loss.

Are you serious? You must be in denial. People didn't buy this game hoping it sucked so they can brag about it sucking on forums. They bought this game because they wanted to play in the Final Fantasy universe in a modern MMO. Most of the fanboys of other games will play in open betas and rag on it from that or wait for free trials. Maybe a tiny number of asinine idiots would do that, but that would be such a small number it would be insignificant.

The rest still own the game and have accounts. In fact, by the fortune of free play, they can, simply choose at any time to give it another try without even thinking about payments. Has anyone else noticed that every time there is a new patch, or every now and then, the 'Is this game worth playing yet' topics come up?

That is the boat I am in. I have this game installed and its free to play right now, and I still don't log in and play. It just isn't good right now. I don't even have an active sub to another MMO either. You can tell the game had loads of potential, and still does, I hope it gets realized so I check it out periodically.

Is it fair to argue that Final Fantasy is a console brand. That the PS3 sales were, prior to the PC launch, expected to be bigger than the PC sales.

I don't think so. MMOs are a genre almost exclusive to PC. The Final Fantasy franchise has a rather large fan base but that doesn't mean a lot of them are fans of MMOs, I'd be willing to bet only a small portion are.

How about the obscene system requirements to play this game at max settings with 30FPS or better in all areas. Does it seem ludicrous, or perhaps hopeful that 600,000 people somehow managed to purchase this game despite that at launch?

Tons of developers make this mistake sadly. Though I play this game rather fine on an average system. Phenom II+gtx460 and I get 30-60fps every where @ 1920x1200 resolution.

Given that FFXI reached about 500,000 at peak, do you think this game will ever better that total. Can it achieve 1 Billion?

Gonna assume you meant 1 million, and I highly doubt it. I've never seen an MMO released in really bad shape turn it around and be as big a success as that. Usually they kind of just dwindle with a small player base with slow updates and patches because dev resources get limited. SE has a second chance with the Ps3, if they can manage to make it as successful as FFXI I would consider them lucky, very lucky. If this game hits 500k I would very surprised, it its current state there is no way in hell it does. I would bet ps3 release is about a year off unless SE starts patching at a mad mans pace.

[TonyMontana]

Sometime I feel like I will be the only person left playing with mouse and keyboard.

[Abriael]

Sometime I feel like I will be the only person left playing with mouse and keyboard.

I actually play with joypad/keyboard. While a quite peculiar combination, a joypad compensate the inherent weaknesses of keyboard (mostly related to the lack of analogic controls).

[Shelia]

The only reason I stuck with XIV is because it's free until people are "satisfied", and I want to see how long it takes to improve. Really. To be entirely honest, unless SE gets their butts in gear I'm going to completely drop XIV for Guild Wars 2 once it's released. Now that's a game that looks quality.

I'm very, very disappointed in SE as far as development goes. I've been playing XIV since Alpha last February... and I can tell you right now, this game hasn't made much progress past Beta 1. All the things they are implementing now should have been in the beta phases... not after release. I honestly think it is completely asinine of SE to release XIV in the state it was and not expect negative backlash. The game had no content whatsoever aside from the main storyline and leves at launch. That was it. Nothing else. For being a next-gen MMO, XIV is by far one of the least impressive MMO's I've seen content-wise.

Now, granted... XI and WoW have had a lot of time to develop over the years which is why they have so much more content... but not even XI was this bad at release. I at least had fun with vanilla XI. When I bought XIV I was thoroughly disappointed. I felt like I just paid $50 to continue playing the beta.

Overall, I just think SE rushed the hell out of XIV. If they took an extra 6 months of development and actually listened to feedback, we might not be having this problem.


As far as player numbers go...
I hate to sound like a pessimist, but after Guild Wars 2 and the new Star Wars MMO comes out FFXIV doesn't stand a chance. I think FFXIV's numbers will continue to bomb unless they really pull something amazing off or they keep the game free to play forever (in which case I'd be more than happy to keep playing it).

[Abriael]

Now, granted... XI and WoW have had a lot of time to develop over the years which is why they have so much more content... but not even XI was this bad at release.

Actually XI was in a very, very bad state when it released in Japan. Pretty much comparable to the state in which XIV was released.

I'm actually quite amused about people continually flaunting Guild Wars 2. Nothing solid is known about the game, and people are basing their perspectives about it's quality at release on blind faith alone. And considering NCsoft's track record, that's quite a leap of faith.

[Shelia]

I'm actually quite amused about people continually flaunting Guild Wars 2. Nothing solid is known about the game, and people are basing their perspectives about it's quality at release on blind faith alone. And considering NCsoft's track record, that's quite a leap of faith.

UM sorry to sound like kind of an antagonist... but have you been living under a rock for the past 6 months?! lmfao

ArenaNet has released TONS of info within the past couple of weeks, and they continue to stay in touch with their player base and take feedback.

Here's some recommended reading for you:

http://thevulcanoids.enjin.com/forum...ilation-thread

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_2

http://www.arena.net/blog/andrew-mcl...rafting-in-gw2

http://www.arena.net/blog/pax-east-p...tion#more-4739

http://www.arena.net/blog/norn-week-...ents#more-4524


and that's just stuff I whipped up within 2 mins.

Do some research next time, thx.

[Abriael]

UM sorry to sound like kind of an antagonist... but have you been living under a rock for the past 6 months?! lmfao

ArenaNet has released TONS of info within the past couple of weeks, and they continue to stay in touch with their player base and take feedback.

Have you been under a rock for the 6 months preceeding the release of FFXIV (or of the many games that were released in horrible/disappointing states in the past, like warhammer online, tabula rasa, age of conan and many others)? because they did pretty much the same.

There's no solid information about the quality and polish of the game, nor about the possibility that some mechanics will actually work as intended or even be fun (public quests in warhammer, from which GW2 is copying for their own, sounded awesome on paper, but didn't withstand the test of reality).

If you think you can predict the quality of a game just from PR, then I'm sorry, I see a big delusion here. And delusion normally pairs very fittingly with disappointment. And as I said, the track record of NCsoft is very far from being deserving of blind faith.