What will happen to this game in the future?

[Electroshock Therapy]

There are several threads asking if people are still playing and if the game is still getting attention from developers and the answer always seems to be yes. But there is the fact that's if far from it's glory days and has far fewer players (but still a great many). Now, I don't have any experience with MMOs at all, even this game.

(But I've always been interested in this one mainly because this one apparently has a story and ending, something that I hear many MMOs do not.)

So my question is, when the fans have moved on either completely or hardly anyone is playing, what will happen to this game? Will it simply disappear? Has this happened to MMOs before, and what happened to them?

[Del Murder]

I've moved on and at one point I thought I might come back for one final hurrah but that seems very unlikely now. If they are still making money off of it they will keep the servers up and that could last another year or another 10 years.

[Mirage]

The vast majority of MMOs are just shut down because they don't have big enough user bases for the owners to earn money on it. There are extremely many more unsuccessful MMOs than successful ones. You don't hear much about these because they've been shut down permanently.

When Squix feel like they can't earn money on FF11 anymore, it will probably just be shut down entirely. They might keep a single server online with no user support or updates just because it is a "main installment final fantasy" and they might feel like such a game shouldn't simply vanish. It's probably not very expensive to keep a single server open for legacy purposes.

[Ayen]

The vast majority of MMOs are just shut down because they don't have big enough user bases for the owners to earn money on it. There are extremely many more unsuccessful MMOs than successful ones. You don't hear much about these because they've been shut down permanently.

When Squix feel like they can't earn money on FF11 anymore, it will probably just be shut down entirely. They might keep a single server online with no user support or updates just because it is a "main installment final fantasy" and they might feel like such a game shouldn't simply vanish. It's probably not very expensive to keep a single server open for legacy purposes.

This. I just wish they made it easier to play. Play Online is terrible.

[Electroshock Therapy]

Considering it's Final Fantasy and is part of the main series, I wonder if the game would ever be remade in the future as single player? Judging from their history, Square is apparently not opposed to remakes and ports, so it seems possible they wouldn't want to let FF XI die when its time does come. Even if they can't salvage all the expansions, I would like it if at least the main game was saved and remade for single player.

I know that isn't the point of MMOs and I'm sure many players are wincing at me even mentioning this, but at least the world of FF XI would be saved from death. The question is, if the online experience wasn't profitable enough to keep it going, would they even bother developing the remake?

[Pike]

Isn't EverQuest still going?

Wouldn't surprise me if FFXI was similar. Certain MMOs with a sort of "cult base" just seem to go on forever and FFXI strikes me as that type of game.

[Mirage]

I seriously doubt this game will ever be remade as a single player game. Better just suck it up and play it while you can!

[WildRaubtier]

It's not like you can't do too badly in the main story missions by yourself these days.

I'd be willing to say you could manage within the free trial period if you didn't play any other games concurrently.