4Gamer Interview with the Producers of FFXI, FFXIV, and DQXFollow

My FC is getting lonely at nights, too... but everyone is just kind of taking a break before 2.2 comes out. They're all still subscribing... only people who may not be subscribing (to my knowledge) are a few people who all had to get second jobs.

Nashred, why are you hiding behind semantics to try to deface an argument that you really have no cause to make?

Do you work for the competition? Because the only other conclusion paints a very bad picture for your outlook as an individual, that you have to splice words in translation to cling on to a desperate argument that the game is in dramatic decline. It is a rather sad state of affairs when your desire to not be wrong overrides every other path of logic here. You won't even entertain the possibility that their numbers are accurate.

And worse, that sort of argument is moot. They are still well over the record for game of their nation's origin as far as subscriptions, units sold, and server activity for the genre.

Let me make this clear: Aside from the rocky launch, which Yoshida claims as a personal failure, there is no way Square Enix can call the game's reboot or its current course anything other than a landslide success.

We can sit and speculate over the number of people quitting all we like, but in the end they're the ones with the numbers. Any claims that they are in denial of something really does peg the same possibility more firmly upon yourself.

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Now, that said, I still fully expect a decline in subscriptions. This is because most subscription models swell then decline to a much smaller, but stable, subscription base. However, there's no accurate point of reference her as to where that stability will be. FFXI's dip in subscriptions was small, and held stable throughout most of its lifespan, and still maintains itself as Square Enix's most profitable title.

FFXIV, in spite of its failures, is back in the black already. Now, this is largely due to the company as a whole swallowing its investment cost into the company as a whole, but then the game greatly assisted a dramatic turn around in projected profits for last year. With no direct investors to the project to appease, that puts SE in a standpoint to make continual profit. All ARR needs to do is make a profit on its current upkeep and development, which hasn't even tapped China yet, which is, again, the single largest digital consumer in the world.

So what we have here is the initial buy-in for the market was so large that it blew the producer's mind. The subscription number (take it for whatever you will) is climbing and the member of peak after players at a time is at a healthy level given the population distribution. This is just on the break-in to a two new ports of accessibility (Steam and PS4) and before we tap China (Note: approximately 5 of the peak 12 million WoW subscribers came from China alone).

These are the reasons why I can't agree with the nay-sayers opinion that this game is failing or is a failure. It's going to have to take an awful lot more than some angry people on the internet doubting and cross examining interview statements to convince me otherwise. There's both precedent and hard evidence in SE's support here. Not much more than personal testimony and speculation on the other end.

Edited, Mar 11th 2014 5:11pm by Hyrist

China has laws that prevent it from joining the larger world community. It also forbids a lot of content like the 'undead' form being in the game, so essentially no only do they require their own data center, but their own version of the client as well.

This was part of the reason why FFXI never tapped China. But that was before China was recognized as a potential player-base too large to ignore.

I don't think it says this, either.

Are you saying the above person has no FFXIV:ARR account? He most certainly does, even to this day.

Yoshi-P was quite clearly talking about the number of accounts. Not active accounts, nor box sales. Just accounts.

You may not think that corporations would prefer to use the numbers that put them in the best possible light at any given time. I think that's a given and that S-E is no exception. Hell, Yoshi-P was even harassed by the PR guy in the middle of sentence.

Edited, Mar 11th 2014 10:20pm by Hyanmen

You're again making presumptions towards your bias.

This is not the first time the negative bias on FFXIV has gone as far as to make false presumptions as to the FFXIV team.

I remember just recently Yoshida had to go as far as to cite specifically, that no, it is not the policy of the development team to make ninja patches or unannounced adjustments to the game. He personally viewed at as underhanded and stated 'you guys are too smart for that'. Even though the decryers swore up and down that they were going to make a habit of ninja patching stuff. (They even reverted the changes.)

So if you wish to continue along that vein of 'no trust' assumptions on them, feel free to do so. However without concrete evidence otherwise, it's just hearsay.

Fail to see where the negative speculation is justified. I pay that as a huge disrespect to the producer whom has busted his **** off after being handed a nightmare financially, design wise, and PR wise, and then turning it around to a success that is currently over four times his expectations.

Edited, Mar 11th 2014 7:23pm by Hyrist

Good work SE, hope they can keep up the good numbers when competition starts popping up, they deserve it. I am sad they did not make a game I personally enjoy, but I am very happy to see them do so well.

You have no Idea what your quoting.. matter of fact your making my argument for me..

Except it does what?.. I put the exact quote in my reply.. matter of fact here it is again exactly:


Now you find me a quote where is says active or paying since You said I am not telling the truth...




No where does it say active.. Accounts could mean anything... He said it not me.. So either you people are not reading the article or my posts.

Also he said so how am I lying.. He said it not me and that is a direct quote.. I am the one that said it has to be higher since everyone does not log in everyday..

matter of fact this is exactly what I said:


I am done with this argument lets move on..



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Edited, Mar 12th 2014 12:15pm by Nashred

500K players who log in each day is a good thing! There are many more who play regularly on a less frequent basis. Also, we are at the end of a content cycle, so numbers now are a little low. And the ps4 version isn't even here yet!

It's good news, everyone should be thrilled about this.

Whats funny for me is these couple of people who have no idea who I am and are calling me a hater of the game.. Really.. I play the game more than most people do and I probably play with close to 1/3 of the people that post on these forums pretty regularly.. I am in the ZAM FC.. I bought two PS4's just to play this game and I am a hater because I disagree with some numbers. Sounds about right.







Edited, Mar 12th 2014 1:03pm by Nashred

Edited, Mar 12th 2014 1:04pm by Nashred

You wish.

500k+ subscribers playing the game every day is a cold hard fact. Nothing "low" about it.