i legit don't know what circles you're hanging out in, but plenty of people i know still play from ff8 and ff in general (myself included). they're usually not actively playing them or actively advertising that they play them, because they prefer playing newer canons in games, but i know that the most surprising of people will pull out the most minor of characters from the series if it's brought up. mostly in a 'oh i have this old muse' way. a ff8 muse isn't as rare as you think it is, especially considering how squall was in KH, and someone playing from ff isn't as rare as you think - last year, there was a fairly active musebox for ff14 characters for a while and while it's not active anymore, i know a lot of the players and they're continuing to play with them in psls, memes, and even games.
it's also really funny to say that ff8 wasn't pretty popular, because it's one of the best selling FF titles. in 2003 it was the second-most sold game, right under FF7, according to SE: http://www.jp.square-enix.com/ir/e/explanatory/download/0000-000000000000-01.pdf#page=27 i expect that it's sold even more since then, what with being re-released on the psn and pc.
also lmao at saying that the franchise is 'drying up'. at this point ffxiv is super-popular (the last time they revealed active subscriptions, it was about a year or so ago and they had about 2 million active accounts at the time and if anything, the game's population is bigger than ever) and square is doing a really tidy business porting the main games onto pc, tablet, and mobile devices, not to mention running their own mobage game. the franchise isn't drying up but moving in a new direction as what worked 20 years ago (create a mainstream console game every other year or so and cash in) isn't working anymore as time, development, and costs have rapidly increased for console games. they've said that if XV is a flop like 13 and 14 1.0 was, they're probably going to stop making triple-AAA titles for consoles, but they already have experience in developing mobile games and they're already exploring a different way of delivering console games with the episodic releases of the FF7 remake.
final fantasy is far from drying up and square is going to milk every single drop it can get. there's an upcoming FF spinoff game being localized this year for the 3DS, the new Dissidia fighting game, another FF spinoff for the PS4, and god knows how many other secret FF projects they have in the works.
Re: -1
it's also really funny to say that ff8 wasn't pretty popular, because it's one of the best selling FF titles. in 2003 it was the second-most sold game, right under FF7, according to SE: http://www.jp.square-enix.com/ir/e/explanatory/download/0000-000000000000-01.pdf#page=27 i expect that it's sold even more since then, what with being re-released on the psn and pc.
also lmao at saying that the franchise is 'drying up'. at this point ffxiv is super-popular (the last time they revealed active subscriptions, it was about a year or so ago and they had about 2 million active accounts at the time and if anything, the game's population is bigger than ever) and square is doing a really tidy business porting the main games onto pc, tablet, and mobile devices, not to mention running their own mobage game. the franchise isn't drying up but moving in a new direction as what worked 20 years ago (create a mainstream console game every other year or so and cash in) isn't working anymore as time, development, and costs have rapidly increased for console games. they've said that if XV is a flop like 13 and 14 1.0 was, they're probably going to stop making triple-AAA titles for consoles, but they already have experience in developing mobile games and they're already exploring a different way of delivering console games with the episodic releases of the FF7 remake.
final fantasy is far from drying up and square is going to milk every single drop it can get. there's an upcoming FF spinoff game being localized this year for the 3DS, the new Dissidia fighting game, another FF spinoff for the PS4, and god knows how many other secret FF projects they have in the works.