FFXIV Population this small really? wtf?

[Saccharin]

It kind of bugs me that they make claims about the game having 14 million players when only around 2-3% of that figure actively plays the game and 80-90% of it are just RMT accounts that have long since been banned.

I think that's an acumilative total since ARR launch.

Yes, it's registered players, ie people who have bought the game, played for a while then quit. Retention in MMOs is very hard.

SE have never given out their concurrent player values just words like it's increased with X expansion or it's bigger than ever.

The latest figure from Google is 18 million last December. But... how many are still playing. A million maybe at most. Still very good!