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

[Illmaeran]

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

I play with ZERO add-ons. Take that and make an assertion as to the quality of the game I...uh.....I dare you....

[Caurcas]

The funny thing is that if SE gave us an offical feedback system the majority of the addon usage would drop overnight.

[Shougun]

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

I mean they have already though, of course I know what you mean by seperating out parser, but like pretty much the entire concept of addons has made it into FFXIV. Even the DBM infamous boss addon, just not as powerful (though WoW's was nerfed too lol).

I'm sure it's a huge pain so "no thanks" says SE, but it would be cool if at least there was a more apple like addon store (over say how android works, the "wow" store). Parsers could only be personal for example (doesn't gauge your party members, maybe could compare to anonymous aggregate data but couldn't display parsing details on your party).

Or no store at all but maybe bolster the UI team a little, they do better than the default of most MMOs but there are still really nice features desired that are possible outside of game but not possible in. Like since someone referenced chat bubble is apparently a thing third party I recently found out apparently also knowing what items you have collected before is also a thing (so you can know if you had that mount, song, or what have you).

[Arillyn]

The funny thing is that if SE gave us an offical feedback system the majority of the addon usage would drop overnight.

SE has already said they aren't going to put parsers in the game, even for just personal use (though as a console player I would like to have that for myself).

[Kranel_San]

I don't. 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. 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. The idea that such an event would come to pass is also pretty outrageous.

I don't particularly care for addons myself since I play on PS4 and can't use any of them but I'm not gonna throw slag at someone using them unless they decide they wanna be an ass first. Even then you usually can't tell who's using and who isn't without them saying so.

Look at ESO to get the answer. While FFXIV will have a bigger population than the consoles population of ESO. The difference will be very big. Idk the percentage myself but if i can estimate anything then i'll say maybe the PC players are 70% of the playerbase?
That's how it felt when I was playing ESO on Consoles before switching to PC. It was Day & Night difference in population to the point i said: "The console's servers are a ghost town compared to this!" when i first tried the PC version.

[Awha]

Die nah but shift to a hybrid Sub / f2p model yeah.

[Wolfsbane706]

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.

The implication is that the PC player base would drop the game, not the other way around.

[Neoyoshi]

This seems like one of those questions a person asks when they are completely bored out of their mind.