Quote Originally Posted by Ephremjlm View Post
As of that last report that came out I think a little over a month ago now, the MMO division is down 45%. The MMO division is made up of FFXI, and FFXIV. FFXI has seen player number soar, so much so that they had to stop letting people join some servers because they were become to congested. This suggests that because of the massive spike the game is probably around 200k or so. The weird thing is that you would think with such an increase it would offset any negative number you would see for the MMO division, however that number is still significantly low, meaning that the losses are ALL from FFXIV and probably at least in the 50% range. That means the game is currently hovering around 500k players or so, not TOO far from the MMO that came before it.

50% of players (and seemingly dropping me, me included) is swirling around the toilet bowl concerning. On top of that, someone else in this thread made a really good point that it's not just players that will "come back" it's players that usually stay through the thick of if, the people who own houses. The decision to give up their house/FC is more concerning because that is a much heavier action than simply unsubbing, that indicates more likely a complete retirement.
A.) Compare "Retail WoW" with "Classic WoW". There's not too much of a difference there, either. There's a significant segment of the MMO population that loved the "Golden Age" of MMO's, can't really accept that things change as time passes, and have an opportunity to remain effectively frozen in that past (in a way that companies can still profit from). Not really a surprise there.

B.) 50% of players dropping the "Retail" version of a game once its main storyline has concluded isn't concerning; it's expected. I'll point out WoW again. During the conclusion of their main storyline (WotLK), they had ~12 million active players. Now? They needed 2 solid expansions in a row just to reach ~2 million players. That still means over 80% of their one-time playerbase has left and not returned. They also likewise saw the first major plummet in the expansion immediately following said conclusion (Cata). It's normal when a game has effectively run its course and is now just continuing past that point to lose a significant portion of its following. For FFXIV, however, that means still remaining above the population in the ARR/HW/SB days, when said population was considered very healthy (and that was before the significant growth of the cosmetic cash shop). Yes, it's disappointing when the epilogue of a game sees a drop in interest, but financially it's nowhere near concerning.