Do you think the game would die without the PC playerbase?

[wereotter]

PS4 support will likely die with Endwalker. Consoles always hold things back eventually.

Two things here:

1 - They would have announced that PS4 support would be getting dropped with Endwalker if it was. Also, they wouldn't be selling licenses to play the game on PS4. So absolutely the game will NOT be ending it's support for that console at the time you say. Additionally as hard as it still is to get a PS5, it would be functionally equivalent to dropping console support in near entirety.

2 - The developers themselves has stated plainly that consoles have been more than capable of running everything they put in the game starting with the PS4 and continuing into the PS5. AND the developers stated that it's PCs they're trying to continue supporting that have been holding back development. Not everyone playing on PC is playing on the best gaming build. In fact many I know are just playing on basic laptops, which are worse at running the game than either of the currently supported consoles.

[Kes13a]

I doubt they would ever drop pc's, a majority of mmo players are on pc, just my opinion there.

what they may do, is drop support for ancient operating systems.

which is a huge difference from dropping pc's completely.

[Greyhawk]

Third-party and software add-ons in a game don't make or break a game. The game does that. Whoever said that to you OP is an honest to God potato and has no rational thinking. Sounds like more of a masochist who just loves to hear the sound of their own voice.

[Kes13a]

Third-party and software add-ons in a game don't make or break a game. The game does that. Whoever said that to you OP is an honest to God potato and has no rational thinking. Sounds like more of a masochist who just loves to hear the sound of their own voice.

yeah, after the years of playing an addon heavy game, its nice to not have to load 50 addons to make the game remotely playable.

if anything, the number of needed addons is directly proportional to how bad the game really is in terms of ease of player use

[MsQi]

Dead: no

End of the game as we know it: yes

Edit: Eliminating Addons/Mods will not eliminate the PC Playerbase.

[ForteNightshade]

PS4 support will likely die with Endwalker. Consoles always hold things back eventually.

The PS4 and especially PS5 are more powerful than most low end PCs. If anything were holding the game make, it's the fact they still support toasters.

[MsQi]

The Playstation (1) is more powerful than low end PCs depending on how you define Low End.

You can make a game that runs well on a wide range of PCs. You can support the bleeding edge and still run well on 10 year old systems. Consoles are a fixed point though. ARR was a massive downgrade graphically from the original and the game still isn't at that level 10 years later.

[ItMe]

Anyway, the question comes from the occasional person who claims the game would die if certain things were to happen regarding third-party software and add-ons.

I earnestly do not understand how anything add-on related could kill the PC player base, especially since this game doesn't need add-ons at all (unless, arguably, you're talking about 3rd party /perform support).

But to answer your question: I don't think so either.
There are successful MMO out there with a smaller player base than what FF14 has on console alone.
If the PC players all left (and didn't swap to console, just... left) the game would radically change with such a drop in revenue, but saying it would die is just silly.

[Ronduwil]

Considering the game's hefty PS4 playerbase, I'm inclined to disagree, although implying that the entire PC playerbase would quit is probably more than a bit of an exaggeration.

Honestly, if the support for PC was dropped, I would eventually quit FFXIV. Not out of protest, but simply because I'm not going to buy a PS5 just to play FFXIV. I already have a PS3 and a PS4 that haven't been fired up in ages. Even in their heyday only my kids would play them, and then only on occasion. Plus, I've already bought the game and its expansions on Windows, and the wonky FFXIV sales model dictates that I would have to repurchase the full versions of the game again just to play them from a different media. No, thanks. You're living a privileged existence if you honestly believe that the vast majority of PC owners have several hundred dollars to spare for a gaming console. A PC serves multiple purposes: school work, household management, work, and finally entertainment. The PS4 is strictly for entertainment.

All that aside, cutting yourself off from a huge chunk of your existing player base after you've already endured the pain of enabling multi-platform support for your game is simply a colossally stupid business decision. As far as what-if scenarios go, this is one of the most improbable ones.

[Altera]

Why would it lose the PC playerbase? I do find it laughable that someone thinks the entire PC playerbase would leave if we couldn't have 3rd party shinies. Plenty of us on PC don't touch that stuff.

Agreed. I have played this game for 10 years now and I even dreaded when i heard people found a way to get DPSmeters and other mods to XIV as i always hated pretty much being forced to use certain types of addons or i wasnt able to raid. I do not want those addons to make its way into XIV too