On May 16, 2008, FINAL FANTASY XI celebrates its six-year anniversary since its launch in Japan, and will blaze a trail into its seventh year of service! With adventurers now blazing trails across Vana'diel's time stream in the fourth expansion pack, Wings of the Goddess, and with the addition of a “World Transfer Service,” FINAL FANTASY XI's thriving community has grown to more than 500,000 users. Once again, the development and operations teams have analyzed both past and current data to bring you a detailed report on Vana'diel's lively denizens.
We hope you enjoy our cross-sectioned look at FINAL FANTASY XI's constantly evolving community!

*All research other than login distribution is based off data obtained April 2008.


The below graphs represent the login data for the first week in May 2008. As demonstrated in the data collected each year, there are three main login times each day for FINAL FANTASY XI users from Japan, North America, and Europe indicated by the peaks displayed below. The first peak time takes place in Japan, which is followed by Europe, and then - after a short break - by North America. One can see just how busy the game regularly is by looking at the multiple peak login times.

≪Simultaneous Logins≫* Indicated in JST

Now let's take a look at how much time players are logged into the game each day. When compared to 2006 and 2007, the number of players playing under 3 hours a day has slightly increased and the number of players playing between 4 and 6 hours a day has slightly decreased. The reason for this could be due to experience bonuses through signet and sanctions, enabling players to level up in shorter lengths of time. Another contribution to this figure could be the increase of content such as Assault and Campaign, where players can play with their friends for relatively short periods of time. On the other hand, however, the average play time for a character this year comes to 171 minutes (about 2 hours and 50 minutes), which is slightly longer than last year (168 minutes) and the year before that (164 minutes).

≪Login Time Per Character≫