Final Fantasy 14: A Successful Journey
The trajectory of Final Fantasy 14 is one that other failed online games would love to have, as it went from a grave disappointment to one of the biggest MMORPG’s.
No Plans for Free-to-Play
However, a significant difference in Final Fantasy 14’s story is that it won’t include the game going free-to-play, at least for now, as director Naoki Yoshida has made it clear that Square Enix has “no plans” to make the game free-to-play.
Free Trial Offers a Lot
You can still jump into the game for free, mind you, and get quite a lot out of it, as the free trial offered will soon allow you to bring your character up to level 70, and even experience the Stormblood expansion, on top of everything else already included.
It’s quite a lot of game for a ‘free trial,’ but it’s a model that seems to be working for Square Enix, and it seemingly doesn’t see a reason to change that.
Continued Expansion
“I believe the free trial will continue to be expanded,” said Yoshida, “but we have no plans of making the client [Final Fantasy 14] itself free at the moment.”
“Since a huge amount of time and money has been invested in the expansion packages, the revenue from sales of the expansion package itself is still very important in order to continue to make expansions on this scale.
We would like to constantly aim for the best on the business side as well to continue making a lot of content to be enjoyed.”
