Short answers, pulled from the story.
Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn launched on the 27th of August 2013, with early access beginning on August 24. The original Final Fantasy XIV had launched in September 2010 and shut down on the 11th of November 2012, before the rebuilt version took its place.
Naoki Yoshida identified three main reasons at a Game Developers Conference 2014 postmortem: an over-emphasis on graphical quality at the expense of server performance, a lack of modern MMORPG expertise in the development team, and a mentality that problems could be fixed in future patches. Square Enix President Yoichi Wada stated the launch had "greatly damaged" the Final Fantasy brand.
Naoki Yoshida served as both producer and director of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. He was brought in after the original development team was overhauled, having previously worked as planning chief on Dragon Quest X.
Final Fantasy XIV reached 30 million registered players by January 2024, six months before the launch of the fifth expansion Dawntrail. The game surpassed 24 million registered players by late 2021, at which point it became the most profitable game in the Final Fantasy series.
Final Fantasy XIV has six major expansions: Heavensward (2015), Stormblood (2017), Shadowbringers (2019), Endwalker (2021), Dawntrail (2024), and Evercold, set for January 2027. Each expansion raises the level cap and introduces new jobs, zones, and story content.
Masayoshi Soken composed the majority of the music for A Realm Reborn, serving as both sound director and primary composer. The soundtrack spans 119 tracks and was released on Blu-ray Disc on the 21st of March 2014. In 2017, Guinness World Records recognized Final Fantasy XIV for having the most original pieces of music in a video game at nearly 400 tracks.