Shit Server

this forum(and other ffxi forums) are the only place where threads are just constantly shut down because one person says "lol close the thread".

ignore the people that say this, please. it's always the same 2-3. there is nothing wrong with people disagreeing.

the internet and game related forums don't need to be a safe haven for people unable to have constructive thought processes.

Honestly, this is far less toxic and hateful than virtually any of the FFXVI discussions that went on around here.

There's something resembling discussion, it's staying on topic, there's reasonable points going back and forth; if you haven't found anything of value in this thread, then I don't know what to tell you.

The only time that really happens is when it's the OP requesting it, and even that isn't automatic.

Usually by the time people are asking for that, a thread is already on its way to the bin, someone just hasn't gotten around to pulling the trigger yet.

At least the FF11 devs are held accountable for their decisions by a higher power.

Cid's teeth are proof that God is dead, so I'm not sure any of us are really accountable to anyone, anymore.

Money, right? That higher power is money.

Reputation, too, I suppose. SE might not care much about whether XI lives or dies, but an accusation that someone involved in an SE mmo title abused their authority would affect all their online game properties. They have a heavily vested interest in preventing that kind of behavior.

Once FFXIV 7.0 comes out with the new raids, FFXI is gonna be pulled into it. This'll cause a collapse in both universes revealing a new race to be playable: Fem-galka.

I don't get the hate about the illegal servers that can be shut down by lawyers at any moment run by nerds who show favoritism and run the RMT Market for profit while the server itself is riddled with bugs . Like, let people play what they want jeez...

It doesn't affect you that the server admins change the game to benefit themselves and are nerds on an ego trip playing "I have the powa" going around harassing people and banning you at the tip of a hat because you sneezed at the wrong time.

Just let them be and you do you.

I feel that pretty hard. If you are the type of player to want fair treatment and for staff to follow their own rules, horizon won't work out for you. Criticizing certain staff members/bugs/balance decisions, even if privately in your own linkshell or discord chat, will only put you on their shitlist. It can eventually lead to a ban if you call them out for treating you differently as well. Speaking from experience.

Nobody in this topic said FFXI has been in its death throes for 20 years. There have been quite a few mass exodus events for sure, but you can't pretend at this point that the end is pretty obviously near for the game barring some major change out of nowhere. SE even stated as much after TVR finished.

Also, even assuming the dubious math used on the DB page here is accurate, 1.3m revenue per year is not really significant to a company as big as SE. SE made 2.6b in revenue in 2022.

Yeah, we just see it every few months in every other thread (you must not be from around here).


The "dubious math" you refer to is dramatically underestimated. It makes the most absurd assumptions to further that goal of underestimation, did you even look at the explanation?

Bottom of Databaase page:

It also only sees accounts that have AH activity another vector for underestimation. If you don't understand how this is a dramatic statement of MINIMUM possible revenue I am not sure I can help you.

Hes on that private server kool-aid, not gonna reach him. Not to mention TVR came "out of nowhere" after a similar statement was made during the end of RoV. With them announcing they are focusing on their roots and what made them popular, who knows what could happen. You must be having so much fun there exping endlessly, riveting content.

It's dubious in both methodology and estimates. For instance, what actually makes a character active? Do RMT characters count?


The amount of actually active accounts with no AH activity is approximately 0.

None of that actually matters though. Even if you quadrupled the estimate on the DB page, it wouldn't account for 1% of SE's yearly revenue. XI servers stay up because XI is a flagship title that isn't costing them much, not because the revenue stream actually matters.


Certainly more fun than running Sortie and Odyssey ad infinitum while watching my 2 currency counter numbers go up slightly.

Why do you hate free login campaigns?

My cover is blown! AAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa pshoooooooo

sales, I know that might be an odd concept for defining "activity" on an auction house to most, but the interesting part is when you look at these sales you get information on what we can call a "datetime", a "buyer" and a "seller". We can then deem "active" users as people who appear as a buyer or a seller in a given period.

Do RMT characters not pay for their accounts?


There are these characters you can make on the same account, usually called "mules", many of the characters do not use the AH frequently or at all.


revenue is nice cuz its gross, but margins are king I have a feeling ffxi has a pretty high margin product at this point in its life cycle(you know seeing as it is probably being run on a server class toaster, and has no dedicated dev team). If you actually took a second to READ the explanation you would see it states "Active characters are grouped into batches of 16" so your silly dismissive statement should say "Even if you sixdecrupled...".

Coming to the table and simply shouting "YOU'RE WRONG, YOU BUNCH OF MATH NERDS" does not really help your argument if you don't have any alterative data, you could simply stop posting though it is an option ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

And what's the given period? Where is the criteria?


RMTs pay for their accounts, but I think we can at least somewhat agree that RMTs aren't really part of what most people consider "the community". They're symbiotic parasites that largely just capitalize on some of the poor game design aspects that SE has implemented. They're not what really makes the game "dead" or "alive". They don't play the game, they're just enhanced NPCs.


Mules aren't accounts and are unlikely to be tracked as such.


I'm not really spouting anyone is wrong, I'm just pointing out the numbering on that page is inherently flawed and the page even recognizes it as such. Without methodology and definitions, it doesn't serve as much more than a loose educated guess.

Even if we went your way and multiplied the figure by 16, it still would account for less than 1% of SEs revenue. For a company that generates as much as SE, it's a drop in the bucket. XI isn't bleeding money and it's a flagship title. That's what's keeping the lights on.

I guess I thought the explanation on the page itself was enough, but:

An active user is someone who has made an auctionhouse transaction within the last 45 days. This means (outside of free login campaigns) we have proof of a paid user.

This math is not about the community. It's about the answer to the question, "Is FFXI profitable?". I got asked this in a bunch of PMs and then on a couple of podcasts and I realized we have the tools to take a stab at the answer. But we don't have access to SE's customer records, obviously, so the best thing we can do is use what we have to establish the most conservative estimate available.

I mean, yeah, of course it's not exact. We don't have access to SE's books. This is why the math is intentionally the most pessimistic possible calculation: what is the FLOOR of FFXI's revenue, the absolute MINIMUM amount of money they can be making from this?

This number is not meant to be interesting in a "Look, XI is still a cash cow!" sense; that's silly. What it does illustrate, as NIflheim points out, is that for something with the absolute minimal costs that XI must have at this point, with virtually no full time staff and minimal hosting costs, XI is still profitable even in the worst case (1.4m per year as of this post).

The actual XI revenue number, which would not batch everyone into groups of 16, and include things like mog wardrobe revenue (up to $16/mo, potentially doubling the sub fee) and mules that don't make AH transactions (a buck apiece!) is in all likelihood 15-20x this number. Maybe more!

Which brings us back to the central point of that thing: FFXI costs them effectively nothing to run now, really; a handful of people and some server costs. Unless they have the worst co-lo deals imaginable, even the worst-case-scenario is profitable, even if it's just barely. But the worst case scenario, is, as you say, "dubious", which means that FFXI's profits probably run in the $20m+ range.

A tiny fraction of SE's yearly revenue? Of course. But it's revenue they don't have to work for, really at ALL, which gets to the heart of why I kept getting asked this question in the first place: FFXI IS NOT GOING ANYWHERE, SO PEOPLE DON'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT IT DOING SO. It's free money! Until the numbers get so bad, that there's no obvious profitability, they're gonna keep the lights on, because not doing so would be silly, even for Square.

Rooks already spoke to most of your last post but heres my comments on a few points.

I am not sure what you mean by this, Mules are characters that would show up in the database if they use the AH.

Are you saying the mules would be unlikely to be tracked as mules? that would be a ridiculous statement as nearly all the characters are being treated as mules in the math by batching them into groups of 16

I work at a company that makes 6b in yearly revenue, that's cool right? but the "jackasses" who run the place ALWAYS want more money when my division misses our goal for the month even by 100k (which mind you means we simply failed to ship a single item) they lose their ***. So I would think most large money hungry company behaves similarly, especially if that missed item is around 95% margin (the type of product my company makes). Every company cares about every penny they make, they would be stupid not to.

This is a lot of good info, thanks!


Companies also care about things like resource allocation and opportunity costs. I'm not going to pretend that SE doesn't care about money, just pointing out that the money from FFXI isn't something they're worried about losing because they would otherwise put more focus into extending the lifespan of the game.

This is why FFXI experienced a significant exodus when the level cap was initially raised. Between gear getting power-crept out and the fatigue of having to reach the new cap on one or more jobs, a lot of players got miffed and hung it up. I was one of them because I didn't want to have to cap out my 5 jobs again.


The disastrous initial release of FF14 probably extended the lifespan of FFXI, which I find to be hilariously ironic.

look at this *** its just Voidwatch asset lol they call it new nm system LOL

Played Horizon for 3 months. Learned one of the devs bot-fished w/their own char on the Mhaura ferry. Then they got caught by the community and ppl spammed it on threads. Uproarious.

Watched dozens of friends get banned for bot fishing for the next several weeks.

lolquit.

The community is pretty toxic however. I couldn't get past level 60 with the amount of gaslighting, crying, ragequitting, partyspam, gatekeeping, oh welcome to FFXI tho.

Cute little concept until, ... yea. Corruption. If you voice negatives about anything, the devs and their trollpatrol hit you pretty hard. Lots of backbiting.

#1 rule, stay out of the Discord and play under the radar and you can get away with alot. I still lol seeing ppl charge 3400$ on buymyacct.coms for Herald's Gaiters.

The devs watch the money spam via tradewindow, so good on them for the megapolicing RMT. But there's so many loopholes lul.

Their teams must be supertired. Don't see how they keep up.

HorizonXI has more individuals than Asura. That's a fact.

Retail has better quality content only to be ruined by mercs, rmt, bots, and multiboxing players. (not interested in dead servers)

There were some good arguments above that suggested that Horizon artificially inflates its player numbers.

Is it though? The rationale makes sense, but I don't think you could definitively prove it.


There really weren't.

Just another pointless thread. I am not going to bother reading all pages here. It only seems no one here agrees with yours or my opinion, so there was no need to prove anything; after all, this is a site for retail players.



Accurate.

More than Asura? No, sorry. Keep in mind not everyone is logged in at once.

Yep there was good arguments and information put out, use ya noodle.