In a recent “Letter from the Producer” video Q&A, Final Fantasy XIV director-cum-producer Naoki Yoshida commented upon how the game has been doing post launch, in terms of keeping players engaged.
As reported last week, Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn has over 1.5 million registered players worldwide, but naturally this doesn’t mean that all 1.5 million players are actively playing the game. Yoshida provides a little more insight.
“As FFXIV: ARR is a subscription based business model, naturally there will be players who will not play anymore once they finish the main scenario,” he concedes. However, he continues, “MMORPGs that launched after 2008 with a subscription based model retained a maximum of 35% of their users during the first month of subscriptions. However, FFXIV: ARR has surpassed this number by a wide margin.”
Yoshida clarifies, “That’s not to say that we’re satisfied with our current figures, and we’d like as many people as possible to subscribe and play the game. My plans with FFXIV 1.0 were the same, but we would like to first deliver exciting and fun content to all the players who are playing the game. With a steady income from monthly fees, we can then continue to provide constant updates, and by doing this, players who once left will likely return.”
The Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn development team is currently hard at work on the upcoming version 2.1 patch for the game, which will make an number of changes to the game’s various jobs. You can read about these here.
