The reality of your subscription fee for FFXI

[Pixela]

I think a lot of people have this weird mindset about FFXI, how much buying power your $12 has and what is possible.

Inflation means money loses value over time (not going to go into why but we are about to have a massive decrease in the value of our money soon - printers go brrr), which means a loaf of bread or jar of coffee costs more more today than it did 10 years ago. Prices and your wages increased with inflation all the time, which means this increase does not hurt you.

Go ask your granny how much bread and coffee used to cost and then look how much they cost now.

https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

FFXI has never increase the price of it's subscription with inflation, which honestly is crazy to me. They are losing money and due to this the game is less profitable today than it was 15 years ago even if it had the same amount of players.

If the FFXI subscription fee raised with inflation (as everything else in the world does) it would cost today $16.44. This means, that in real terms you are paying 37% LESS for your subscription than you were 15 years ago and that they are getting less money from you.

So:
2004 price = $12
2021 price should be = $16.44

This means you're getting the game 37% cheaper than you used to, even though the numbers look the same. Other games offset this loss with cash shop sales, FFXI does not have the core infrastructure to support a cash shop.

To try and counter this they have added mog wardrobes to try increase how much you pay in-line with inflation, to get the same amount of money that they used to. This is however not compulsory so many do not and so just get the game 37% cheaper.

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Secondly, your $12 ($3 a week) a month doesn't even pay for 10 minutes of 1 single developers wages. The way the game makes money isn't from your $12, it's from tens to hundreds of thousands of other people paying $12 and the combined force making a lot of money to pay wages.

As such, if the game has less subscribers today than it did 10 years ago they can't have a big team on it as they used to. They can't pay their salary.

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Lastly, developers work with specific engines. Most of the developers at SquareEnix that work on other projects are proficient with and experienced with the current engines they use, they almost never work with the engine FFXI was made with. As such they can't just ask one of the programming team from another game at the company to come make changes to the core programming of FFXI as some other game can. This is why things such as the 56k cap etc can't easily be changed.

It would be like being used to working with photoshop in 2020 at your company and then your boss telling you he wants you to make a new ad to be sent to the papers, but instead of using photoshop you had to use corel draw from 2005. Are you still going to be able to create that artwork in an hour and will it still be at an acceptable quality?

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They can still add content, they can still make changes but core features of the game are far harder to change and so far more expensive and time consuming than you would think they are.

The fact the game is still getting updates is a minor miracle and a testament to the love the developers and we have for the game, they could easily go work on something else or just retire if they wanted to. One of the people that used to work for FFXI decided to move to go work on the FF7 remake 4-5 years ago for example.

This is not to say we should not ask for new things and expect the best, this is to say you have to understand the reality of the situation too.

TLDR: FFXI does not increase its sub price with inflation, so you're probably paying less and the combined income of all the players is less than it used to be.

Have realistic expectations of what is possible.

[Leny]

You forget to mention that while your sub should cost more due to inflation.

Your sub should cost less because you get less for it. Remember back when they actually did stuff, and there was stuff to do, and an at least attempt at balance. yeah, that was worth 12.95 So now the sub costs $16 but they don't even put in enough work to earn $12 of it. Balance.

[Pixela]

Your post makes no sense firstly since I already stated they make less money, also they actually give us far more updates now for the sub fee than they ever did in the past.

Almost everything they added in previous years was directly linked to the expansions we paid for. Also they certainly did not update the game monthly, it was every 3 months at best.

They would release an expansion that we paid for, with barren zones. Then slowly add the content for those expansions over the next 2-3 years.

[Leny]

Quality > Quantity

All 12 updates for 2020 did what exactly? 1 content patch. 0 job updates. 0 balance patches. 3 or 4 bug fixes? Back when they were 3 months apart things actually happened.

[Tsukihika]

It's not like SE has kept the quality of the game intact either to justify the 12€ monthly fee though. Back on the "golden era" we had support for multiple consoles (ps2, xbox, pc), we had tetra master (which i personally never bothered with but which has been removed?), they also got rid of pol email system if i remember correct, as well as support for several languages has been removed past few years. Sure these features were stripped from the game due to unpopularity but they were stripped nonetheless while keeping the original 12€ price intact. So we don't actually get the game cheaper compared to before, we simply get less for same price.

[Alhanelem]

I think the effect of inflation is balanced out by the amount of content. I'm not upset paying my $12.95, but I don't think I should be paying more than that just because the price has stayed the same for 18 years.

The extras like the Mog Wardrobe 3/4 that hardcore players use are where SE makes up any money perceived lost to inflation.

[Stompa]

... The fact the game is still getting updates is a minor miracle and a testament to the love the developers and we have for the game ...

I agree with your whole post, especially this quoted line.

FFXI is, and always was, extremely good Value For Money.

In my humble opinion, FFXI is the greatest computergame in the entire history of the Universe.

No other computergame comes even remotely close, to the majestical awesomeness of FFXI.

In a more sane world than Earth, FFXI would receive Permanent Worldwide Protected Status, as a Classic Masterpiece Genius Work Of Art.

I feel lucky that I am still paying FFXI Subs, because this means that I can still spend time in Vana'diel.

[Alhanelem]

I agree with your whole post, especially this quoted line.

FFXI is, and always was, extremely good Value For Money.

In my humble opinion, FFXI is the greatest computergame in the entire history of the Universe.

No other computergame comes even remotely close, to the majestical awesomeness of FFXI.

In a more sane world than Earth, FFXI would receive Permanent Worldwide Protected Status, as a Classic Masterpiece Genius Work Of Art.

I feel lucky that I am still paying FFXI Subs, because this means that I can still spend time in Vana'diel.

While I might not go QUITE that far, it has certainly been a magical experience that can't keep me away from it. Even after I take a break for a while, I always get this urge to come back. There's a lost art in this game that modern MMOs just lack. Everything has to be perfectl ybalacned and that sterilizes everything. FFXI showed you don't have to make everything the same to create a good experience, nor does every battle have to be viable for everything, as long as everything has a battle they can be a part of.

[Zehira]

Maybe SE could use our money to buy BTC. Currently, no one is losing coins.

[Pixela]

It's not like SE has kept the quality of the game intact either to justify the 12€ monthly fee though. Back on the "golden era" we had support for multiple consoles (ps2, xbox, pc), we had tetra master (which i personally never bothered with but which has been removed?), they also got rid of pol email system if i remember correct, as well as support for several languages has been removed past few years. Sure these features were stripped from the game due to unpopularity but they were stripped nonetheless while keeping the original 12€ price intact. So we don't actually get the game cheaper compared to before, we simply get less for same price.

As I stated, it's not the same price:

$12 is not worth $12, the value (what you can buy with it) changes every year due to inflation / deflation.

$12 today is worth 36% less than it was 18 yeas ago in real terms. So since you are paying 36% less of course you get less for your smaller sub, this is because they no longer make enough to pay all the wages of a large staff as they used to.

People have this idea that a dollar has a set value that never changes, this is not how it works. The value of a dollar changes all the time, this is why things increase in price and why your boss pays you more every year. It's not because they like you or hate you, it's because the dollar lost value.

If you opened a business 10 years ago and charged 100 people $10 a month, you would make a decent living.
If you kept your price at $10, 15 years later you would be making 36% less and would go out of business. To stay in business you would increase the fee to $14 to make the same real amount of money.

The number you charge has increased but the value of the dollar dropped so in real terms you are actually charging the same exact amount.

Short video explaining inflation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKZvm_fqYRM

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In the real world it's near constant inflation (the real value of your money drops), however in FFXI gil is undergoing massive deflation. What you can buy with your gil increased, so something that used to be worth 600k is now 300k. The value of the item you buy has not changed, the value of your gil has. Your gil is worth more now because there is less of it in circulation, due to the sparks nerf.

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Almost every company that exists increase prices with inflation, to make the same money now as they used to.
The reason FFXI, WOW and other similar games do not do this is because most of us are ignorant about inflation and would see it as a sub fee increase. Our ignorance is why the subscription model isn't really sustainable and why all games now add cash shops.

Most people that play FFXI and WoW do not understand inflation at all. They think $12 15 years ago is still worth the exact same amount as it is now.

Ironically, Covid could end up killing FFXI, WoW and FF14.

Covid has forced our governments to massively increase inflation due to throwing money at everything (over the coming years this is going to balloon out of control), this will cause massive inflation. All these companies are going to have to increase the sub free from $12 to $20 or go out of business (or find other ways to make money). For anyone that doesn't get it, this is why they want to add more mog wardrobes. Mog wardrobes = inflation measure for a customer base ignorant about inflation.