Letter from the Producer, XLI (01/23/2013)

[Alkar]

The 1.6 million views of the trailer YouTube in 3 days didn't happen by its self.

It's called viral marketing. And views don't mean much tbh, I couldn't even finish watching the trailer.

[Eagleheart]

I see. That explains it then. Not a bad marketing tactic though I don't agree with the idea of sponsored trends/tweets, it kinda defeats the point of Twitter.

Off-topic to a degree, but I had a similar thought this morning, pulling up a search for a specific federal contract number used in my line of work, Bing had a comment on the right sidebar which said, essentially "Make sure that people see the real you! Login to your social networking account and take control of what others see about your preferences and history."

The irony is marvelous, is it not?

On topic, I am cautiously optimistic about sub numbers. ( >>) Primarily, though, I have been pleased that Yoshi P's stated intentions are "to make a Final Fantasy game of surpassing quality that our fans expect and deserve" and has said nothing about making a "WoWkiller". That is the correct attitude.

Make an excellent product and the people will come. Aim to usurp another product and you lose sight of what's important. Yoshi P's got it right.

Kuro's poster is spot on. (' ' ) Keep it comin' Kuro!

[TacoTaru]

I see. That explains it then. Not a bad marketing tactic though I don't agree with the idea of sponsored trends/tweets, it kinda defeats the point of Twitter.

It's not a bad idea at all. I have trends tailored to me and regardless of the gaming franchise, or whether or not I like it, if it pops up in my trending feed I'll check it to see what the news is. It totally works, but I only meant to imply that it wasn't genuine fan/world interest that got it trending that high. It certainly does remind people to be aware of TESO and gets eyeballs in that direction which isn't good for those of us who would prefer it on XIV. I don't think anything is going to give XIV more hype than TESO though outside of a colossal failure of a beta/launch and a home run of a beta considering TESO hasn't already failed once.

As a side note, does anyone ever really expect WoW numbers again? I'm not being sarcastic. I know Rocl was being facetious with his 30m comment, but what even would define a successful MMO in this day and age in long term? Would 500~750k subs do it or does it need to hold 1m+?

[Spira]

i'd think breaking 1 million is milestone enough.

this twitter thing reminds me of the FFXI vanafest twitter contest they once held. They had players respond to a trivia contest on twitter and when everyone replied Earthsday to a question i think that actually trended a bit because people thought it was Earth Day LOL.

[Spider-Dan]

I think success or failure is determined less by subscription numbers and more by retention rate. TOR still had plenty of subscriptions (relative to notWoW) as it was being roasted as a failure; it was the bleed rate that generated those stories.

If 2.0 has >90% of its month 1 subscriptions in month 13, I'd consider that a success.

[Falisa]

I'm expecting Rift numbers. Maybe slightly more. Anything more than that will be great for FFXIV, considering the general "What is that?" "Isn't it that terrible game?" "I saw the videos and it looks shit" mentality.

This is exactly my mind set about the entire thing as well at the moment. On top of that, a lot of people over here in 'MURICA have a growing distaste for Japanese made game and particularly the way the single player Final Fantasy games are going. The FF name on this product will not help that, even if its nothing like 13.

But like I said, as well as other people, I really do not care if this game takes off in a large way. If it has a decent playerbase enough to find a LS and people to fill it, I would continue to play this game. A lot of people disliked 1.0 FFXIV but right before the servers shut down I absolutely had a blast playing, just wish I came back sooner to hit the legacy status. :\

[Manako]

TESO is marketing like crazy, and they are running tons of interviews. I'm sure they will get a lot of initial subs, but I'm skeptical it will have staying power (but well see!)

I'm torn between roe and highlander female.. If roes have better hair and nose options I'll probably go for that.

[Kyreth]

I think the best this version is going to manage is "average".

It won't be another FFXI. It's had the unfortunate stigma of a bad initial launch. And honestly, I don't see any that's going to drag it out of the mix of 6 billion Asian-style MMO's at this point. WoW dominates because it was the dominant game of an era where MMO's hadn't yet started F2Ping all over the place, and it's success is, in effect, it's best advertisement.

FFXIV's success will be surviving in the glut of MMO's on the market.

[TacoTaru]

Well there's a name I haven't seen in forever. HI KYRETH

[Nadrojj]

I think success or failure is determined less by subscription numbers and more by retention rate. TOR still had plenty of subscriptions (relative to notWoW) as it was being roasted as a failure; it was the bleed rate that generated those stories.

If 2.0 has >90% of its month 1 subscriptions in month 13, I'd consider that a success.

This right here ^

If 14 is able to capture a player base and keep their subs then they are indeed doing it right. When tor was released 12 people in my department all decided to give it a go, three months later not a single one of us played it. We all hit max level, got best in slot gear and finished our pvp sets. There was nothing to do but log in and start another character. No thanks.

That's why some of you have seen my posts about what content they are going to tailor toward endgame when the game hits retail. Let's face it, there more than likely won't be millions of new subs, but it might garner enough interest from all those who picked it up and put it back down to give it another go. The low level content will be important to capture that audience, but you also have think about the existing player base. The people who have all jobs/crafts at 50, will there be enough content to keep them around and happy? Square has a lot riding on this re-release. To lose some of their subs due to lack of content would be a shame.

[nekura]

Another problem with SWTOR is how they handled the post-launch player exodus that is inevitable for pretty much every MMO; it took way too long for them to come up with a server merging plan to deal with the spread-too-thin population, which just causes more people to leave.