Is this the hit they were looking for?

SquareEnix has revisited their projected financial results forecast after September 30th ended their 6 month projection. Most people were expecting FFXIV:ARR to at best break even and at worst cause a financial loss due to the poor reception that the original FFXIV received due to many major problems.

The previous estimates were a net loss of 1.3 billion Yen (which is roughly around 13 million USD) while this new revised projection now shows them with a projection net gain of  2.6 billion Yen (which is just south of 26.5 million USD). This means that this project is now looking like it’ll gain a total of 3.9 billion Yen more than they expected. Another surprise is that the estimated retention of players after the first month is normally around 35% of the base initial surge of players. It’s said that not only is FFXIV:ARR over that number but YoshiP had this to say:

“As FFXIV: ARR is a subscription based business model, naturally there will be players who will not play anymore once they finished the main scenario. MMORPGs that launched after 2008 with a subscription based model retained a maximum of 35% of their users during the first month of subscriptions. However, FFXIV: ARR has surpassed this number by a wide margin. That’s not to say that we’re satisfied with our current figures, and we’d like as many people as possibly to subscribe and play the game.”

It’s speculated that the number is closer to the 50% mark which is another reason why the projections were being changed.

 

This is of course after many problems made for a very difficult first month of play for many players but through several fairly well used lines of communication many players understood and went through the fixes with the developer and players were even compensated for lost time because of the problems. Some of the reasons that have been mentioned for FFXIV:ARR’s success is it’s lower price point of only $30 for the title, two great a monthly fee options (that is lower than the standard for most paid MMORPGs), the FFXIV:ARR team’s great communication with the community on problems, and the very in-depth Final Fantasy caliber story that we have expected to see with the franchise. One of the most touching moments I have seen is YoshiP’s reaction at the launch day celebration shedding tears of joy from the reaction from the fans. This kind of great communication and dedication from both sides is giving FFXIV:ARR a great chance at becoming something more.

Seeing a publisher/developer like SquareEnix, that I’ve been a huge fan of since I was a kid, turn their projected results turn a huge 180 and actually end up having to increase their projections like this is not only nice to see, but fairly rare these days. If SquareEnix can keep playing their cards right this game looks to be around for a long time and maybe even end up standing with some of the other giants in the MMO space. After playing the game for several weeks now I can’t see myself playing much of anything else in this genre for a long time.