Thread: 7.1 Wuk PTSD

Originally Posted by Striker44

Which one of us should be the ones to break the news that the game is doing very well and the forums aren't representative of anything?

Yes and no. I'm pretty sure the game is still doing well from economic view (july to september numbers should be out this month, which gonna give us info about that, be the real test will be october to december numbers, that we won't know before february).

But from a critical point of view, it's not. I mean, Yoshida had to admitted the mixed reception, and the forum are far from being the only place being very critical of Dawntrail. Both main subreddit (r/ffxiv and r/ffxiv discussions) are very critical about the state of FFXIV, and one of them has been know for years to be the place where you got downvoted to oblivion when dared slightly criticize the game (it's still the case for many subject, but about DT writing and the content drought, they're on the same page as the forum). So yeah, on the matter of DT writing and the content drought (I would also add the job complaints to that), the forum are pretty representative.

I doubt the game will be in financial problems before long, but critically, it took a heavy hit. A lot of players are unhappy and for a live service game, this is bad. when the part of your public that has been nealry permanently subbed for years, some even since 1.0 begin to leave, there is something wrong. A consequence of this bad critical status is that every major FFXIV streamer (yes streaming in a very important part of the gaming ecosystem today, it came make a game rise or fall) went to play other things (mostly wow) since the launch of DT , and they all have the same discourse "I love FFXIV, but there is nothing to do right now". The image of XIV is in a bad place, and image is really important to keep an influx of new players, especially since they don't seem to want to keep the old ones.

So is the game doing very well? No, I don't think so. It does well money wise (which is the only side SE seem to see) and is clearly not in danger, but I would not say it's doing well. I would add that MMO are a special kind of game that players are attached being for the social contact they had there, or the good time they spent in. People don't leave a game they've been playing for years on a whim. It's a long process. I mean the WoW exodus is a good example of that. How many years did players complains before leaving in mass because they finally had enough. I like the image of a dam. Right now the dam leaking, but has not broken yet. Most of unhappy players are still subbed, and still hoping for SE to get their shit together. But if nothing is done, the dam will break. maybe in a few month, maybe in a few years, but if nothing is done, it will happen.