Quote Originally Posted by Y2K21 View Post
The issue with this line is that there is no separation between a Retail and a Classic subscription -- it is all one subscription. Basing it off outside math (in this case Reddit) -- doesnt necessarily mean anything when there is no way to validate if a subreddit follower is an active sub. What also constitutes to an active player under the math of MMO-Population?

It is why it is questionable when MMO-Population has two different metrics for player counting: Top MMO (which supposedly is how many active players) and MMO Growth (which is supposedly the growth of players over 30 days -- both spout two different numbers with MMO Growth being literally the subreddit number just being used to show population count.

These are the issues that website has when they choose to no longer publish how they get their estimations. Because at the moment, MMO-P shows that FF14 has 2.5 million players but on their Growth page which supposedly shows "Growth in players over a 30 day period" it drops to sub-500k. We can double check and see that the growth number is from the FF14 main subreddit.

So the main question remains: where is 2.5 million coming from? What is the math they do to achieve that number?
IMHO I only use MMO-Pop to figure out basic interest and numbers. Their graphs are pretty accurate in regards to player retention (WoW is known to have a rollercoaster whereas XIV is known to have a pretty steady line of retention.) However their actual numbers are pretty sketch. Only use them as a base model.