We Found the TRUTH: The Numbers Behind FFXIV’s Explosive Growth 

FF14 is the only MMO, or live service even, that I can think of that feels like a complete cohesive experience with a beginning, middle, but no end (or rather, many ends to different story arcs, and new story arcs all the time). It's like the best of both worlds, you can go back and play it from beginning to current content without feeling like you missed a beat, just like a single player game, but you still get the benefits of constant content updates. Other studios really should take not, but apparently they don't.

FFXIV deserves its success. Good developers, good game, good community. 🙏🏻

I remember how 3.2's raiding content quite literally broke the endgame structure of this game. In several crucial ways, 3.2 represents the start of the wide cultural shift from "raiding is endgame" to "endgame is what you want it to be."

I want to thank you personally, Matt, for preaching FFXIV last year. I started because of your glowing praise of the game. I had played WoW some time around 2009 and didn't really want to get into an MMO, but you did give it a good sales pitch. I don't regret I gave it a try in the least.

I love that every time you do a duty roulette you get the "a player is finishing this dungeon/trial" message. Nothing more fun then watering the sprouts.

Love seeing more videos hosted by Matt.

That 2.5 million number is very possible because South Korea is also on its own server and not counted, so if we take that into consideration, it could be that little bit to push it into that 2.5 million guess pretty easily

Currently doing Eureka and even after 3 years, the instances are jam packed with players and thriving. I hardly ever get an instance that doesn’t fill up. This is even during a “content drought.” FFXIV player base is just massive and filled with so many sprouts running through the game for the first time. It’s just such a healthy MMO design philosophy.

I don't think that the growth last year should be credited to Asmongold only, there was a MASSIVE influx of new content creators, especially ex-WoW players around that time. Jesse Cox was finishing Shadowbringers, Rich was finishing Heavensward, Preach, Nobbel, Pint was starting MSQ...hell, even Bellular too. Sure Asmongold is the largest of these streamers, but not the only one that had effect on player numbers.

Shadow bringers was the first expansion launch since Yoshi-P joined the board of directors at Square Enix. They really ramped up marketing for ShB, I was seeing more ads for the game everywhere than I ever had before. I think that helped a lot

That follows my own experience. After 5.3 I told myself that there was a LOT of story I didnt remember and started the game over again... I've been taking my time with it (up to stormblood at the moment) and I swear I've been falling in love with the game all over again.

Bellular and team have quickly become some of my most watched creators in the past year Some of the best feelings is when there’s 3 videos from all of their channels posted at once just for me to watch. Hell I even spend my entire Friday watching the podcast because it’s so damn good Keep up the good work!

Started playing it last month and man I’m in love with it and even as a single player purist it’s quickly becoming my favorite FF game I’m only few expansions in and I’m very hyped for shadowbringers/endwalker.

FFXIV's population is so difficult to accurately gauge, just because of the way different data centers are run, and because of how many console players there are vs PC ones. That said, I still get queues during peak hours, and the only time the world feels even slightly empty is if I log in at 5-7am. Even then, I can find people chilling out in Gold Saucer for a quick Slice, or get a group together for DF. It's crazy how much the game has grown.

I played up to shadowbringers and then left. The thing is though, I feel like I am not missing out right now, I can leave FF14 and then when I am not burnt out or whatever, I can step right back in and enjoy the game just as much as if it were actually the time the patch came out for the most part.

I think you need to take into account that before Asmond began to play, a number of other people had begun to play. Blizzard began to have problems and then E3 announced that FF14 had become one of the most popular MMOs. Yeah Asmond helped for sure, but E3 is what pulled the trigger and them mentioning it. Because I started thinking about trying it again in May of last year and then E3 mentioned it and I began to play in June.

I think another way to interpret the fact that a small percentage has cleared the latest expansions is a good thing, and a testament to how much other content other players can engage in that is not just the MSQ and Raiding Endgame. I am an example of this, I have 1800 hours and I am still just in the beginning of Endwalker despite starting last October just a few months before EW's release and I know many others like me. And that 1800 hours hasn't been taken up by doing side-quest, raiding, or PVP, no. It has completely been filled up by me going to social events in-game, talking to friends, and partaking in housing and the games club scene. I still have *alot* I have not done yet and I love it.

One of the things I love about FFXIV is that I never really feel pressured to "rush" to "endgame". I came back to the game after a long break a bit after Shadowbringers launched, and I rolled a new character to remember how to play it.... and then I dusted off my old character and am still playing that one today. I'm not even up to Shadowbringers content yet, and am happy that I can still run dungeons and do quests, even though I'm so far "behind". Making a game where you don't throw things away, and where even brand new players have a reason to want to play the WHOLE game, rather than just level boost past it all, is a wonderful thing.

ShB being the giant spike is exactly what I expected. I have been playing FF since 1990, but was one of the "FF MMO is not FF!" guys back in FF11 era. Shadowbringers is the first time FF14 became a big enough deal to really show up outside the MMO gaming space after the 1.0 disaster. The story was held up as the best FF story since 10 by the gaming media and analyzed and written about.

I love seeing Matt take the camera. He's been growing to this point for a while. Well done you guys! keep the team growing.

My one concern is that we'll start to expect **too** much from it. The constant mindset of "it just keeps going up!" might set us up for a result that doesn't match our expectations, which we'll take out on the devs, which will stress the dev team out, which will cause their fire to create for us fans to dwindle. EW ties up the initial saga, which means the story will essentially start at square one--which I hope we understand has a very low chance of topping how hyped we were heading into EW by virtue of being a new start. Also, with Yoshi-P and the CBU3 team working on FF16 simultaneously, so it's going to be a tough time on their side. Anyway, all seeds of doubt aside, I love this game as much as the next fan, and I'm so happy to see its well-earned rise to popularity. Without a doubt, XIV has set the tone for quality in today's gaming scene.

FF14 has quickly become one of my favorite games of all time

I've had friends who left during Heavensward come back recently. For one of them, it was because her son is finally old enough to be in school, so she doesn't feel obligated to stay in 24/7 mom mode any more. Both she and her husband quit MMOs when they had their kid, although neither left gaming entirely.

Been playing on the weekend for a couple weeks now...I think besides the story one of the things I'm really enjoying is that there's lots of stuff to do besides the MSQ, and the game even encourages you to take your time and not worry too much about endgame ( and not so they have time to scramble and get something half assed out like certain MMOs have been doing ). I'm sure I'm bound to run into parts that just don't interest or work out for me ( no such thing as perfection ) but so far it's working great at keeping me interested and entertained. The lack of pressure to hit max level and be raiding at the end is really nice.

When you play FF it feels like a game , nothing feels forced . It felt like every time they added to the game something was added .

It's interesting. I finally started playing FFXIV in May of 2019, which is right at that point where it started growing before Shadowbringers, but I had no idea about any of that. I knew next to nothing about the game. My reason for playing was actually from FF15. There was a FFXIV tie in quest where you meet a miqo'te and fight Garuda. I was replaying FF15 for the royal edition changes. Doing that quest inspired me to try out FFXIV after I'd finished my replay of FF15 and I've since put in well above 5000 hours into FFXIV.

FFXIV has achieved something that all media - definitely not just MMOs - struggles to come close to, which is content of such consistent quality that's earned the confidence of its players for its future. In gaming in particularly that's exceedingly rare, but for a game with an ongoing and robust narrative it's even rarer... look at what happened with Bioware for instance and how several missteps can crater the trust with your audience.

I pick it up once every other patch and play for a bit. I never feel FOMO like WoW where you feel like you have to be sprinting out of the gate every expansion or patch. The game is chill, the community is chill and you always have something to do. The wheel isn't reinvented every expansion and the old content is made relevant so new players are always supported by vets.

The community content for FF14 does a ton to drive player retention too. So many people just chill and hang out, either in major cities or player houses. This just ads an exponential effect to any growth. The more people you throw into a positive social system, the more people will want to stay, or get their friends involved.

It's interesting for sure. I was one of those people that played every Final Fantasy besides the online ones. Honestly, just thought the MMO couldn't have a large focus on story as that is what drew me to the single player FF's. Then all the stories started coming out and well... I played through all of the game and have been thoroughly convinced.

During Covid, I had 30+ hours a week to play games, which was then wow. Now, im lucky to get 10-15 hours a week. I agree that FFXIV has facilitated to my changing availability, and to a healthier lifestyle. I'm also still surprised the number of players running around during a content drought. Definitely feels like a healthier experience.

As someone who was there, I can tell you that HW was the low point of the games popularity because of its endgame. Back then the "endgame is whatever you want it to be" mentality was not as robust as it is today. Gordias and Midas almost destroyed the raiding community due to how much more difficult they were than the Coil raids. The majority of players were not ready for the difficulty spike and a huge number of raid teams broke up. There was no cross server play, so all the raiders flocked to raid servers like Gilgamesh, leaving many servers as ghost towns. The Crafting systems introduced were also tedious. Crafters had to grind weekly tokens for gear upgrades that could only be used on one crafting job and the specialization system made it much more difficult to omnicraft. Overall the endgame just wasn't very fun until SE started to fix alot of the main issues in late HW. After that it just took some time to rebuild the community.

18:12 I guess Matt is called Michael now. Your pacing was excellent in this video, great job!

This is the kind of content I really enjoy watching. Keep on this track, Matt! I feel like what happened was they looked at their numbers and saw the game's performance was week. Then they started asking hard questions about what they were doing wrong. What could or should be doing differently to improve the graph for the future? Actiblizzard is still asking themselves, "What's wrong with the playerbase? What can we do to make them conform?"

Would love to see you dive back into that spreadsheet, Matt! Great video, thanks for the analysis :)

Nice video! I started a few months ago after having only played prior to A Realm Reborn. Totally blown away by how much the game changed, the currently quality, how much content there is, and how lovely the player base is. So much effort has gone into it and it is so well done! (I did struggle a bit with the initial main questline, but it got much more compelling after level 35 and just kept getting better with each expansion.)

Love this video, thank you for taking the time to bring it all together.

1. Yay a full Matt video! 2. Would love to see if you can find similar levels of data for other MMOs do some comparisons between the trends in them. WoW, EVE, GW2, ESO, etc

This game is so good. It’s the only game I play. I sometimes spend a week without logging in, but I always come back. I don’t even know how to express this feeling.

This game has really never went down. It's steadily gone up and the construction of the content and expansions prove that. It's not like WoW where a previous expansion had better functions than a current one. FFXIV keeps building on their expansions and their core systems that have been around forever.

Thanks for another great and informative video. Those oil barrels being flung into the fire with explosions were very well edited and I laughed more than I should have.

I started my FFXIV experience at it's lowest point, by these numbers. I took my time, watched the cutscenes, got carried through Alexander for gear, and after all was said and done I was genuinely hooked. I loved going through the story and never having that sense of "I have to play or I'm gonna fall behind." I feel like even without speaking to many people I'm part of a good community.

Love this video. Awesome seeing more content from Mat anyways, but also I love being able to see data, and see what conclusions you can extrapolate from it!

I feel this data as well. I got into ff14 mid-cycle in Shadowbringers. Now the game has retained me and I'm logging in a couple of times a week to do stuff.

This means somewhere between 1/2 and 1/3 of the player base are sprouts. Which also kind of shows that the game is healthy since it keeps getting an influx of new players to make up for the players who take a break.

Great video, Matt! I'm definitely interested in more videos like this.

Matt is such a good presenter. You can realy feel his positivity.

Loved having Matt doing this! Hope to see you more often! And I would like to see more

Can you link the interviews with Yoshi P that you featured here in the description please? Maybe include some of the other stuff you reference in the video too. Anyway nice video, it's interesting to put some numbers to it. I'm quite aware of how many casual players mmos have but I was still surprised the MSQ completion rates were so low.

The thing I like most about FFXIV is that their dev team seems to respect players regardless of their chosen playstyle. They don't fall into the traps that Blizzard's dev team does where they listen to one very vocal section of the playerbase and change the game to exclusively suit them at everyone else's expense. A case in point is the decision to remove RDF from WotLK Classic despite every online poll indicating that almost 70% of players want it. Their disingenuous response is that players can experience RDF in retail, but that ignores the fact the WotLK RDF provided a currency that players could collect to upgrade gear, while retail's RDF provides gear on par with quest blues. In the meantime, FFXIV's duty roulette is alive and well, and somehow the community remains strong despite Blizzard's misguided belief that RDF destroys communities and social interactions. I may not have 600 gear in FFXIV, but I'm fully decked out in 590s, and when I feel extra motivated, I can gather the nuts required to upgrade that gear to 600. Unlike WoW, FFXIV doesn't place an insurmountable wall in my path just because I don't want to participate in high end raiding or timed dungeon runs (which transformed from exclusively being challenge modes for prestige cosmetics to being the only path to high end raid gear outside of Mythic raiding) on a daily basis.

Incredible work to Matt and Lucky Banjo! Lovely vid!

This was a great video. So few content creators go into data analysis like your guys do. Keep Thema coming.

I had to stop playing because of family an emergency around patch 3.2. I came back in August of 2021 because I wanted to get caught up before the launch of Endwalker & take my time & enjoy the game. Every last person in my very old Friends List & Linkshells that logged in were also coming back for Endwalker. Every last one of us had the same reason, We came back to finish what we started , we were there at FFXIV:ARR launched, & we wanted to see the story we missed & have the story-line come to its conclusion. Involving the story, I'll remember it for the rest of my life, yes it is that good. It is all about the journey, so do yourself a favor, when it comes to the MSQ, read all of the text, do not skip reading any of the MSQs, or any of the blue quests. If you're just starting out make a character you can relate to, one you can connect to, it will add more to the story, you will hate it if you have made a silly joke character, this isn't your normal role playing game, make a character you can be proud to call yours. When I came back people asked me a few times if I started playing because of Asmongold, & my answer was always, "Who or what is that?" And the 2 dozen people I spoke to that came back said the same thing. 80% of my old crowd quit because they had a baby or two. One person who was playing WoW knew who he was a twitch streamer, they said he's a un datable (accept gold-diggers), unwashed, 120 pound, balding, 38 year old man, that lives in his parents attic, but has made millions streaming. I hope what he told me is right, I do not know the man, if any of that is not true, let me know & I'll correct it... People can be cruel to those who have more wealth or followers.

For me, its all about the story. I have to deal with cross-continental ping, so high level raiding isn't something I've even considered, but I can still experience everything in what is probably one of the best RPG storylines I've seen this decade. It produced some legitimate emotions. From a quip to a dead man while you're down on your luck, to the dread that your closest will fall by your own hands, this game did not disappoint.

what website did he get the graphs from? I wan't to take a closer look for myself, thanks

We are between parches, the feared "content draught" yet last night deecided to go do Bodja which is years old content and there was a lot of people there on a Wednesday middle of the week, Castrum kept spawning and a lot of the players were sprouts. Loads of new players they stated the free trial before or after endwalker stuck around and are now reaching endgame

Matt

What I remember around the time I started was Tom Holland in his yard training to be the Warrior of Darkness. I wonder if having a celebrity advertisement with the Dark Knight front and center in those adds got more attention to this game right before Shadowbringers.

As a 1.0 legacy player that's been here for this entire grand adventure, this couldn't make me any happier. This is just amazing. The future is bright for us.

I am that percentage of the player base that hasn’t reached endwalker. Tbh I reached shadowbringers last week. In the back of my mind I know that’s the expansion I must experience but what I love about ff14 and it’s at this point this happened to me . I am actually distracted doing other things, for example I went from tank to leveling my healer class. Chasing mounts , helping 3 of my family members to catch up with me , this week ofc getting those moogle tombstones. Oh have i have i mentioned I got my first apartment, became a gatherer, fisher and carpenter to make some Gil. There’s this house I want almost at 3 mil. I focused for a week unlocking allegiance raids I missed and dungeons from previous expansions . Oh I tried eureka for a week too. So in the end I am doing what I want , having that freedom to take my time and enjoy all the content provided. I would say this Endgame isn’t defeating the game to me I think I’ve reached what I consider the true endgame and that’s the fact I am invested In this world roaming freely daily having fun , exploring , discovering , helping , farming, raiding , listening to that ishgard song . Yep I’m that guy. Eventually I’ll beat msq, but for now I’m just free to have fun in my way and pace. This is the first game I’ve ever had this experience with and I’m honestly happy with that.

I think one thing that really adds player retention is honestly the playerbase. Lone wolf character but will bum around popular areas. Shy guy irl, so walking up and going, "wanna raid?" is oddly daunting to me, even more so than MT'ing with randos. Obviously, some people recognized me and those cursed extroverts start talking to me. Next thing I know, I have a group of people who say hi to me every time I log in. I never have that with another game besides FFXIV. Now, speculation on the future, I can see the playerbase dropping a bit after Endwalker because, well, the next expansion will be all about set-up rather than pay offs, which is why ShB and Endwalker are so good. Years upon years of buildup leading up to satisfying pay offs.

Well deserved success. Great devs

I started last June, I started an alt last month because my first character is an omni 90. I've clocked 3614 hours in the past year. It's amazing what you can accomplish when enjoyment is the primary focus and not raw profit.

With my FC it kind of supports some of this - we've got a bunch of people returning from leaving at the end of SHB around when most companies got people back from working from home or just out of lockdowns AND even those that have played almost every month since before Endwalker 2 of our officers and I'd say 60% of our members are on SB or early ShB but they enjoy the game with the old raids/dungeons/content and more =) It's amazing :D (Many especially the officers have level 90s already one had two level 90s and hadn't even completed Heavensward cause she dungeons with the FC so much XD

Stormblood had its own launch issues. I recall there being a massive issue trying to get into certain zones & being thrown into queues, at least during the Pre-order launch. They eventually added multiple instances per zone to circumvent this issue but that could account for a good chunk of people just outright not playing at release.

Thank you, Michael and Matt.

I played for a couple weeks when ARR was first launched. I liked it, but holy crap, I recently came back and finished the whole MSQ and it’s really mind blowing how good it is now. It’s really astounding.

I got into FFXIV through watching a friend stream it a bit and the option of playing with the free trial which is very extensive for F2P. I started the game on April 1st (or well, night to April 1st) and went full game in May and I play for hours most days. ARR was good, Heavensward was nice but slightly confusing, Stormblood was amazing, Shadowbringers totally blew my mind, and now I’m in Endwalker and I just can not believe how good the game is! The attention for details, the pretty environments on the maps, the music on different maps and how it evolves as you progress (Ultima Thule is one such place, I’m now often opting to be by the Omega base when queuing for dungeons because of the music there) I can even listen to FFXIV music when not playing the game because the music is just amazing and it’s hard to believe it’s just a game soundtrack. I love FFXIV and am so glad I started playing and that I bought the full version of the game. Yes, it has the monthly cost but you get quality both when it comes to game performance and new content, it’s worth every penny! And the community in FFXIV is pretty awesome as well, by far the least toxic community I’ve ever seen in a game, people take the time to explain if someone is new and don’t get annoyed if someone watches the cutscenes etc. I also love that you don’t have the pressure to play a lot every day if you don’t want to or have the time, it’s totally fine to play a bit more sporadically as there aren’t constant events and when there are events you don’t need to do it daily for a set amount of days, this helps prevent burnout as you just don’t miss out if you take a day off from playing or even a week of not playing. FFXIV is imo the ultimate game. It just has it all!

4:42 Stormblood didn't have high concurrent players because the game was literally broken when it came out. A lot of people were stuck in what has been called Rauban (Extreme) where you need to talk to him to progress, but the server was swamped and would fail to start the solo duty that followed. Some people decided to click on him for days hoping to get in, some formed lines, but many decided to not log in concurrently and just play through it later.

I remember the launch of SB had a pretty bad bug that stopped progress on the first day. everyone was stuck at Rauhbaun right at the start of the Xpac for i cant remember, like the whole first day or something and i remember being on Twitch and everyone in chat saying well see in you a week or whenever they fix it not gonna buy yet and things like that. Im sure they fixed it fast but i cant remember how long it took that can also help explain the dip at the start of SB its not the only reason for sure and im sure someone else in the comments has talked about it somewhat but it was a hard wall that only a few players got past on any server day one which soured a lot of people.

The Shadowbringers Trailer hooked me because of how many moments my jaw dropped as I exclaimed "What?!" in surprise, confusion, or pure curiosity as to what in the world I was being shown. "What sayest thou, Master Matoya?" - "um... what?" "... I promise you, Minfilia." - "WHAT?!" "... become the Warrior of Darkness." - "WHAAAAT??!!!??!!" Also, I was REALLY hoping they were going to give us a mechanic to hot-swap jobs mid-battle. I still think that would be an amazing feature to add to the game, even if it was only allowed in specific content areas.

I started playing the February before Shadowbringers came out, because Twitch Prime gave me a free copy of that-time-frame's version of the starter edition. Back then, my server was empty enough that I just ... wandered up to a housing plot and bought a house once I had the money. It had even depreciated to the minimum price! I'm glad I got to see the game right before its population started to really ramp up, because housing crisis aside, it's just really *nice* seeing how full the server is now, how there's always a ton of people around, even at weird hours. The game deserves this love, and I'm happy it's getting it.

I started playing pretty much a year ago, late july, completely by myself on a whim, stuck with the trial for almost two months (should've bought it at least a month earlier looking back). And I love how the game while grindy, it's not overwhelmingly grindy, and it let's you focus on what you want to focus. It took me almost six months to catch up to current tier endgame but the beauty is, even when I was still on trial, I was already doing ARR end-game which was Bahamut Coils, while continuing to prog MSQ at my own pace and doing various other things that the game had to offer even while you're not in current endgame. By the time I finished Endwalker I have already cleared most EX trials as well as all of Alexander Savage raid series. Amidst reclearing p1-4s and chipping away at Omega Savage raids I have also found out Eureka and Bozja are a thing... Of course I got myself lost in Eureka and realized there were also communities built around BA and it once again blew my mind that there's 48 man raids with challenging content with proper fresh boss gimmicks and raid lead organization that you can't find in any previous content, same applies to Bozja's DRS, some of the most fun I've had in the game. The game definitely took a lot of my time in these last 12 months but I'm currently a battle/trade mentor with most jobs nearing 90, finally progging my first Ultimate and I think outside of the pre-Cataclysm WoW, there's no better MMO out there and there won't be any time soon. The best thing about it, is the fact that the game actively gets better, they are trying to make the worst expansion less of a slog and by the time you're towards end of Heavensward you should be properly hooked by the story, which starts peaking by Shadowbringers and gets even crazier in Endwalker. You can feel the quality of content the game "unlocks" for you every expansion cycle and it keeps you wanting more. Even just thinking about 6.2 changes I'm getting antsy and excited for things to come because I know outside of the next savage raid tier I'll be able to sink my teeth into whole new additional systems. I wrote a lot but that's not even mentioning all the more casual/social aspects of the game and boy that's a whole other can of worms and fun...

I can totally believe those msq clear rates. I had a few static members that usually sat on msq until the new expansion was almost out or they had to for a raid tier

Does anybody have a link to the spreadsheet shown in this video?

Just wondering what effect making to world servers had on new characters?

Thank you for making this video, i was just drooling through the video at all the info that you showed us

"That's what happens when your MMO has content" OOF SIZE: LARGE It's so wild how much Yoshi P respects his playerbase instead of fighting them for 7 years straight

I like analysis like this matt! Love it.... some surprising findings too

It took me about an entire year slowly but consistently playing FF14 from start in A Realm Reborn thru the entire MSQ to end of Endwalker and I really took my time and enjoyed the entire journey. I remember starting Dec 23rd 2020 on trial after I quit the short few months of WoW Shadowlands. Finished ARR after about 2 months then took a break to play a few months of Valheim till the summer when Blizzard imploded. Started Heavensward and MSQ straight into Endwalker Launch and straight till the end. By then it was about a year on my on off and on again journey. Been on much of a break last couple of months due to real life work commitments.

Not to mention the future changes to come to ARR dungeons and such to improve the experience that will periodically come as patches roll out as well. Things that will potentially help improve the new player experience and drive them towards possibly becoming long term players as well.

The fact that I can take a few months off to play other games, and come back and feel like I can hop right back into it is pretty refreshing. In WoW, if I ever stop playing for any reason in an expansion, I'm not coming back until the next expansion, because even with the catch up mechanics in place, there are just too many hoops to jump through and too much crap to deal with to get back into the endgame. It also doesn't help that my favorite part of the game was M+, and while the seasonal affix does change, you're still running largely the same dungeons patch after patch, so I would be putting in a bunch of work to catch up to essentially do the same activity again. I think the new approach to the M+ rotation is a good idea, because it would solve a pain point for me. But simply removing pain points isn't a reason to get me interested again. There is a lot of new stuff in 6.2 that I'm really looking forward to, and based on that and the other patch features they've already mentioned in the live letters, I can look down the road of Endwalker and have confidence that there will be plenty to do. I always did wonder why the first patch felt like it didn't have as much content because they usually wait till the .2+ patches to start releasing the exploration zones/deep dungeons/other content, but based on the fact that only half of the people have finished the MSQ, it actually makes sense why they wouldn't rush to push this kind of content out right away when a lot of people wouldn't be able to do it yet. Great video!

I was part of the Asmon bump. Don't ask me why but the YT algorithm brought me Asmon, though I didn't play WoW. I saw him playing FF14 and fell in love with the aesthetics and the fact that there were catbois. >^_^< I was hooked. Been playing for almost a year now, and I finished MSQ because the story was just that good for me. Now I'm trying other stuff out--other professions, tribe quests, savage tier raiding... things I never expected to do a year ago. I found myself caught up in FCs (some worked, some didn't), but each time, I was amazed by how lively the social scene is (even if it isn't my thing most of the time). Honestly, there is so much to do, and the game is fairly well-rounded. It's no surprise then that I've gone on to try to get my siblings and friends into it... Just want to share the love.

Great analysis. One thing to remember is external factors. Even if a game does everything right and is a hit, if the competition around it is stiff and the timing doesn't line up, it can overshadow a lot. This is especially true in the MMO genre where there is a LOT of investment players put into which game they play. FF14 has the HIGHEST investment requirement out of any MMORPG I've played. It was so worth it, but that high investment cost them my subscription for a while before I finally came around.

Whoever edited the red exploding barrels into the Shadowbringers trailer deserves a raise!

Ah yes Gordias and Midas the raid tiers that at some points were mathematically impossible

Storm blood early was insanely popular, but people stopped because of PS3 removal and Raubhan extreme didn't help at all. Then it built back up over time. That's what I remember from Stormblood release

Matt, I really appreciate your XIV videos. This one and the one about the battle system really take a closer look at the truth and core of the game and what makes it so special. Thank you !

It's also interesting to note that Shadowbringers dropped *during* Battle for Azeroth. I'm not up on patch numbers, but whichever patch it was where the "story" (what there is of it) put the eyeball on the player's forehead that they could choose to remove (I did, as fast as I possibly could) was at ABOUT the same time period as the 4.55 patch of Stormblood leading into Shadowbringers. I know because *that* was the patch that caused me to yeet my Dwarven Priestess OUT of Azeroth and INTO Eorzea. So I was one of those "new players" who arrived just prior to Shadowbringers dropping in July (I think I started in April, give or take a couple weeks). I had *always* complained about the lack of a clear MSQ in WoW zones. I didn't even really care about one for the whole expac, I just wanted clear *zone* stories so that I could piecemeal my way through to Loremaster on my Alt Army. Finding FF was... in the beginning it was terrifying because I don't do transitions or New Things well AT ALL, but after about a week I realized that I was *home* for the first time since my character had last run through Rivervale and Misty Thicket in Norrath (EverQuest). WoW's death throes have been ever widening for a WHILE and I tend to think that Battle for Azeroth might have set off, if not the first, one of the bigger waves of refugees looking for somewhere else, someTHING else to play. Something not so hyperfocused on funneling people into the endless treadmill of an "endgame". It's just interesting to me to look at those two games side-by-side in how numbers have developed over time. Because nothing happens in a vacuum, so to speak.

Please do more of these! LOVE this

These segments on game numbers is awesome - especially for those of us in the indie game space who keep tabs on the industry

I started playing around the same time Asmondgold did, but it was comments on Night Sky Price videos that got me in, I think. Anyways, I've taken a few breaks since and am now in the middle of the Stormblood mission Stormblood. Looking forward to finally playing Shadowbringers.

Hey Matt, would love if you took another look, after 6.2 comes out!

always a pleasure listening to your videos matt !

I loved this entire video; I've watched it twice! I'd really enjoy seeing more data interpretation from Matt.

I am above 60 and not in an FC. I started in Aug 2019, finished 3.0 and now working on relic weapons for ARR, HW and SB. Also trying to catch up on the optional Dungeons, Raids n stuff.

Love the data breakdown, and glad to see Matt getting some solo spotlight 👍🏻

I played the game on launch on ps3 but my parents didn't realise there was a subscription and weren't willing to pay understandably, however now I've been subbed the past few years and I'm so glad, i always remember that first time i played with such glee, absolutely adore this game and its community

Amazing and super interesting video! This is all stuff I've wondered about.

My theory about 5.3 based on anecdotal evidence about is that it was actually so *good* that a lot of people were emotionally exhausted and decided to take a break at the same time for 5.4 and 5.5.