Final Fantasy XIV hit 1.5 million registered players in its first two months, and if you’re wondering what that means, here’s one suggestion: A Realm Reborn was worth it.
First, let’s put that number in context: 1.5 million might be negligible for a free-to-play game, but Final Fantasy XIV is a subscription-based MMORPG. All of those people are paying monthly to inhabit the world of chocobos and crystals. (The biggest paid MMORPG, World of Warcraft, was at 7.7 million subscribers last time developer Blizzard announced their numbers.)
Another high-profile MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic, started similarly, with 1.7 million subscribers in its first two months. But momentum slowed for BioWare’s online game, and following a big drop in subscription numbers, they took it free-to-play last year.
So this is a good start for Square’s critically-acclaimed MMORPG, which was first launched to disastrous reception in 2011, then shut down and overhauled only to be relaunched this year as Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn for PC and PS3. (The folks behind the game, Square Enix, say a beta for the PS4 version of the game will launch on February 22.)
Now let’s see if they can keep it up.
Comments
7 responses to “FFXIV’s Got 1.5M Players. Guess That Massive Overhaul Paid Off.”
Doubtful that it will continue on a constant anywhere near that number, I noticed considerable drop off in the first month. It might gain some console players with the ps4 however. While the leveling content is enjoyable in a bit of an archaic sort of way, the endgame dungeons and ‘raids’ lack tuning, are mostly big time sinks, or gear walls, worse so when compared with other AAA mmo giants.
In short – great fun to play while leveling especially with friends, the price/time ratio will easily beat those of other games if you buy it and pay for a few months. Just don’t expect to get hooked and be raiding for months, the endgame quality/replayability isn’t at the same standard of other mmos (could change though?).
In December (or late November?), patch 2.1 will be giving us: Crystal Tower, Good King Moggle Mog XII, Extreme mode Primals, Pharos Sirius dungeon (on Umbral Isle, I believe. So we may see the beauty who lulls again) and Hard Mode versions of two current dungeons (unknown which). There’s also other stuff, but I mostly focused on the battle type content.
Yeah the first big patch should hopefully give huge boost to end game but even so I’m just going to wait for the ps4 version to come so i can transfer over my ps3 license and play away, assuming the delay issues are solved by then.
More dungeons/raids with HP whore enemies and gear checks, I doubt that’ll keep the majority of people playing. Squeenix really needs to get its non dungeon/raid endgame fixed up, like the PVP as well as the guild related stuff. Hell, maybe even a zone with harder, more epic fates with diff rewards?
If it was on xbox they’d have 1 more
Doubt it. Microsoft wanted SE to make it so that XBox players could not interact with PC and PS3 players as well as making SE make the players pay for Gold subscription.
I’d get it on Xbox as well, but alas, it won’t happen.
Good news is, there’s plenty of big name MMO titles coming to Xbox one in 2014 so whilst we won’t see FFARR on Xbox (probably ever), I’ve no doubt there will be a MS equiv in the works.
Elder Scrolls online, The Division and possible Destiny to name a few.
Just need to have a little more patience!
Well the division and destiny are not mmo’s.
I’m hoping microsoft gets more intelligent with it’s ability to let people play mmos (either p2p or f2p) without gold sub and letting them patch real time etc (outside of Japan that is, monster hunter somehow gets away with this over there). It might be sony’s ability to do this that forces their hand though – all we need to see is a real good MMO selling well on a sony console.
It feels and plays too much like a console title. A far better title than the original, but still it’s not PC friendly.