Okay… All that says about these two games is one has more views then the other on YouTube. It doesn’t really say anything about the quality of those games or the player count.
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trends.google. com/trends/explore?q=World%20of%20Warcraft,Final%20Fantasy%2014
No one here is arguing about the quality of either game. It’s solely been about population.
Viewers don’t equal population either. The Viewers on YouTube, Twitch and Users of Reddit, whom mind you, there’s a good chance they don’t even play the game, watch the game.
It will be like if i take the viewership of old PS2 games and use that for the number of how many people are still playing PS2 games. Not a wise way to go about it.
If anything, you have a better chance of getting an accurate playercount from the forums. While i may be hyperbolic, they are only for people who do play the game.
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When nearly every observable metric shows WoW as having a larger number than FF14, any reasonable minded person can confidently conclude that WoW has the larger population. Even with all the evidence i laid out in front of you, you try to deny that. I don’t know what else to tell you.
Any reasonable minded person can tell you that viewers don’t equal population ingame simple because not all the viewers play that game. As for Google Trends, it’s based off of searches. Searches also done by non-players of the game. Or even non-gamers.
Plus every observable metric we have is taking the wrong information or not transparent of how it gets it’s numbers, leaving it’s trustworthiness to be questioned by somebody who is reasonable enough.
If you really want to, you can link Steam charts, which isn’t a bad thing to do since it does tell how many people are playing the game… for that PC port provided if Steam is the only advenue to get it. But for FF14, it’s kind of useless considering it can not only be played off of steam from Squnenix’s website (which according to a quick look on Steam charts, the all time peak is 67K players, so while it’s accurate with the steam versions, it’s not accurate to the total player count of whom is playing that MMO.), but on consoles too.
Even the MAU’s doesn’t really specify between Subs, WoW Tokens and other MTX. And Sales aren’t really representative of players that stick around long enough to be reliable.
I’m not saying it’s impossible yet, i’m saying the work involved to get the real numbers are very difficult and time consuming process.
Because the evidence assumes all viewers are players of that game, and that is simply not the case that is happening.
Well that’s just the thing. We really don’t know the real numbers. 
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Dude…your link is from 2014.
Do you not know how to search on Google for the current year?
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…You do realize that Google Trends links use “%20” to separate the spaces between each word in a search term… right?
Fantasy 14 = Fantasy%2014 incase you’re too slow to catch on.
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… You do realize Google trends are based on searches and has nothing really anything to do with the player count or quality of the game, right?
I’ve noticed that myself after trying to fix your link. 
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=World%20of%20Warcraft,Final%20Fantasy%2014
Still, Google trends doesn’t tell player count or quality, because it’s about popular searches of that particular game.
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This is the last time I’m going to explain this…
Looking solely at one source as an indicator of a game’s popularity isn’t reliable. You have to look at everything as a whole. A game having more Twitch viewership than the other isn’t an indicator that one is more popular than the other. However, when you look at several other observable metrics that are provided all over the internet that gauge a degree of interest, such as Twitch, Youtube, Google Trends, Reddit, etc and all of the numbers provided from those sites show a higher number for one game than the other, then it’s reasonable to believe the game with the higher numbers probably has an overall higher interest and higher player count.
The feeling is mutual.
Oh, nobody is denying that FF14 and WoW are popular. It’s just the argument of “popularity = players”.
Once again, Viewers, Searchers and Reddit users aren’t all players. These sites don’t check to see if you are a player of that game. Which is why trying to get a player count out of all that is foolish. For all we know, 1% (and that’s being very conservatie with the numbers) of that all that, could be somebody who isn’t interested in playing the game, but watching the game.
For instance, i don’t play New World, but i watched some New World videos… So does that mean going by your logic, i’m a New World player? 
I don’t know why you keep on denying that and still push the “viewer = player” argument that no reasonable person would use. It has no validity in reality. And honestly, i don’t know why you can’t just accept that we don’t know the actual numbers unless Blizzard/Squenix are willing to share it with us.
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There is a lot to love about FF14 but having grinded through ARR, whew, WoW is far better in a lot of ways.
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The community are nice… until you say something negative about the game. It is clear the developers were not aware of new trends in MMOs when they made ARR (mentioned in a documentary). But if you point out the slightest problem with the game you get hammered. I can sort of appreciate this because a lot of WoW refugees bemoaned the ARR slog, but don’t be fooled by the statement “FF14 community isn’t toxic”. They are people too.
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It’s old. Instanced areas not a seamless open world. Cap to how high you can fly. GCDs everywhere (this gets better apparently). Dungeons are boring (again, gets better I hear). Goofy dialog (but the plot is cool, imo). Awful, uninspired quests.
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They don’t care about bots. Bots are everywhere. There is no invasive memory software, which I can see as a good thing, but there are a ton of bots because of it. Again, I am just past ARR, but I have to imagine this affects the economy.
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No world pvp. Now, I suck at WoW’s WPVP… but I love it too. Getting a mock battle together, defending a city, or BfA’s incentivized events early in the expansion is hella fun.
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The level design sucks. Look at Limsa and compare it to Boralis. I can appreciate people not liking the cartoon style of WoW, but they hire the best level designers in the business. Find me one place in FF14 that looks as good as Grizzly Hills. WoW’s zones are gorgeous, hand crafted like a bunch of miniature wargame nerds made them (because they did). FF14 looks like EQ - stale and stiff. Their “forest” are a bunch of the same tree cloned and rotated slightly. The first dungeon in the game is a basically empty cave. It’s bad. I’m sure (and hope) it gets better.
Overall, Blizzard should study the good parts about this game: How they onboard new players, their zero tolerance for trolls, visual messaging from bosses, the job system (one character can play all classes!!111), and housing (although I read that there’s a problem with it).
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I’ll just respond to a few of your points if you don’t mind:
Uh, WoW is older than FFXIV? Not sure I understand your point here. I will agree with you on the open world bit (although WoW isn’t truly open world either, ie. The boat from EK to Kalimdor, or portals to…many places.
And WoW does?
Will slightly agree here, although I’m generally not a fan of world pvp anyways.
Bruh. Limsa is one of my favorite zones! It does suck that you can’t mount up in some cities in FFXIV, but other than that they are great! The zones are also beautiful. Eastern La Noscea is one of my favorites: https://www.google.com/search?q=eastern+la+noscea&rlz=1C1CHBD_enUS879US879&sxsrf=AOaemvJnb0gawNUdScoTzh3z_6s3kKa60g:1638335258342&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiomOK46sH0AhWvm2oFHduoAZUQ_AUoAXoECAEQAw&cshid=1638335315811373&biw=1920&bih=969&dpr=1
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I can’t tell which copium is worse.
People insisting SL isn’t bad, or people insisting FF14 is #1 based on literally nothing.
Shadowlands sucks. You’ve never seen me post anything suggesting otherwise. There is also no evidence that suggests FF14 is the #1 mmo, and that is what I’ve been proving countless times in this thread, but copium addicts never want to listen to facts. I don’t know why people have this notion that you if you are against something then you must be 100% in favor of the opposition. Just stop.
I agree about Pyro. Good riddance. Clickbaiter… not the only one, of course. The story in WoW sucks, and always did, but what Pyro or others would do would be worse. Nobbel87 is just a faithful chronicler, I like him a lot.
Great post. I played that 2 years, until Stomblood did me in for sheer exhaustion (and boredom, of course), so I guess I am entitled to an opinion about FF14. Your points:
- Community is the worst I know of. They all seem brainwashed, as everybody can see based on what they post everywhere. Any real criticism is forbidden. Have been kicked a few times from groups for a single minor error (TRUE), never happened in 14 years of WoW. Don’t even me started on my raid “experience”. When I read FF14 fans gushing about their community, I wonder whether we have being playing the same game.
- Agree on all ponts, except I find the plot as bad as the rest. And, no it does not get better. In Stomblood it got worse. What I know of the Shadowbringers plot makes me cringe anything worse than the plot in Shadowlands (which sucks). But at least in WoW you don’t spend literally days of play time wading thru cutscenes.
- No opinion, never paid attention to bots.
- Never did PvP in FF14.
- Never liked the art direction, I find it lifeless and “cold” while in WoW it’s vibrant and “warm”. And in FF14 the illusion of being in an actual virtual world, always shaky at best, crumbles completely when you fly. No FF14 fan will confess what happens when you rise a bit and see what in WoW would be a gorgeous aerial view. What you see in FF14 seems more like a badly drawn map. The forbidden truth…
But FF14 is the home of forbidden truths, it seems. 
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What, with your fallacious “Viewers = Players” argument?..
I question your definition of ‘fact’ if your taking Twitch, Reddit, YouTube and Google Trends as an indication of player count…
I do agree that people should learn what a middleground is.
You don’t know till you try.
I am so pissed with blizz and their lack of communication for months and not listening to their players. SL is so bad and the lack of content is comical. A slap in the face.
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