Quote Originally Posted by Ath192 View Post
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-There's a danger in just apparently referencing one random article on a game and acting as if it's necessarily telling an accurate story. Poke around practically anywhere from Destiny 2's forums, to fan sites, to reddit - yeah, that "gameplay" is being almost universally ripped apart. And your article from back in March then becomes this in November: https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultas...h=116679cc3947

-The Steam data, as always, ends up supporting the growth of FFXIV when you make logical comparisons. For example, Patch 5.5 (pre-WoW exodus) launched in April 2021. The corresponding Patch 6.5 launched in October 2023. Yep - several thousand more active Steam players at the EW data point than the relevant ShB one. And that's been the pattern throughout the years. Similar points in each successive expansion show steady growth ARR --> HW --> SB --> ShB --> EW. The cycles also remain reliably regular, with the "low" point for each expansion typically occurring between the .5 patch and the immediate run-up to the next expansion's release.

-I haven't seen any reasonable person claim that the "WoW exodus" was anything but an anomaly. The two MMO's are very different games focused on different audiences, and many people went to FFXIV from WoW not because of FFXIV itself, but to "get away" from WoW and Blizzard. It was never feasible to expect more than a small handful of that group to actually stay here, nor would it have been a sensible business approach to radically alter FFXIV just to try catering to that group. I also haven't seen any "negative press" about FFXIV recently (or at least none worth the proverbial paper it's printed on). Doomsaying is just really old at this point, especially when all of the actual data shows the game continues growing.