I suspect SL's hiatus will have the lowest subs in history and it will trigger events

[RoKPaNda]

Also RokPaNda




Write in your native language then

That was actually adorable. "Write in your native language." - There's this thing called nuance. WoW is at the end of an unpopular expansion, Final Fantasy is not very far into it's MOST HYPED EXPANSION EVER. For WoW to be in the state that it is in is pretty typical, for FFXIV which was just the most hyped MMO ever a couple months ago to be in the exact same state is actually kind of tragic. I hope they fix whatever went wrong that caused most of the streamers that hyped it up to leave. The MMO market needs good competition.

[TidalConflux]

Looks like overwatch 2 is their number 1 game by far, 1.3M concurrent views yesterday. Wow never hit that at any point of its lifetime. It was only matched by lost ark on its release week.

You have to understand averaging 30k views on twitch with such a focus on esports is laughable, when its being beaten by every other household game name, from LOL to apex to even fucking minecraft. Price of a game/sub cost does not matter because streaming inherently shows a interest in a game and is free.

People watch wow for world firsts, mythic raid and mythic + races, pvp, etc, but not really for the everyday gameplay. Blizzard has been pushing aside its casual playerbase to cater to the top 1% of players. When its not even panning out on a daily streaming level, something is wrong. On all other times when some big tournament isnt going on, it does not have much to offer a viewer that cannot be done better by the other mmos.

As soon as the interview with asmondgold is over, wow will come back down to the 20-30k viewer mark and will still be under FF14 and lost ark.

Fyi, FF14 released overhauled its approach to its pvp and a new patch, its numbers have been trending up for a while. Its not "for whatever reason."

People were watching Overwatch recently because Blizzard was doing the Beta drops via streaming hours for those who watched.

FF14 is only this high right now -- because the new Ultimate is out, and people are watching it (same thing as the Mythic raid race). Once thats over, viewership is going to drop again. This happens every single time. You can look at what streams are popular in a category to see why people are currently watching. I literally follow Arthars who usually is a sub 1000 viewers everytime he streams -- and now he has 10k+ viewers because hes doing Ultimate prog.

[cityguy193]

People were watching Overwatch recently because Blizzard was doing the Beta drops via streaming hours for those who watched.

FF14 is only this high right now -- because the new Ultimate is out, and people are watching it (same thing as the Mythic raid race). Once thats over, viewership is going to drop again. This happens every single time. You can look at what streams are popular in a category to see why people are currently watching. I literally follow Arthars who usually is a sub 1000 viewers everytime he streams -- and now he has 10k+ viewers because hes doing Ultimate prog.

Okay? How is that any different from wow subs being inflated during world firsts? The original poster was equating more views on stream as a more popular game, but then dismissed FF14 having higher numbers "for some reason." Wow averages anywhere from 15k-30k viewers most other days and you are free to check the twitch stats backing this up.

My point stands. Blizzard invested so much into the esport scene, a move that should get as many eyeballs on their game as possible. The slow release of patches for casual content in favor of bigger more competitive scene patches isnt leading to a more popular game.

Out of all of ATVI's holdings, only blizzard lost MAUs, which is unheard of in the last few years for video games, and they attributed it to decreasing reimbursement via WOW. If wow continues on this trajectory, it will be put on maintenance mode in favor for other games. This is double true once microsoft assumes control and would be in a better position to figure out if investing in wow is a better use of its money over call of duty or candy crush.

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That was actually adorable. "Write in your native language." - There's this thing called nuance. WoW is at the end of an unpopular expansion, Final Fantasy is not very far into it's MOST HYPED EXPANSION EVER. For WoW to be in the state that it is in is pretty typical, for FFXIV which was just the most hyped MMO ever a couple months ago to be in the exact same state is actually kind of tragic. I hope they fix whatever went wrong that caused most of the streamers that hyped it up to leave. The MMO market needs good competition.

FFXIV was never a meant to big game. It did not have the first mover advantage that wow had starting out and had a uphill battle from the get go. Its very much possible to say that wow is losing engagement while FFXIV is increasing engagement, and that wow is still the bigger mmo. FFXIV never marketed itself as a wow killer, and tbh doesnt care what wow does. I only ever see wow players bitch about ffxiv however.

I play both games, and find them fun. I can appreciate and also criticize both developers. With lost ark and FFXIV enagement matching and exceeding the engagement seen by wow depending on the week, the mmo market has more competition now more than ever. If you still prefer wow, then thats your preference, but this is anything but tragic, the mmo market is the best its ever been in years. I would argue the time from cataclysm to BFA was the worst portion of the market with no competition .

FYI: Wow is not at the end of an expansion, there is still about a year left of shadowlands.

[Count Zero]

This is the most different they're going the final stretch of the xpac. It might be the least-empty the game has been during those final few months, that the game has been in several xpacs now.

[Saintlel]

https://ffxivcensus.com/

The "great WoW exodus" was actually a decline for NA going from 450k in 5.3 that completed MSQ to 414k in 6.0

[epigramx]

That was actually adorable. "Write in your native language." - There's this thing called nuance. WoW is at the end of an unpopular expansion, Final Fantasy is not very far into it's MOST HYPED EXPANSION EVER. For WoW to be in the state that it is in is pretty typical, for FFXIV which was just the most hyped MMO ever a couple months ago to be in the exact same state is actually kind of tragic. I hope they fix whatever went wrong that caused most of the streamers that hyped it up to leave. The MMO market needs good competition.

The MMO market needs good competition

The MMO market might be too small now. In the last 10 to 15 years all the grandparents and small children entered the internet and there is now a gigantic market for simplistic childish games which did not exist in the past.

MMORPGing caters very specifically to people above the age of ~15-16 and below the age of ~30-35 because it needs enough intelligence to handle the complexity and enough free time to handle the addictive nature of it.

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its being beaten by every other household game name, from LOL to apex to even fucking minecraft.

Bruh, minecraft is the most popular game in the world for a few years now, it's not the greatest comparison.

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The "great WoW exodus" was actually a decline for NA going from 450k in 5.3 that completed MSQ to 414k in 6.0

The "wow exodus" was mainly a wow meme. A bunch of wow youtubers clickbaited wow players who have quit to watch their videos; there's a constant supply of those; addictive games are loved to be hated by their quitters.

Since it was a meme produced in wow: it's inevitable it couldn't be that impactful against itself.

[Saintlel]

Looks like overwatch 2 is their number 1 game by far, 1.3M concurrent views yesterday. Wow never hit that at any point of its lifetime. It was only matched by lost ark on its release week.

You have to understand averaging 30k views on twitch with such a focus on esports is laughable, when its being beaten by every other household game name, from LOL to apex to even fucking minecraft. Price of a game/sub cost does not matter because streaming inherently shows a interest in a game and is free.

People watch wow for world firsts, mythic raid and mythic + races, pvp, etc, but not really for the everyday gameplay. Blizzard has been pushing aside its casual playerbase to cater to the top 1% of players. When its not even panning out on a daily streaming level, something is wrong. On all other times when some big tournament isnt going on, it does not have much to offer a viewer that cannot be done better by the other mmos.

As soon as the interview with asmondgold is over, wow will come back down to the 20-30k viewer mark and will still be under FF14 and lost ark.

Fyi, FF14 released overhauled its approach to its pvp and a new patch, its numbers have been trending up for a while. Its not "for whatever reason."

it's numbers have not been trending upward, at least not people actually consuming content

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Out of all of ATVI's holdings, only blizzard lost MAUs, which is unheard of in the last few years for video games,

Just want to provide some data, Assuming the rest of FfXiv follows the steam player trends they have also been losing MAU’s for a couple quarters.


March 2022 17,937
February 2022 23,298
January 2022 36,614

December 2021 53,729
November 2021 25,761
October 2021 26,731

September 2021 31,514
August 2021 40,301
July 2021 37,666

https://steamcharts.com/app/39210

[loras]

I remember that meme and I remember it had no source and it was debunked. E.g. this research appears to show it's closer to 28 http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/001365.php.

It makes sense anyway especially when it goes to time-played since most people having the time to play games like this and the intelligence to handle them are at least teenagers (intelligence to handle the complexity) and up to university students (less work).

Eh, same difference honestly. Point is that with 28 the average age has never been for kids/truly young people.

Also intelligence does not depend all that much on age (if wt all, honestly), and stress/chaos resistance is much more a matter of health (which of course ties to age to an extent, but it's hardly the most important factor when considering stress).
Reaction speed reduces quite quickly with age, but i've never considered WoW to be very hard in that sense; there is a big but far from unlimited amount of decision making in a reasonable timespan (partially thanks to the gcd).

The time thing is accurate insofar that working age people have less available of it in general.

[epigramx]

intelligence does not depend all that much on age (if wt all, honestly

I does in extremities, and statistically. E.g. most 5 year olds would be totally lost in a 20man mythic raid (to not say almost all of them) but they can be pretty high skilled in those Android games of 3V3 multiplayer with their 2 buttons and 4 directional movements.

[Goat7]

Firstly, ur just wrong, gta 4 barely sold less at 3.5 million, gta 5 sold 11 million, cod mw3 sold 6.5 million in the first 24 hours. Secondly first day amount doesn't mean shit. If they had sold any significant amount of copies afterwards they'd release concrete numbers and they'd be shouting it from the roof tops.

umm ur wrong, like very wrong..

"GTA V - Extensively marketed and widely anticipated, the game broke industry sales records and became the fastest-selling entertainment product in history, earning $800 million in its first day and $1 billion in its first three days."

[loras]

I does in extremities, and statistically. E.g. most 5 year olds would be totally lost in a 20man mythic raid (to not say almost all of them) but they can be pretty high skilled in those Android games of 3V3 multiplier with their 2 buttons and 4 directional movements.

I feel that it was pretty clear we were discussing developed people, e.g. at least 14 years of age. Below that there is of course a huge development happening in terms of intelligence. The point however was that it does not really wither with age barring health issues.
Also reaction speed and intelligence do not correlate; plenty of lightning fast creatures and people dull as a rock, plenty of weirdly slow apparantly absent minded ones that are sharper than any sword.

[cityguy193]

Just want to provide some data, Assuming the rest of FfXiv follows the steam player trends they have also been losing MAU’s for a couple quarters.


March 2022 17,937
February 2022 23,298
January 2022 36,614

December 2021 53,729
November 2021 25,761
October 2021 26,731

September 2021 31,514
August 2021 40,301
July 2021 37,666

https://steamcharts.com/app/39210

Very few players play FFXIV through steam and this does not account for any of the playstation players. You may as well quote wow players who exclusively play on mac. The players here are low enough that while this shows the trend with normal spike in players with an expac release, a lot of it can be attributed to noise.

[Jester Joe]

Very few players play FFXIV through steam and this does not account for any of the playstation players. You may as well quote wow players who exclusively play on mac. The players here are low enough that while this shows the trend with normal spike in players with an expac release, a lot of it can be attributed to noise.

Or you might as well use Google Trend data to try to prove WoW subs.

[cityguy193]

it's numbers have not been trending upward, at least not people actually consuming content

SE had to shut down sales of the new expansion until recently because their servers could not take the next influx of players.

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Or you might as well use Google Trend data to try to prove WoW subs.

Im wondering if the best way to measure player engagement is actually tracking youtube views on popular content creators. Seems like it would be a big enough sample size instead of using random steam data.

[jeezusisacasual]

They are perhaps the lowest in history but also the gaming landscape has changed dramatically since WoW was king of the MMO hill to begin with. It is very hard for any game to keep concurrent populations into content lulls for the most part, the reasons for playing a MMO in a non seasonal manner are dwindling and i tend to think that if they created an expansion that wanted you to keep your sub going for player power without gear resets the population would tank harder and harder.

Perhaps WoW should take a look at FF14 and start moving in that sort of direction instead of the more hardcore themed MMO. So perhaps making add-ons not needed or wanted outside of cosmetic things would help lower the skill ceiling or not design around them either, would that make WoW easier in the raiding sense? Sure and i would say top end mythic raiding is harder now then at almost any other time which i refuse to mythic raid since it takes more time then a mythic dungeon with a progression path that takes longer then 6 weeks ( for pugging KSM not a dedicated team ) and the people that want to raid like that take the min/max attitude to much almost like they are apart of a sports team so no for me, life should be easier not harder.

I wear my Hand of Adal title but never want to play or raid like that again.

[Saintlel]

SE had to shut down sales of the new expansion until recently because their servers could not take the next influx of players.

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Im wondering if the best way to measure player engagement is actually tracking youtube views on popular content creators. Seems like it would be a big enough sample size instead of using random steam data.

and yet less people have cleared the MSQ than they did prior to the expansion, can you explain that?

and also they halted the sales because their servers weren't meant for more than like 3k people at a time

[Soon-TM]

I think you got this game confused with lost ark

LA having clear P2W elements doesn't preclude WoW from having them as well.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Very few players play FFXIV through steam and this does not account for any of the playstation players. You may as well quote wow players who exclusively play on mac. The players here are low enough that while this shows the trend with normal spike in players with an expac release, a lot of it can be attributed to noise.

Well ya that’s why I said as long as the rest follow the trends.

I’m not saying this is the full fanbase or any thing like that just that it’s a fairly large sample size and Is assuredly large enough that you could use to to chart out over all trends if you want to talk stats.

[Saintlel]

Well ya that’s why I said as long as the rest follow the trends.

I’m not saying this is the full fanbase or any thing like that just that it’s a fairly large sample size and Is assuredly large enough that you could use to to chart out over all trends if you want to talk stats.

ffxiv's player retention is shit, so it's likely correct