Questions and Feedback on the Future of FINAL FANTASY XIV

[Gildrein]

Today, an announcement on the future of FINAL FANTASY XIV has been made. If there happens to be questions and/or feedback, they will be answered during the second broadcast of the Letter from the Producer LIVE so please post them on this thread.

To hold a discussion on this topic, please use other appropriate categories on the forums. Also when you create a thread for discussion, please use “ffxiv_future” as a tag.

* Please read here first for the full details on the future of FINAL FANTASY XIV before you make a post.
* This thread will be closed after the second broadcast of the Letter from the Producer LIVE.

[Denmo]

Do you really expect players to stick around and pay for an incomplete game? I mean, I'm all for these incredibly awesome changes, but why are we being forced to pay when the game isn't even done?

[Betelgeuzah]

Do you really expect players to stick around and pay for an incomplete game?

Do you really expect the players to not stick around? Even if 50k subs turned into 25k, do you think they give a damn? 2.0 is where it's at.

[Anty]

Do you really expect the players to not stick around? Even if 50k subs turned into 25k, do you think they give a damn? 2.0 is where it's at.

i rather think that ppl who already left will forget about the game til 2013 and ppl who are still in the game and are now leaving won't come back. That is the reason why the few months too early won't cut it for SE and rather hurt them.
The reason why SE is in not the best financial position won't be solved by a few subs. I think its more the " we have loyal fans, why dont we try to let them pay now " , and some really wanna pay 50 EUR + 150 EUR development to get a full game and then keep paying for the game to maintain quality and keep rolling. I don't think that will work out.

[Betelgeuzah]

i rather think that ppl who already left will forget about the game til 2013 and ppl who are still in the game and are now leaving won't come back. That is the reason why the few months too early won't cut it for SE and rather hurt them.

It's such a marginal number, that it doesn't matter. The revenue they gain from those who don't leave is a greater incentive.

The people who left by now are much larger in numbers, and this sub fee won't affect them. Seriously speaking, how many of them do you see coming back before 2.0 now that it has been announced? It doesn't make any sense, with or without sub fees.

This fee is in place for those who play the current game and are willing to pay for it. Some will leave, but we are not talking about a mass exodus here- since this game doesn't even have the playerbase for mass exodus in the first place.

50% of people leaving the game in its current state is not the same as 50% of people leaving WoW in its current state. And even in that case Blizzard would get more revenue out of 5mil of their players paying a fee instead of 10mil paying nothing.

In a nutshell, not all customers are equal. Especially when half the customers are blocking the company's stream of revenue from the other half of the customers altogether.

[Orophen]

It's such a marginal number, that it doesn't matter. The revenue they gain from those who don't leave is a greater incentive.

The people who left by now are much larger in numbers, and this sub fee won't affect them. Seriously speaking, how many of them do you see coming back before 2.0 now that it has been announced? It doesn't make any sense, with or without sub fees.

This fee is in place for those who play the current game and are willing to pay for it. Some will leave, but we are not talking about a mass exodus here- since this game doesn't even have the playerbase for mass exodus in the first place.

50% of people leaving the game in its current state is not the same as 50% of people leaving WoW in its current state. And even in that case Blizzard would get more revenue out of 5mil of their players paying a fee instead of 10mil paying nothing.

In a nutshell, not all customers are equal. Especially when half the customers are blocking the company's stream of revenue from the other half of the customers altogether.

I'm agreeing with this. Additionally, FFXIV has been a drain on the company's resources for a year past the release date. If you take into account the fact that resources were already placed into the initial release, no shareholder in their right mind would be happy with the situation. SE can't keep reporting losses every quarter, and even if you guys feel cheated or "scammed" somehow, FFXIV is going to have to stand on its own feet eventually

I know you guys wish it was later rather than sooner, but there are probably plenty of reasons why that's not going to happen, and most of them probably have to do with money and company profits, since we're dealing with a business here and not a small developer operating from their garage.

If those that don't want to pay want to leave, it's fine. If you don't want to support the game and help pay the developers, I certainly wouldn't hold it against you. But the players that are going to leave will have absolutely no impact on what's going on right now. If the game was meant to fail, it will fail regardless of whether you were willing to pay or not. I'd wager that the majority who had left before this announcement wouldn't have returned anyway until 2.0 came out, and as was said before, getting money from 60% of the players is better than getting no money from 100% of players right now. I'm pretty sure the shareholders and other people who have a stake in the company see it that way too.

[Discordia]

It's such a marginal number, that it doesn't matter. The revenue they gain from those who don't leave is a greater incentive.

The people who left by now are much larger in numbers, and this sub fee won't affect them. Seriously speaking, how many of them do you see coming back before 2.0 now that it has been announced? It doesn't make any sense, with or without sub fees.

This fee is in place for those who play the current game and are willing to pay for it. Some will leave, but we are not talking about a mass exodus here- since this game doesn't even have the playerbase for mass exodus in the first place.

50% of people leaving the game in its current state is not the same as 50% of people leaving WoW in its current state. And even in that case Blizzard would get more revenue out of 5mil of their players paying a fee instead of 10mil paying nothing.

In a nutshell, not all customers are equal. Especially when half the customers are blocking the company's stream of revenue from the other half of the customers altogether.

Amen.

My feeling is that the complainers are those that were unwilling to pay for the subscription in the first place. When they found out that there would be no monthly fees, they hopped on, knowing full well that eventually they will be charged that fee. A few months have passed and these same people will look for any excuse to not pay. Same people who also claim that any MMO game that charges a monthly subscription must be a very bad game. They'll continually bad-mouth these games and will always point to some game they've played in the past as better only because it was free-to-play.

No one forced them to pick up a subscription-based game at gun point so not sure why they are being obnoxious about it. I mean, at the very beginning, they knew there was going to be a monthly fee, it's just that it was pushed back as a customer service courtesy because Square Enix admitted that they rushed out a game with major issues. Most of these underlying issues have been stamped out and anyone saying it's still not playable are just straight up lying.

For the record, I purchased the Collector's Edition and have stuck around from the beginning, playing a bit of beta as well. I do think there's a lot of things that Square Enix should be working on to improve the game but that's true with ANY MMORPG today. No MMO game comes out of the gate in such a perfect state that the developers only release new dungeons and call it a day. Look at WoW, the 12 million subscription giant elephant in the room, still evolving, still changing and looks nothing like it did when it first came out. Most people have forgotten that WoW had that miserable first 3 months after launch and it took Blizzard almost a year before they sorted out most of the major problems with the game. And they still are trying to improve it. Yet people still paid and paid through that first year. I don't think anyone got a free ride for months on end, only reimbursements measured in days for fractions of their subscription for the times their server was inaccessible due to technical problems.

But it doesn't matter what kind of logic is presented to these players, they'll continue to whine about having to pay a fee and will use that circular logic about "if the game is good, I wouldn't mind paying, but it's not" and they could use that every single time this discussion comes up until SE shuts down the last server years from now...

[Buddhsie]

Do you really expect players to stick around and pay for an incomplete game? I mean, I'm all for these incredibly awesome changes, but why are we being forced to pay when the game isn't even done?

Think of it as contributing towards the most amazing game of all time.

[Gennosuke]

Think of it as contributing towards the most amazing game of all time.

Agree completely with this.

Seriously, this game has the potential to be the best gaming experience of all time after seeing 2.0
Im more than happy to pay that lil monthly fee if it will contribute towards an experience that may well be unparalleled.

[Kafeen]

Do you really expect players to stick around and pay for an incomplete game?

When is an MMO ever complete?