Board 8 > Final Fantasy XIV officially becomes the most successful game in the franchise.

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2021/10/final-fantasy-xiv-is-now-the-most-profitable-game-in-the-entire-series-surpasses-24-million-players

10 mil -> 24 mil player jump from Stormblood to Shadowbringers.

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shocker paid subscription service most profitable game

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Best game of the series. Entirely deserved.

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DoomTheGyarados posted...

Best game of the series. Entirely deserved.

I'm still a Tactics Stan, but yeah I'd say it's pretty firmly the best game in the series even just counting the single player story based experience of XIV.

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Sounds like they need to put those Pixel Remasters out on consoles get more sales for FF4 and FF6

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ninkendo posted...

Sounds like they need to put those Pixel Remasters out on consoles get more sales for FF4 and FF6

Naw man were gonna push 5 to the top.

Job system superiority.

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And secretly charge you 10 dollars a month for owning them

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ya well

FUCK FFV

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Dissidia Opera Omnia in shambles

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Is being the most successful FF these days worth anything? The series has mostly been in shambles for the player base with the last truly loved game on release being X

ff9 is the best one

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swordz9 posted...

Is being the most successful FF these days worth anything? The series has mostly been in shambles for the player base with the last truly loved game on release being X

It's one of the most successful gaming franchises ever so yes that is worth something

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ninkendo posted...

ya well

FUCK FFV

RUDE

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swordz9 posted...

Is being the most successful FF these days worth anything? The series has mostly been in shambles for the player base with the last truly loved game on release being X

The final fantasy brand is probably at its height overall thanks to how good 14 is atm

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swordz9 posted...

Is being the most successful FF these days worth anything? The series has mostly been in shambles for the player base with the last truly loved game on release being X

FF7R absolutely counts and I think opinion on XII has largely shifted positively in the past few years

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XIV is such a powerhouse the the lead, YoshiP, is the one they have leading XVI.

Anyone who knows YoshiP knows that's basically a guarantee of that game's quality. Heck, the reason it's been a no show since the announcement even though it's so far into development is that YoshiP doesn't want to spend time cutting a trailer that they could be spending on game development.

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I believe that crushes the peak subscriber count for WoW also.

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Imagine how high the FF brand would be if 15 had been well-liked.

pjbasis posted...

shocker paid subscription service most profitable game

The previous most profitable entry was 11, so this means 14 has surpassed it.

redrocket posted...

I believe that crushes the peak subscriber count for WoW also.

Is 24 million subscriber count or just all the people who've ever played the game?
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Fair enough, but Id imagine a lot of people still havent even considered playing it. 11 and 14 basically dont even exist to me since the odds Id ever play either are lower than the odds of the 100 most beautiful women in the world showing up at my house

swordz9 posted...

Is being the most successful FF these days worth anything? The series has mostly been in shambles for the player base with the last truly loved game on release being X

FFX was not truly loved on release

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redrocket posted...

I believe that crushes the peak subscriber count for WoW also.

12 million from what I can see, and has apparently bled about 40% of that since Shadow lands launched (this is just retail of course, Wo2 Classic has a huge base as well)

The great exodus of WoW players to XIV started before all the lawsuit drama and awful attempts to make good by...turning paintings of busty women into painting of fruit bowls, and it's only becoming more rapid. It's straight up bleeding people.

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Thats news to me. FFX was the last game in the series Id say had way more love than hate on release. Everything after it has been mixed or leaning negative for fans

swordz9 posted...

Fair enough, but Id imagine a lot of people still havent even considered playing it. 11 and 14 basically dont even exist to me since the odds Id ever play either are lower than the odds of the 100 most beautiful women in the world showing up at my house

I said the same thing as recently as this January bub. Just sayin'.

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swordz9 posted...

Fair enough, but Id imagine a lot of people still havent even considered playing it. 11 and 14 basically dont even exist to me since the odds Id ever play either are lower than the odds of the 100 most beautiful women in the world showing up at my house

They even got me to play it and I swore I'd never play an MMO that wasn't DQX in english so they probably got a good chunk of the fanbase

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Yeah not playing 14 because it is online for any fan of final fantasy is just crushing. Single player mode is my experience so far and it is crushingly excellent.

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DoomTheGyarados posted...

Yeah not playing 14 because it is online for any fan of final fantasy is just crushing. Single player mode is my experience so far and it is crushingly excellent.

it's less the online and more the 1000 hour time commitment

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Mac Arrowny posted...

Imagine how high the FF brand would be if 15 had been well-liked.

16 will get us there.

Then a different team will fuck it up somehow.

"We're putting our focus and budget on porting the mobile battle royal to consoles."

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Don't worry I'm still holding out on XIV

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I mean I will play FF7 Battle Royale

but I play all Battle Royales

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MZero posted...

it's less the online and more the 1000 hour time commitment

It isn't a commitment it is a pleasure tbh

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MZero posted...

FFX was not truly loved on release

I mean no game was.

I'm sure FFVII and Ocarina of Time had plenty of FF6 and LttP guys hating it, despite near universal praise at the time.

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Thinking of each expansion to FFXIV as a separate game helps a bit. Playing through four 75 hour games isn't as crazy as doing one 300 hour game.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

16 will get us there.

I'm not that confident in 16! The trailer was pretty bad, IMO. Hopefully not super representative of the final game, but it didn't give me any confidence.
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I already take way longer to play RPGs than most people. I dunno I just have never had even the slightest bit of interest in 11 or 14 and my backlog is already massive enough and full of dozens of RPGs as it is. I just spent 140 hours on DQ11S so it might be a bit before I even feel like touching another too.

MZero posted...

it's less the online and more the 1000 hour time commitment

Main Campaign only guide for people who aren't interested in MMOs:

Start free trial, play through Heavensward for $0, buy the game, finish Stormblood and Shadowbringers with the free 30 day subscription. Decide if you want to add a month to finish Endwalker which comes out on 11/22.

There's tons of other fantastic story and content you can do, but if you're just looking at the actual MSQ we're talking, like...300-350 hours? Add another 70 or so for Endwalker at launch without patches. The launch story of Endwalker (6.0) is the END of the current overarching story for FFXIV, so you'd be putting a nice bow on "FFXIV Part 1".

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https://kotaku.com/ffxiv-s-biggest-expansion-yet-endwalker-will-take-you-1847854594

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Mac Arrowny posted...

I'm not that confident in 16! The trailer was pretty bad, IMO. Hopefully not super representative of the final game, but it didn't give me any confidence.

The only thing that worries me about FF16 is that it looks a little generic western. And I'm still not thrilled about the main series becoming an action RPG.

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I liked what I saw of XVI but also didn't he say they showed it way too early and that's why we haven't seen anything in the past year because he want's to make sure the next trailer blows everyone away

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ninkendo posted...

I liked what I saw of XVI but also didn't he say they showed it way too early and that's why we haven't seen anything in the past year because he want's to make sure the next trailer blows everyone away

Yeah they were forced to cut that first trailer from the sounds of things. They're been open that the game is very far into development (they already finished recording all the English VA), but he still doesn't want to show anything.

After the absolute disaster that was initially showing off XV...or XIII Versus, obviously he has no intention of wanting to draw even remote comparisons to that development.

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300-350 hours is still a really long time. Ive been playing MSQs one evening a week since it came out on PS5 at the end of May and am just about to reach Heavensward. Its a big game and I can fully understand being hesitant to commit to it.

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UshiromiyaEva posted...

10 mil -> 24 mil player jump from Stormblood to Shadowbringers.

also interested in what the numbers were for 1.0, ARR and HW

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pjbasis posted...

The only thing that worries me about FF16 is that it looks a little generic western. And I'm still not thrilled about the main series becoming an action RPG.

Even as a FF14 stan I'm apprehensive. Though tbh I am kind of tired of the typical "magitek" settings the series have been using for decades so I view western dark fantasy as refreshing for the Final Fantasy series even though it's fairly tired elsewhere in pop culture. Maybe that's just an optimistic excuse from my brain that's been ruined by Yoshi-P lol.

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Heavensward was 4 million according to that article.

Having trouble with finding ARR since most searches just talk about FFXIV in general since that's the base name, but probably not much lower than that since the game hadn't blown up yet.

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I wasn't wowed by the initial XVI trailer either but I'm sure the final product will look much different.

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man this global pandemic hit people hard

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pjbasis posted...

shocker paid subscription service most profitable game

Keep in mind this game cost them a LOT because of the redevelopment from the ground up that was 1.0's disaster. Also, it's profits, not revenue they're talking about, which factors in the cost of ongoing development, maintaining the servers, etc, rather than 'one and done' like an offline game (yeah I know DLC etc makes this not 100% true but still).

So while its still maybe more likely to happen than not, its not an achievement to brush off either.

Indeed. If an MMO is being well supported it's going to be more difficult to turn profit, not less. This being subscription MMO makes this a more impressive feat.

Or you can do the WoW thing and sell gold.

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One of these days I'll give at least the free content a shot.

One of these days maybe I'll actually mean that.

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UshiromiyaEva posted...

Indeed. If an MMO is being well supported it's going to be more difficult to turn profit, not less. This being subscription MMO makes this a more impressive feat.

Or you can do the WoW thing and sell gold.

That's totally backwards. Ongoing games and subscription services are way more popular than one and done entries. They're definitely spending money on it yearly, but they're also saving money by keeping the same characters and engine and such.

If you have a million people paying $15/month subscription, that's the same as four million people buying a $60 game in a year and their best-selling regular game only sold like eight million copies.
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topic title inaccurate

MMOs aren't real games so Final Fantasy Ecksiv can't possibly be the most successful game.

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Its fun, but its also like 150 hour commitment just to GET to the good stuff, on those grounds, I dont think its reasonable to call it the best one.

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