1 million active players, but how many of them are bots and alts?

[Naoki34]

I don't know and I don't care, I just know that I've been real and active since 2016.

Because I have a house in Shirogane and I like playing there at least a few days a week, if not all week.

[Jeeqbit]

given how FF14's STF is the epitome of ineptness, and given how the bot problem is getting worse and worse when people do less and less content, can we really say that the game has "grown"?

I daresay that most of the player "growth" is actually driven by bots. A good guess would be that 30-40% of the 1 million "active" players are indeed bots and alts.

I daresay that some of them make forum accounts too.

[ZephyrMenodora]

Haven't brought this bad boy out in a while.

[Rolder50]

Don't forget people logging in exclusively to afk in a night club! They might as well count as bots.

[Striker44]

quick question. Why do you care?

I think it's a simple answer - this particular personality of his only knows how to doomsay, and all of his recent attempts at doing so have been thoroughly refuted with real data showing how the game is continuing to grow. I'd say he's given up pushing the lie about the game failing based on the number of players, and is now shifting to acting as if it's failing because there are bots. But without anything to support the idea that there are a greater portion of bots now compared to in the past, it's also meaningless.