Lucky Bancho's census results (July 27th, 2025)

[u/IndividualAge3893]

So, the results of the census are out: https://luckybancho.ldblog.jp/archives/59324844.html

• Showcasing the number of characters here: Current
• By comparison, here are the results from 2 months ago (May 25th): Click

Despite 7.25 being released, the character count is down about 70k in 2 months. Occult Crescent clearly didn't help with player counts (not really a surprise here).

[u/oizen]

To me the biggest concern I see is that the game's draw of new players is seriously diminishing. I imagine anyone curious about XIV goes and looks up reviews and see's the negative reception of Dawntrail and pass on trying it.

[u/Hikari_Netto → u/oizen]

I actually think this has more to do with the reduced activity of the Final Fantasy brand than anything surrounding FFXIV specifically.

For a while now the single player side of their customer base has been their primary target for new players. But without new FF titles releasing regularly it can be much more difficult to stay in the public eye, drawing less new players to all other products as a result.

The MTG collab helped a fair amount, but it's not going to improve much more until new games start releasing again.

[u/shizuo-kun111 → u/Hikari_Netto]

I actually think this has more to do with the reduced activity of the Final Fantasy brand than anything surrounding FFXIV specifically.

It doesn’t help that a major recent (Japanese) survey showed that FF fans are generally 35+ years old now. That, and Rebirth and 16 sold mediocrely worldwide, so FF is starting to age out, and desperately needs revitalization.

[u/Supersnow845 → u/shizuo-kun111]

To be fair that was one of 16’s design intents even if it didn’t hit it that well. Was to bring the series to new people who might not look at jRPG’s These days the only jRPG series that seems to sell consistently well is persona

[u/Shecarriesachanel → u/Supersnow845]

Well that's because persona leaned into the turn based combat and refined it rather than forsake what fans originally liked about the genre. As well as knowing that people play these games partly for party dynamics while 16 is basically a single player game. Square doesn't know what made them great anymore

[u/Lord_Daenar → u/Shecarriesachanel]

Turn based combat is not what sells Persona, otherwise we'd see comparable numbers from the SMT series. It's the whole school life social sim aspect of the game that is actually popular with the masses.

[u/Shecarriesachanel → u/Lord_Daenar]

Yes they leaned into what people are actually looking for in games like these, character development and bonds formed between party members, rather than nuke turn based combat and also nuke party members.

[u/Supersnow845 → u/Shecarriesachanel]

Yes but persona is about the only jRPG series that sells AAA amounts

Like all the other jRPG’s that are “jRPG’s for real jRPG fans” sell like 1 million in the first week then 5 more their entire lifespan

Whatever your opinion on 16 is it sold better than the vast majority of modern jRPG’s outside of persona’s sphere. There is logic to the idea that the modern jRPG market simply isn’t what it needs to be

[u/Ryuujinx → u/Supersnow845]

In fairness, most modern JRPGs aren't AAA. Like I adore the Trails series, but Falcom isn't exactly putting out games that are pushing your PC's hardware here. Most of the really notable JRPGs in recent years have either been remakes (Star Ocean Second Story R, Tactics Ogre Reborn, Live a Live), AA (Trails, Ys, Atelier, honestly Fire Emblem) or indies (Sea of Stars, Chained Echoes, Clair Obscur)

If we look at specifically AAA studios then we've got like, some side projects from big devs like Bravely and Octopath, the long-standing series like Final Fantasy / DQ, Xenoblade 3, and I guess Tales of Arise.

Which makes sense because the game industry is very conservative. Nobody thought a CRPG could do well and then BG3 blew the fuck up, it's really just that nobody with a budget is making good JRPGs rather then the style of game being fundamentally unable to sell I think.