Kotaku Covers XI... Oh Boy..

The amount of people who pay monthly fees for multiple accounts on FFXI is insane. I wouldn't be surprised if on average a minimum 33% of the user base had at least a secondary account.
When you consider Wardrobe3, Wardrobe4 and at least 1 mule per account, that's like what, 18$ a month, per 2 accounts? (total 36$)

On one hand it can't compare to the huge variety of services that FFXIV cash shop offers, some of which can be pretty expensive.
But then again most of those services are one-time costs, the FFXI SE milks you every bloody month.
SE adds new stuff on the cash shop every 3-4 months I think.
Then, as someone else already wrote, you would have to consider what's behind the "monthly income". FFXIV requires a pretty high amount of active costs to mantain and *develop* those things. FFXI costs close to zero lol.


I dunno, in a world were FFXI and FFXIV had a similar player base, I think the two systems could be pretty close in terms of net incomes, wouldn't be surprised to see FFXI above actually.
The reason why in reality FFXI obviously falls behind is because the player base is so much smaller compared to FFXIV that, obviously, the $ generated every month has to be smaller.