Part of me wonders if SE CEO is being pressured by shareholders due to the events of last month.

I don't know how SE's sales actually have been but I get a bad feeling like they can't have been good, and that over the critical Christmas month.

Misfortune the first: There are probably basically no EW post sales, because of the freeze out on new user accounts (plus all those folks who friends had just about convinced to join XIV, then hesitated just a little too long because of the queue hell, then found they could no longer register).

Misfortune the second: Unlike most game pre orders, EW pre orders probably did precious little for the critical Christmas sales period, because most people paid for them months ago in order to get the pre-order earring etc., meaning, I assume, that those sales counted for the summer, not for December.

Misfortune the third: I'd guess anything that Fantasia sales, the traditional XIV whale vehicle, probably took a nose dive since EW launch despite the introduction of the much wanted Bunny Boys, because the fact that you must log out to use one alone put (and still probably puts on some of the most congested servers like Gilgamesh and Cactuar) a severe damper on doing so. Some RPers are known to use multiple Fanta a day, but that's definitely not happening when you have to get back into a 3000+ queue every time, and that's assuming the game even LETS you use the appearance change (as noted in another thread, if the server decides when you queue up that you don't get to see your character, you don't get to do the appearance edit either!).

Misfortune the fourth: It's Steam Sale season, so most of the OTHER games in SE's catalog are only being sold at half price or so. Not like they can really pull out of the Steam sale either, if they want people to even buy anything at all ...

Misfortune the fifth: This basically leaves FF7R on Epic as almost their main full price offering right now, and many people are already mad about the $70 price tag, being forced to use Epic, or both ...

Assuming all these are as stated -

Shareholders to CEO: WHERE. IS. MY. MONEY!!!!!!!!!!!!! What are you going to do to get more MONEY!!!!!!!