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It’s been confirmed for a while that the Final Fantasy 14, which reached its 10th year recently, has been a load-bearing game for Square Enix’s balance sheets. That was as per a fiscal report ending in March 2024 (the pre-Dawntrail times) that saw it making up 68.4% of its operating profits.
This was then confirmed again, when a report for the first half of the fiscal year ending in March 2025 (the post-Dawntrail times) said that it was, uh, still doing that, forming part of an MMO segment that raked in ¥13.1 billion (about $86 million) for the company (while its “HD games” segment lost it ¥1.2 billion, or $7.8 million).
Well, I am once more here to report that Final Fantasy 14 is continuing to do exceptionally well in yet another set of financial reportage—but this time the results are consolidated. Snazzy! Because this is a summary, there aren’t any numbers to go off for FF14 specifically, but Square says the segment’s been doing just as well—better, even.
“In the MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) Game sub-segment, net sales and operating income rose compared with the same period of the previous fiscal year on the launch of ‘FINAL FANTASY XIV: Dawntrail,’ the latest expansion pack for ‘FINAL FANTASY XIV.'” For reference, that full fiscal year‘s report saw the segment pulling in ¥19.3 billion (approx. $126 million) in operating income, and ¥47.3 billion (around $310 million) in net sales, so Dawntrail is making more than that.
Which might come as a surprise if you’ve been following the news or community sentiment surrounding the expansion, because it sort of sounds like we’re all a bit fed up. The story was a bit of a miss, content comes out too slowly, the formula’s stagnating, the sky is falling, yap yap yap. Is its success just a mirage, or are we all just engaging in the time-honoured MMO tradition of complaining?
The answer is “maybe”. Most of FF14’s current major issues affect what I’ll call ‘caught up’ players—folks who’ve been subbed and playing for years, and have exhausted its reams of content. I still maintain that this MMO is a bloody bargain and worth playing if you haven’t, because you still have 10 years of solid RPG storytelling to chip through, and Square’s savvy design structure has made it all relevant and playable—with its earliest foibles receiving a new coat of paint in Endwalker. The new-player honeymoon period lasts for hundreds of hours, so it’s a worthwhile journey even if Square continues to stumble about for the next couple of years.
As for the illusion of success, well, it should be pointed out that everyone—myself included—felt pretty dang hyped for Dawntrail. The start of a new story arc and a shiny graphics update were all major draws to, you know, buy the thing and bump that operating income number up significantly.
While this is somewhat comparing apples to popotos, I should point out that the initial financial glow of an expansion isn’t an accurate sign of how things are going. WoW’s Shadowlands, one of the most loathed expansions in the game’s history, sold 3.7 million copies on its first day. I don’t doubt that Blizzard’s numbers were looking similarly merry.
This is not to say it’s all doom and gloom, though. What Square Enix’s Creative Studio 3 faces at the moment is a slow and insidious problem—one that will be stop-gapped by the release of 7.2 in March, which’ll include a meaty batch of content for the game’s currently-starved casual-to-midcore playerbase. Should it have taken over 200 days for the statistical majority of your players to have something to do? No, but it’ll be there.
It’s for this reason that I think Dawntrail’ll continue to pull in numbers, as well. I don’t raid, so my subscription is basically a tax I pay to keep on roleplaying with my mates—and I’m otherwise not touching the game—but I’ll be getting stuck into Shades’ Triangle with glee.
Since it’ll come out around March, and the current fiscal year ends in March 2025 for Square Enix? Things will be hunky-dory for the foreseeable future unless the content is somehow a complete stinker, and the ol’ reliable MMO segment will still pull the requisite numbers. Come the next expansion, though, and its subsequent content droughts? I don’t know if FF14 can endure its slow-burn discontent from veteran players for another decade. Let’s pray for a shake-up.
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Kurt Indovina
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