FF14 player count reached the lowest point in 4 years. We lost 75% of the playerbase.

[Striker44]

I don’t know, man. What I see is that we’re basically back to the same numbers we had before the WoW exodus during Shadowbringers.

And honestly? I don’t think that being back to ShB numbers after two full expansions is a particularly good sign. Whatever player increase XIV had during that time, SE clearly didn’t manage to hold onto it.

Whether this drop in revenue pushes CS3 to step up and put more effort into the game, or if they just keep doubling down on their current trajectory, we’ll only find out with the next expansion.

Given that we were never going to keep the "refugees" considering how different the games are, that we managed to hold onto at least a handful of them for two full expansions is actually quite extraordinary. And if you look at the average daily logins, we're in the same exact place we were during ShB and significantly better than at this point in EW. Likewise, we're considerably better than we were anytime pre-ShB. If the revenue was fine with a fraction of the playerbase back then, it's fine now.

[Supersnow845]

Given that we were never going to keep the "refugees" considering how different the games are, that we managed to hold onto at least a handful of them for two full expansions is actually quite extraordinary. And if you look at the average daily logins, we're in the same exact place we were during ShB and significantly better than at this point in EW. Likewise, we're considerably better than we were anytime pre-ShB. If the revenue was fine with a fraction of the playerbase back then, it's fine now.

Again the fact that 14 didn’t keep the WOW refugees is neither guaranteed nor desired and it happened because 14 simply didn’t care and thought “we are so perfect they will stay by default”

14 has almost exhausted its well of potential players. It’s even pulled from other MMO’s and is still out of players

[Wasselin]

Again the fact that 14 didn’t keep the WOW refugees is neither guaranteed nor desired and it happened because 14 simply didn’t care and thought “we are so perfect they will stay by default”

14 has almost exhausted its well of potential players. It’s even pulled from other MMO’s and is still out of players

If these WoW "refugees" you are assuming XIV didn't keep are the reason player number is down, how would they have kept them? Change the game fundamentally to keep them and thus alienate their long time players? Or if it's because they "had nothing to do" after burning through four expansions worth of content do you think SquareEnix is somehow going to start releasing content at 4x the speed as the past?

It really doesn't make sense, and Striker44 is right that if they did leave they were never going to stay to begin with.

[Ath192]

If these WoW "refugees" you are assuming XIV didn't keep are the reason player number is down, how would they have kept them? Change the game fundamentally to keep them and thus alienate their long time players? Or if it's because they "had nothing to do" after burning through four expansions worth of content do you think SquareEnix is somehow going to start releasing content at 4x the speed as the past?

It really doesn't make sense, and Striker44 is right that if they did leave they were never going to stay to begin with.

They could've started by not taking the exploration zone away and not giving the relic for free. Just putting it out there.

[Supersnow845]

If these WoW "refugees" you are assuming XIV didn't keep are the reason player number is down, how would they have kept them? Change the game fundamentally to keep them and thus alienate their long time players? Or if it's because they "had nothing to do" after burning through four expansions worth of content do you think SquareEnix is somehow going to start releasing content at 4x the speed as the past?

It really doesn't make sense, and Striker44 is right that if they did leave they were never going to stay to begin with.

Most of them joined during an expansion famous for its hilarious lack of content and strangely long patch schedules

Rel adding more content to satisfy more players isn’t fundamentally changing the game