Steam, LB and Quarterly Estimate Chart

[Jeeqbit]

Just for you all, I made a chart of FFXIV's growth and/or decline between 2014-2024.


Data Used:

• Steam (peak players logged in per month): https://steamdb.info/app/39210/charts/#max
• Lucky Bancho (active non-trial characters over 2-4 month intervals): https://luckybancho.ldblog.jp/archives/cat_1313670.html
• SE (recurring monthly income divided by the sub fee): https://www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/i...financial.html
• Achievements Enabled (invested players with big sunk cost and their behaviour, by Lucky Bancho): https://livedoor.blogimg.jp/luckyban...e68406d8-s.png

For the Quarterly Estimate, I extracted the Ordinary Income for the 3-month period (subtracting any prior months), subtracted estimate of DQX and FF11 (same every time due to lack of data), divided it by 3 and divided it by the monthly fee in Yen. It's not going to be exact because SE doesn't release subscription numbers, but it's the best I can do with my limited understanding of their finances.

I overlapped Steam by putting it on the opposite side for a clearer comparison, otherwise it would appear tiny in comparison to Lucky Bancho.

Old versions:

October 2024 - https://i.imgur.com/wzJlfuN.png

[undull1]

Might wanna explain what the data is actually made up of and trying to show.

Are they purchases made of the game?
Are they active players?
What criteria is being used to exclude and mitigate bad data? (E.g. bots)

Just because all I can see from it is consistent growth up until dawntrail breaks the pattern unless I'm misunderstanding something?

[Jeeqbit]

The first piece is the peak number of people who actively had the game open via Steam each month over 10 years (this is blue).

The second piece of data is Lucky Bancho's active characters stats, released every few months (this is red). It notices when there is a change on their lodestone profile such as mounts, minions, exp, gear, world. Of course, they do all sorts of work to account for bots and exclude free trials.

These are well known pieces of data, completely unchanged.

The third piece of data is from Square Enix's quarterly reports, which I explained in a lot of detail. It's not sales, but rather recurring income, which should mean things like subscriptions, but I'm not really an expert on their finances. It's divided by the subscription fee in Yen to estimate subscription numbers, but won't ever be exact unless SE releases subscription numbers. It just shows us where the spikes are (ie. people resubscribing).

There is consistent growth as you said. There was a peak at the end of 2021 due to the game going viral on twitch, so it's not entirely fair to count that, but Dawntrail has actually come very close to it and SE said there were more concurrent users in Dawntrail than any prior expansion. After coming close to the 2021 peak, there is a subsequent massive drop according to the Steam data, but it remains to be seen if it will recover when 7.1 or 7.2 releases (it probably will).

But my aim is to show the comparison to everyone here without bias. If the game is "dying" as some people on these forums like to suggest, and the data reflects it, then I won't dispute it. It's just there for all to see and interpret however they want.

[ReynTime]

Square Enix is very proud of you.
Good boy.

[Naomi_Sinclaire]

The first piece is the peak number of people who actively had the game open via Steam each month over 10 years (this is blue).

The second piece of data is Lucky Bancho's active characters stats, released every few months (this is red). It notices when there is a change on their lodestone profile such as mounts, minions, exp, gear, world. Of course, they do all sorts of work to account for bots and exclude free trials.

These are well known pieces of data, completely unchanged.

The third piece of data is from Square Enix's quarterly reports, which I explained in a lot of detail. It's not sales, but rather recurring income, which should mean things like subscriptions, but I'm not really an expert on their finances. It's divided by the subscription fee in Yen to estimate subscription numbers, but won't ever be exact unless SE releases subscription numbers. It just shows us where the spikes are (ie. people resubscribing).

There is consistent growth as you said. There was a peak at the end of 2021 due to the game going viral on twitch, so it's not entirely fair to count that, but Dawntrail has actually come very close to it and SE said there were more concurrent users in Dawntrail than any prior expansion. After coming close to the 2021 peak, there is a subsequent massive drop according to the Steam data, but it remains to be seen if it will recover when 7.1 or 7.2 releases (it probably will).

But my aim is to show the comparison to everyone here without bias. If the game is "dying" as some people on these forums like to suggest, and the data reflects it, then I won't dispute it. It's just there for all to see and interpret however they want.

My expectation is that player subs will temporarily increase once 7.1 releases, but it'll quickly drop to even lower points than it is now, once people realize its going to be another 4.5 months before we get any real content + the content releasing in 7.1 does not seem to have great replayability value + the fact people are already struggling to find things to do.

[ZephyrMenodora]

The first piece is the peak number of people who actively had the game open via Steam each month over 10 years (this is blue).

The second piece of data is Lucky Bancho's active characters stats, released every few months (this is red). It notices when there is a change on their lodestone profile such as mounts, minions, exp, gear, world. Of course, they do all sorts of work to account for bots and exclude free trials.

These are well known pieces of data, completely unchanged.

The third piece of data is from Square Enix's quarterly reports, which I explained in a lot of detail. It's not sales, but rather recurring income, which should mean things like subscriptions, but I'm not really an expert on their finances. It's divided by the subscription fee in Yen to estimate subscription numbers, but won't ever be exact unless SE releases subscription numbers. It just shows us where the spikes are (ie. people resubscribing).

There is consistent growth as you said. There was a peak at the end of 2021 due to the game going viral on twitch, so it's not entirely fair to count that, but Dawntrail has actually come very close to it and SE said there were more concurrent users in Dawntrail than any prior expansion. After coming close to the 2021 peak, there is a subsequent massive drop according to the Steam data, but it remains to be seen if it will recover when 7.1 or 7.2 releases (it probably will).

But my aim is to show the comparison to everyone here without bias. If the game is "dying" as some people on these forums like to suggest, and the data reflects it, then I won't dispute it. It's just there for all to see and interpret however they want.

We also have financials that shows that the EW period made more money than any other expansion, much to this dismay and disbelief of most here. Data isn't really useful on these forums. Most people have made a hobby out of lying in wait for something to complain about, and have been doing so for years. Says more about them than the game.

[keichirou]

Some random stuff.

dude..you have a problem.....

[Jeeqbit]

dude..you have a problem.....

Not really? I just made this for the community.

I made it in part because I was curious to see a chart that visually measures multiple stats and also to objectively inform the discussions here instead of people throwing unsubstantiated "the game is dying" claims. If it is it will probably get reflected in the chart.

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

The data is effectively as I predicted.

A whole whirlwind of circumstances around EW's launch along with it being the huge ending to the 10 year saga gave it such a huge hype that DT just wasn't going to be able to match, but DT still had a respective showing at about 85% the player rate as EW's launch. 7.1 vs 6.1's numbers will be the interesting comparison though.

Might wanna explain what the data is actually made up of and trying to show.

Are they purchases made of the game?
Are they active players?
What criteria is being used to exclude and mitigate bad data? (E.g. bots)

Just because all I can see from it is consistent growth up until dawntrail breaks the pattern unless I'm misunderstanding something?

Bancho's data filters out:
-all free trial players (Anyone who's max level is no higher than 70 on any job, (which also technically filters out "new" players at the same time, but they'll be a minority on this front) Coincidentally, this also filters out the vast majority of RMT bots since they simply use the base game since level 50 is all they need due to ARR dungeons dropping gil, though some more sophisticated higher level bots may get included into this figure, they'll also be a very small minority.
-Any character who's attributes haven't changed since the last census (so no job changing, no gear upgrades, nothing that would change anything in about a 4 month period, so the only characters grabbed are actually 'active' in some way)

There may be a small minority of the characters who are high-leveled raid bots or RP characters or just plain alts, but the majority of the characters the Census tracks with the criteria are actually active players.

And yes, the game has had continued active growth until EW, though that growth was unsustainable given the whirlwind of things going for it, so a dip in DT was expected.

TLDR, game took a minor hit, but its far from dead. Still completely shatter SHB's numbers which were considered successful by Square-Enix. DT is still continuing the trend of being a cash cow for SE.

[AnnRam]

Even if you have 100000000000000000000000000 people logged in, those aren't "players" because queues at level 100 are still in between 10-15 minutes on Crystal as DPS/Healer w.e

Basically, this game isn't even used as a MMORPG anymore and you know exactly why.