@SquareEnix: Kickstarter campaign to get a graphic upgrade?

[Demonjustin]

But you missed the important part of what Alhanelem said so I'll quot it and bold it. By quote I mean put it in quotation marks.

Alhanelem: "I stand by the last 2 statements I added in my edit. They shouldn't ever consider a kickstarter nor should we buy into one. This is something they should just <insert vague frustration word here> do. And if they're not going to do it, we should speak with our money by NOT giving it to them, because then they might realize they have more to lose by not doing it."

If people actually speak with their wallets (IE not pay for a product they feel is inferior), companies lose money, so the statement: "But they've nothing to lose, no real reason to do it other than we asked. I keep saying that", is really wide of the mark, when they actually have everything to lose. Companies who do not please their customers go out of business

The question is how many people value a graphical update so much they'd rather quit the game than play it with it's current graphics? I'm betting it's not enough to make it worth the money, if it were then we'd see more threads popping up about how people are quitting because the graphic quality is so bad, thing is this just isn't happening and when quit threads do pop up the graphics are almost never mentioned. This is an aged/aging game, anyone who's been here more than a single month has come to terms with the fact that expecting this game's graphics to be overhauled is only expecting disappointment. All of that said I should address the first thing you really wanted to point out...

we should speak with our money by NOT giving it to them, because then they might realize they have more to lose by not doing it

I did address this remark when I said that they have nothing to lose. What I meant by it is that if they do nothing they're not going to really lose enough people that doing it would actually make them more money. Saying something along the lines of they've more to lose by not doing it implies that enough people care enough about the graphics of the game to truly impact the game in such a way.

If everyone who plays told SE if you don't fix our graphics and our UI we will not pay next month, then actually carried through on the threat, SE would be back pedaling as fast as they could to give us batter graphics and a more modern UI, because believe it not, this game still brings in huge profits. There may only be 800-1k player on at any given time, but not everyone plays at the same time, and everyone has multiple mules, there may be as many as 4k paid accounts per server, we have no real way of knowing, but lets do a little guess work.

2500 active accounts per server, *that seems like a fair number) now lets guess each account has 3 mules, (Iknow people with more, and some with less) that's $15.99 per account, and 16 servers, so 2,500x$15.99x16= $639,600 SE would be hit for one month. I can't that of any company on the planet that would happily say "oh well it's just a little over a half mil we can deal with it." There would probably be an emergency meeting of the board of directors and heads would roll

I don't like ignoring points, but this is a terrible one. You're basically saying that 2500 people on each and every server would quit based on nothing more than making the game look prettier? That's just... I've no words that truly convey my reply to such a thought. I mean if you said 500 people quitting on each and every server I'd have thought it an insane idea but 2500?

I don't mean to come off as an ass but really I don't think you could find 2500 people between all servers that'd be willing to quit over the graphics in hopes that SE would break down and throw money at the graphics for it. Please, just give that argument up.

[predatory]

i'm not assuming any such thing. I was making a point to highlight anhalems point, if enough people say give us our upgrade or no money for you, we will get the upgrade

[predatory]

you missed the point too, i was simply highlighting anahelms speak with your wallet point, like I said earlier in this thread, my graphics are just fine, I have them oversamply 2x and the game looks great to me, I've stated I would not pay extra for an upgrade so I really don't give a shit if they do it or not

[Dulek]

So much effort being put in by the counterargument crowd.

[Raydeus]

i'm not assuming any such thing. I was making a point to highlight anhalems point, if enough people say give us our upgrade or no money for you, we will get the upgrade

Sorry, but it's far more likely SE would just kill the game in that situation.

If your game already has low numbers and most people actually threaten you with quitting over something you already have no interest in doing, then there is zero incentive for them to budge to what the angry mob with pitchforks demands. From their perspective getting rid of the problem altogether would be far more convenient, simply because they will, from that moment on, have to worry about what new demand will come next.

That is why a Kickstarter is a better idea by far.

We (the people in favor of Kickstarter) want something from SE, and to obtain it we want to make it attractive for SE to spend the resources and time to do it.

How do we do that?

By making a compromise where we pay for cost of the upgrades we want made, and SE compromises to deliver them. With the added benefit for them that the improvements may bring back more old players and maybe bring some new into the game.

And the result would depend on whether or not enough players are willing to pay. If the kickstarter fails then nothing is lost except for some time, and if it succeeds players will gain a nice client upgrade without threatening the survival of XI in the process.

If you don't want to give money for it just ignore it. Unless you are somehow against other people spending their money to make the game better for everyone and benefit SE at the same time.

[predatory]

Sorry, but it's far more likely SE would just kill the game in that situation.

If your game already has low numbers and most people actually threaten you with quitting over something you already have no interest in doing, then there is zero incentive for them to budge to what the angry mob with pitchforks demands. From their perspective getting rid of the problem altogether would be far more convenient, simply because they will, from that moment on, have to worry about what new demand will come next.

That is why a Kickstarter is a better idea by far.

We (the people in favor of Kickstarter) want something from SE, and to obtain it we want to make it attractive for SE to spend the resources and time to do it.

How do we do that?

By making a compromise where we pay for cost of the upgrades we want made, and SE compromises to deliver them. With the added benefit for them that the improvements may bring back more old players and maybe bring some new into the game.

And the result would depend on whether or not enough players are willing to pay. If the kickstarter fails then nothing is lost except for some time, and if it succeeds players will gain a nice client upgrade without threatening the survival of XI in the process.

If you don't want to give money for it just ignore it. Unless you are somehow against other people spending their money to make the game better for everyone and benefit SE at the same time.

But me and a lot of people like me are simply not willing to shell out extra money for this game, if you feel the urge to do so, well it's your money spend it how you wish, I would not dream of telling you what to spend your hard earned money on, I'm simply saying I am totally unwilling to spend any extra money than I do now, for what in my mind has become an inferior game compared to what it has been in the past, and like I have stated a couple of times already, my graphics are fine. Also I probably would have ignored this thread by now, except people keep quoting me

[Emdief]

So hmm, we need to hear from you SE =/

[Alhanelem]

A kickstarter is the worst idea imaginable. I don't know how anyone here could even consider supporting it. They make tons of money off this game. SE is in far better shape than it was a few years ago. To have a company with millions of dollars in free capital do a kickstarter to raise money they don't need to make what we're asking for happen is beyond redonkulous and actually a little insulting. The whole point of kickstarter is to kick START a fledgling group or an small or unknown company from obscurity to popularity and fund projects which otherwise would not be able to happen due to lack of capital. An indie group making a new video game wants to hire hands to help make their first game, they need money to pay people and so a kickstarter makes sense. A multimillion dollar corporation like SE fits into none of those categories. They dont need to nor should they be using kickstarter for an update to an already released game that SHOULD happen anyway.

It just bugs me, as if people think SE needs the money in order to be able to do what's being asked of them. They don't. Many of you may know me as or call me a white knight. But this is one case where I can't stand by them. The money we pay them already is supposed to go (at least partially) towards updating the game.

[Raydeus]

The money we pay them already is supposed to go (at least partially) towards updating the game.

You mean like the monthly updates we've been getting for quite some time now? Because that, wages and server costs, plus their profit is already being covered for with our subs.

The client and texture upgrades we would like to Kickstart on the other hand are something additional they have no reason to invest on without a good incentive for doing so. The client already runs on supported platforms without much of an issue, and they are adding quality of life, content and gameplay updates on a regular basis now. If anything this is a time when we are getting more for our sub money compared to how things worked in the past. So they have no incentive to just go and do the upgrade considering the current sub numbers and the slim chance of an investment return from something like it.

Which is why we want to give them that incentive. As simple as that.

Now, I do understand why you may take offense to the concept of giving a company even more money to do something they should've done a long time ago, but that is not how things work when trying to make a deal with a business.

So, our solution to obtain something very specific that we want is to offer to pay for it if enough people are willing to contribute, which is what Kickstarters are for. Except maybe that if SE actually agreed to it we'd have a much better chance of actually getting what we are paying for.

That being said, Kickstarting it is obviously not the only solution to this. And if you don't feel like a Kickstarter is the best idea then how about you try something else.

I think a good way of doing it could be getting enough ex-players to sign some sort of pledge to return to the game should SE made the client and textures improvements. Another could be to try to contact a higher up and bring your request to them, if someone high enough supports the idea it can happen. Either way, whatever you do it has to show SE they will benefit from making those upgrades to the game in a tangible way.

Personally I like the Kickstarter idea better because it's the most direct since it would show SE that people are actually willing to put their money where their mouths are. And if enough interest was generated, even if we didn't get enough money, it could still bring some attention to our request.

But like I said, it isn't the only way of doing things. And as long as the end result translates into a client and texture upgrade rather than just empty words on a thread I'm ok with it regardless of how it happens.

[Zarchery]

i'm not assuming any such thing. I was making a point to highlight anhalems point, if enough people say give us our upgrade or no money for you, we will get the upgrade

And if a frog had wings it wouldn't bump it's butt when it hopped. You're doing that weird thing where a player has a thing he feels strongly about and assumes everyone else feels just as strongly about. I seriously doubt you'd find even 1000 players total who give a crap enough about the graphics to pay 1 penny to upgrade them or quit.