If FFXIV Fails... What Does That Mean For FFXI?

That really depends from company to company. In one thread on the Nexon Forums (Mabinogi, Vindictus, Dragon Nest), someone posted Nexon's costs to just run the servers that came from one of their year-end reports. It amounted to around $1 million US per month for servers alone. But, to MMOs, servers and server costs are just one part of the equation outside of taxes.

Let's say it costs an even $1 million a month to operate FFXI or FFXIV servers. Add the costs of development and maintenance that includes developers, artists, directors, etc. and put a price of maybe a round number of $5 million a month for that to pay for their salaries, tools, etc. (Of course, these are numbers I'm pulling out of my ***, but putting it up here for the sake of explanation.) That amounts to around $6 million a month to keep the servers running, the people maintaining the servers, and the people providing bug fixes, updates, additional content, and work for future expansions.

At $12.95 a month for one character for FFXIV or FFXI, at $6 million a month Square-Enix would need at least 464,000 players (rounding up by a lot) in one month to break even on costs. They would be profitable once they exceed that number.

This is also not factoring the time and costs the game, FFXIV, has been offline in the transition from v1.0 to v2.0 ARR. And, it does not factor in the development costs to revamp it from the ground up. So, SE will most likely be in the red for the first quarter for FFXIV. They would need to be break even by at least second quarter of the year after ARR's release. And, they should or need to be profitable in the next two quarters after that.

However, they need just under half a million players paying the subscription fee within the first three months.

Other numbers:

Doable?

That really depends on the kind of players that are willing to pay for a subscription fee model in an MMO that's sitting back-to-back with other MMOs (EVE Online, World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy XI) surrounded by a gang of F2P MMO games. As someone said above my post, people are truly tired of the World of Warcraft mechanic that has plagued and flooded a lot of these MMOs. Having Square-Enix shift FFXIV's mechanics closer and closer to a WoW-model of gameplay is not going to help their cause. We already have a deluge of WoW clones out there: TERA, RIFT, Allods Online, etc. And, then there are the multitide of F2P games from [South] Korea and Japan. People will be trying the game out for the first month or two, then hop to another looking for the "next big thing" in MMOs. If they've done it already in an MMO, then they will most likely not be staying for a year or more especially if they have to pay a monthly fee for it.

For FFXIV to succeed and even get that initial half a million players, is to set itself apart from the other WoW-like games out there. Make it fun, make it enjoyable and give a reason why I, as a player, should pay the monthly fee to keep playing. And, that is a difficult thing to do for any company especially when they're surrounded by F2P games on the MMO market and World of Warcraft itself. The job system and its story are what sets FFXI apart, and hopefully FFXIV, from other MMORPGs right now. But, will it be enough to attract players and let them stay month-to-month in the years to come.

That's why I see more promise coming out of Everquest 2 and ArcheAge than FFXIV ARR right now. Move too close to World of Warcraft, or try to emulate it, you need something else outside of being a WoW-like clone to keep your players coming (and paying). Most MMOs either fail or succeed at doing that, or have shifted entirely to an F2P model-- SWTOR, TERA, and RIFT are good examples. Everquest 2 from what I've read so far is going to be a sandbox MMO, and given its name, is more than likely going to succeed given how Everquest 1 pretty much defined MMOs pre-World of Warcraft. ArcheAge is even showing a lot of promise with its own sandbox model and is giving players a lot of options to do in the game outside of grinding for EXP and gear. These are the two MMOs to look for, besides Project Titan, in the years to come after FFXIV ARR's release, and will be the hardest things to compete against in an MMO market.

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... How is the situation in Tsahya on the continent of Olzhirya? You have to realize that they are getting aid from Aht Urghan and at the same time are in continuous conflict with the Great Southern Empire.
... How is the Great Southern Empire faring nowadays since they are a hodge-podge of city states? Vana'diel Tribune mentioned of not only conflict with Olzhirya but conflict from within. Civil war brewing?

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... Rune Fencer's origin lies on the continent of Rhazowa. Also, what is Ragnarok that was mentioned in one of the text from Wings of the Goddess quest or mission? The Far North also has the origins of the Orcs and Gigas, as well as any remaining (if still alive) Elvaan settlements before they came to the San d'Orian regions.