Square Enix has revealed that the latest expansion, Dawntrail.

Still, it's plainly obvious, at least to me, why FF14 is a success. Although I'm a little surprised to hear its sales have left things like the massively successful Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth in the dust, I'm not at all surprised that it's been a success, and that it's continued to succeed over the years since it's been released. It doesn't always do everything right, but it has a lot going for it, and it fairly consistently rights its wrongs while continuing to innovate and improve. FF14 isn't perfect, but its success story should serve as a model to Square Enix when it comes to moving forward with its flagship properties.

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How FF14 Performed This Year

success of the Dragon Quest 3 remake.

Another category is "Games for Smart Devices/PC Browser"; in other words, mobile games. This includes things like Final Fantasy 7: Ever Crisis and War of the Visions, which shut down shortly before the end of Square's fiscal year. In this sector, Square reported "operating income sharply down on weakness in existing titles" - in other words, its mobile games didn't do too well.

The third and final category is "MMO," which encomes Final Fantasy 14 and the Japan-only Dragon Quest X. Here, Square reports "operating income up," which it specifically attributes to the successful release of Dawntrail. Net sales in this category are up by 8.2 billion yen (about $56 million) year over year, and operating income is up 2.6 billion (about $18 million). This is the only category to show unmitigated growth year over year, and a significant amount of growth at that. And when you look at FF14 as it is today, it should be pretty clear why.

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FF14's Success Story

First and foremost, the biggest key to FF14's success is its obvious quality. Simply put, it's just a good game. It has a strong story, pretty visuals, beautiful music, and fun gameplay. People get into it because they get attached to its characters, or they appreciate its dungeon design and enjoy developing their characters, leveling up along its various classes. That's what drew me in, and what's kept me coming back for a decade.

There's also the simple fact that FF14 is able to profit more year over year because of its status as an MMO. Most of Square Enix's other games are single-player RPGs - you buy them once, and you own them forever, and unless there's DLC, you never spend any money on them ever again. But FF14 is a little more expensive.

Sure, it has the extended free trial, but after that, you have to pay a subscription fee to keep going. Even after that, you have to buy a new expansion ever couple of years if you want to keep up with the latest content, which just means more money from every player for Square Enix. And that's not even to mention the microtransactions.

Microtransactions in FF14 are largely cosmetic, and rarely used for gameplay purposes.

But, to make all that money worth it, FF14 is consistently updated with new content, which has kept it interesting over the years. It's not just combat and dungeons, either. As an MMO, FF14 has become Square Enix's most expansive game, which means there's something for every player in it. There are the hardcore FF14 raiders, the crafters, the roleplayers, the fashionistas, the casual players, et cetera. Every one of them has their place in the game, and every one of them gets new content - if not with every single update, at least with reasonable regularity.

Of course, things weren't always that way. Somewhat infamously, FF14 had a disastrous launch that resulted in much of the game being scrapped, and starting again from scratch as A Realm Reborn. I won't get into the whole success story, though it is fascinating - I only mention this to say that the harrowing experience of the original version's failure seems to have created a unique mindset in the developers.

As a result, the FF14 team is hyper-vigilant when it comes to fan . It doesn't try to please everyone, but it's good at sensing when there's a real problem and addressing it in updates. Even years-long quality-of-life complaints are subject to change. This not only helps avoid player frustration, but also ensures that the game is consistently improving and staying current over the years. Playing FF14 today looks and feels noticeable different from it did when I started, and that's an incredible thing to be able to say about a decade-old game.

At the end of the day, you don't need to look at the sales numbers to understand why FF14 is so successful. I feel it every time I . Standing in the middle of Limsa, listening to all the chatter around me, watching players run around in circles, show off their outfits, play live concerts, whatever it happens to be - FF14 feels alive not only because of the tools it gives the player, but because of how the community uses them.

There's a lesson to be learned here, and it's not that Square Enix needs to go full-tilt into the MMO business. FF14 has been successful because it's a good game, because the developers know what their players want and aim to deliver it to them, and because it has a robust and lively community. I hope to see Final Fantasy 14 inspire more of Square Enix's output in the near future.

Source: Square Enix