FFXI To End In 2010?

Oh there is nothing wrong with the number of people playing right now. And if SE thought so first off we wouldn't have servers you couldn't go to or make characters in. I'd say those servers would become open again first then eventually they might merge servers. Still I generally see 1-4k people up at any given time in the day. X 20 servers and about 3 "shifts" of prime time playing groups... that's still a nice amount of people

Frankly there are enough people playing on a single server where it would be profitable for them to keep it running. Granted there would be like 0 new content. And GMs and support centers would be like super skeleton crew as they try to cut there opperating cost to next to nothing but still.

I hope you're right.

Right now, the population seems pretty steady on my server so I think it'll be a long while before it drops off again like it did right after 14 was announced. I've seen a good bit of new players in the past couple months too. I guess my point was more for people who keep complaining about how their server is dying and they need to merge soon.

You don't even really NEED a job to play, donating plasma once a week is enough to pay for it for two months. xP

To everyone saying "giving away free relics = the end", you do realize that it is very likely that only one person or no one will win a rank 1 prize at all? Think about it: 1 chance instaed of 10 per char, no mules, and everyone needs to have a separate SE ID (lots of people have 2 chars on one ID). I will be shocked if more than one person wins a free relic~

Square soft = Passion for Animation and RPG content
Enix = Passion for RPG (but focuses on money industry for gaming cheezy content)

Squaresoft + Enix = Money grubbing fat cats.

Done.

That's all I read.

...
Ok you're officially an idiot.

Square = Business
Enix = Business
Square Enix = Business

These companies don't make video games for the fun of it or because it's a hobby. It's their god damn way of life. It's how they make a living. They make video games to *gasp* make money! The difference between this game and non-online games is that this game has a constant ongoing stream of money being input into it. Other games just have a bottom line price put on them and are sold for a single price. You need to get over this grandeur idea of Square being this great company that makes games just for the pleasure of its devoted customers. They make games that people are willing to pay to play.

Wonder who's paying you to side for... Seriously, in every post I make you're always an *** candy for someone else agreeing other people's ego.

You should support a player's side, not a company. That's like saying "buy this drug because it's better because I said so. They spend so much money on it so we have no place to complain". No matter what you say, they will always be booming in business and they have no need to reek such large ammount of revenue off hard working players. Any *** monkey can set up a server.

Economy>Business, so why wouldn't they want to lower the cost at least?

Not only that, look at other common game companies that are doing well: Bandai, Namco, Capcom, Tri-ace etc. Ever since Squaresoft joined Enix, they're no longer the same as they used to be.

Mmmm *** candy.

"*** the man! DON'T LET 'EM BRING YA DOWN!!! *** DA POLICEEE!!!"

Why do you play FFXI? Why do you buy games from SE if that's the way you feel?

Seriously.

You have absolutely no idea how the gaming industry works, what development costs and the profit margins on these games actually is, or what it's like to work for a gaming studio. So I kindly request you shut the *** up.

Apparently you can't read and/or you're an idiot. One, I'm not the one being paid but instead the one paying to play their game. So far you're the only person I have ran across that has complained about the price of the game. Apparently the rest of the customers have no problem paying their $12.95+ a month to play otherwise the game would of ended a long time ago.

The business fluctuates with the economy. You think it's just hard on the people who play the games? Hell no. The company is suffering along with the rest of us. No one is spared when the economy goes on the fritz.

As for the other companies, how many of them put out large budget movies that flopped in theaters which set them back large amounts of money? Also which one of those companies produces MMORPGs like FFXI and charges less money for them?

Although we've been trying to tell him this the whole time, Jaerik always makes it official.

Fixed.

He's JP so it's okay if he forgets some words.

@ person saying FFXIV should be free to play

lolno.

Yep that about sums up what you've been saying

Hey, I spared him. There is actually something else in the text that could be fixed. I'm not a total nazi!

Ok I admit I was paid off by SE's goons. They told me I would be denied FFXI rights if I didn't listen. ; ;

To elaborate on my previous (not entirely eloquent) point:


You pay $13/month for FF. The median play time of end-game players as tracked by our login metrics on past MMO's I worked on was 70 hours/week. That's approximately 4.6 cents an hour for an experience that's captivating enough, you dump twice as much time into it as the average adult does in their real life jobs, sometimes for 8+ years at a time.

By comparison, that's approximately 217 times less expensive than going to see a movie for two hours. Yet you don't expect the guy behind the register selling tickets or popcorn to provide five-star customer service, listen to your every complaint, and treat you like some exalted prince of l33tness every time you open your mouth.

Yet for some reason, MMO players seem to expect this. By end-game, they have developed such a shockingly overblown sense of entitlement and self-value from the delusional belief their time investment is actually worth something, they think they can make hilariously impossible demands of the people who make the game. (Failing to realize that the more time they spend in the game, the more expensive they are to the company, thus making them the worst customers.)

Do you know how much it costs to make an MMO? You have no idea. What if I told you that WoW employs over 4,600 full time staff, and takes 13,250 servers? That it cost over half a billion dollars to develop? That their profit margin is actually quite slim, and most of those people don't make very much?

Did you know on Everquest, the average Game Master made $9/hour with no benefits and no overtime? And did it anyway, because they loved the game so much? Even though they had to spend sometimes 80+ hours a week sitting there listening to sniveling pompous asshats like you dragging them through the mud at every opportunity, because you happen to not like some design decision made by a group of developers in another building that they've likely never even met, let alone had a hand in deciding?

The gaming industry is in serious trouble. Activision Blizzard isn't doing so hot. Electronic Arts is tanking over massive losses. Almost none of the AAA titles that came out in the past two years turned a profit. Electronic Arts lost $650 million last year. They lost another boat load this year and the year before that. They recently had to lay off over 1/3rd of their entire workforce. Why do you think famous developers are fleeing from the industry en masse to make things like dinky little Facebook games?

And yet you're sitting here lecturing SquareEnix, who's in pretty much the same boat, about being "fat cats" who will always be profitable, because "any monkey can set up a server."

Absolutely despicable.

If it weren't for the fact you haven't broken any forum rules, I'd be tempted to ban you on the spot for being such a little cretin.

Holy... Jesus. That's something I didn't know. 13,250 servers? gg

Well as Sylph.Oddin pointed out the cost in creating FFXI was assumed to be profitable over a 5 year span. So literally SE did not make any money off FFXI until its 5th anniversary. That pretty much sums it up.

Got reported because other people in the past wanted to lower monthly cost, I see. You got people necro posting about me and you're telling me to shut up...? Before you mention about forum rules or banning, you've turned the check several times for others to violate rules on here.

Frankly, I don't really give a ***about online-rpg industry. I played FF-11 because it was an FF material series (hardly). If someone's going to talk me down and support a company side, then I got the same rights to express my opinion of self experiance with those companies.

I've known Squaresoft as far back when mana series and evermore came out. If they're doing good, then obviously the game is still here with limited GMs and workers most likely. If they were doing back, then they would have stated that.

WHOA, ***. Holy.... you totally did NOT just invoke the wrath of Jaerik? Bad move, sir. Very, VERY bad move. Actually, it's fine without the "to."

So you had a few 'bad experiences' and you believe that SE is Satan Co. ?

Please read J-man's post again that pretty much explains how you're an idiot in every way/shape/form.

Congrats on trying to tell off an admin. Either way you're still wrong.

I've been a "fan" of Squaresoft's rpg games longer than that, still doesn't change the fact that you're thinking they make these games for your amusement alone.

They make these games for profit.

Business and people are all hit by the economy so that is not an excuse for them to change a price.

It cost them millions to produce this game, they did not even start to profit off the game until last year!!

Now you're crying that they should stop making profit.... I'm sure they made the whole game just to break even.


As I said before, please stop before you (continue to) make yourself look like a fool.

Jae... Jae, can I ban him? :o

No, he has a right to voice his opinion and hasn't broken any rules. The opinion is dead wrong, but he's entitled to it.

Incidentally, you guys do know why SquareEnix was formed, right? Because Square went out of business.

"Fat cats" my ***.

I'm still loling at reeks of profit.

Is SE as a whole making a profit this year? Yes

Are there profits even up? Yes.

Is that mostly because for the last few years they have had either losses or very low profits? Yes.

They are hardly reeking of profit