Time to Lower Sub Price! and "Decouple" from Playonline

[Deadglobe]

So iv'e been thinking... why does FFXI Still charge such a High price for subs?
it's Fairly obvious the Game is Basically in Maintenance Mode. 98.9% sure Square uses money from 11 subs to support the Themepark Cookie cutter on Rails MMO known as FF14.

i started playing Day of release in NA on the old PS2 with the hdd and network adapter, started on lakshmil? or something like that transferred to Asura back whenever it was that happened. quit playing for the longest due to life and having to "Grow up" and take the time to be a better father and husband... all finished by the way.

but seriously why does the game have "TOA" anymore? i find it quite the shame what SE has let the game become...

yea i get it we can turn yells off so we don't see all the RMT and merc spamming.

just because you turn it off... it's still happening. Bots Galore... if i buy from the gil sellers will i be banned?

why haven't they done a better job of policing the TOA?
Get real and lets face it all they do every month is update Ambuscade and the higherend stuff.

nothing that would bring in anyone new... and it's far past time to put playonline out to pasture....

they won't and never will... not until they shut down the servers for good... they know as well as everyone when playonline dies so does FF... But they really should come up with a new interface as far as accounts.

it would work wonders for the Bots and Rmt 100%

I feel I should be paying 9 bucks a month for the game that's fair considering the price for other slots/mules...

I Have never played 14 never will.... quit spending money i give you to support FF11 on FF14 Kthanx

[Cat_Girl]

I think they've already said the subscription price will never change, and so far, they haven't followed through with any combination type subscription consisting of FFXI and FFXIV.

You can use the Term Filter to filter out RMT messages completely without the need to disable any chat logs or even filter out anything else you don't want to see.

[Alhanelem]

So iv'e been thinking... why does FFXI Still charge such a High price for subs?

Because people are paying it.

It's not a high price for a sub. It's been $12.95 for well over 20 years. That's over $20 in today's money, but it's still 12.95. So effectively the cost of the game relative to purchasing power has dropped by close to 50%.

it would work wonders for the Bots and Rmt 100%

If anything, this would make bots and RMT worse, not better.

I feel I should be paying 9 bucks a month for the game that's fair considering the price for other slots/mules...

If it's too expensive, speak with your wallet and stop paying. But the reality is, again, that we pay less over all than we did 20+ years ago. In fact, it's already cheaper than the $9 you said you'd be willing to pay.

I Have never played 14 never will.... quit spending money i give you to support FF11 on FF14 Kthanx

Your sub money doesn't fund FFXIV. It funds SQUARE ENIX as a whole. There is no line in any balance sheet that says dollars from any particular project will be spent on any particular project. It all just goes into their big #$% bank account and they spend it on all of their projects. A statement like this demonstrates a lack of understanding of how business finance works. Funds are not directly allocated from one project to any other. They might stay within the same business unit, but the same unit that works on FFXIV also works on this game, and worked on FF16, and probably other projects. All of the income from all of these projects funds all of their work. There is no way to say this dollar we spent on FFXI was spent on FFXIV and that dollar was spent on FFXVI. They just have one budget that all the money goes into.

[Deadglobe]

. It all just goes into their big #$% bank account and they spend it on all of their projects

Exactly what i just said…. ??

And how would you know that they Have not spent any money From 11 on 15?

I make 32$ Per Hour the 12.95 sub price is not the issue… the issue is paying that price for a Game that feels like it should be cheaper to play.

Mercs are what they are…. But the Rampant Bots and RMT Spam makes me feel like those people get away with everything..

If the actual “Player base” has to Deal with this stuff why not make the Price lower?

Ill say again just because you can turn on a filter and not see it does not mean it is not still happening.

They charge AAA prices for an A shelf game

[Alhanelem]

. It all just goes into their big #$% bank account and they spend it on all of their projects

Exactly what i just said…. ??

No, it's not what you just said. You said "stop spending my FFXI money on FFXIV."

To which I explained that they don't specifically take the money from FFXI and drop it on FFXIV. You're not the only one to parrot this statement, many other people have said this. But the reality is entirely different. Even when FFXI was new, money earned from FFXI was not explicitly spent on FFXI, it was spent on their entire business. So it is at best an incredibly disingenuous comment to say "stop spending my money on XIV, implying that your money was ever explicitly spent directly on XI in the first place.

They charge AAA prices for an A shelf game

... Actually, they don't, not by any measure.

First, common misconception is terms like "AAA" "A" "B" etc. these refer to BUDGET, not QUALITY. And the price for the game itself has actually gone down over time. We who have played since the beginning paid more for the game and each of its expansions. Today the entire collection including all the addons costs less than the base game did at launch.

And like I said before. The subscription price hasn't changed, but due to inflation, it actually costs almost half as much as it did 20+ years ago.

Anyway, it's like I said. if you think you aren't getting your money's worth, CANCEL. It's not likely to change and ranting about it here won't do anything.
(I say not likely rather than impossible because it was mentioned on the recent player survey. But I would still not keep any expectations.)

[BobbinT]

Could just take advantage of those return home campaigns. In my experience, it is more than enough for one to experience all story content up to current & has some freebie time to grind other like relics & such. For events having averagely 10 days durations between 3-4 months, imo that is very generous for one to enjoy without subbing.

[Beastorizer]

XI is most likely more profitable than the average f2P title not named LoL, Warframe, etc. This is due to the sub price, along with base game prices. I would wager, XI makes enough to improve XI but that is never how it works.

If they are getting money without significant XI improvements, why would they make significant improvements? Bit off topic, but agree with the OP.

[Alhanelem]

XI is most likely more profitable than the average f2P title not named LoL, Warframe, etc. This is due to the sub price, along with base game prices. I would wager, XI makes enough to improve XI but that is never how it works.

If they are getting money without significant XI improvements, why would they make significant improvements? Bit off topic, but agree with the OP.

FFXI absolutely makes enough money to justify its continued existence. Heck, even the botters/RMT alone probably make enough money for SE (which is why they are so slow to act on them). Lowering the sub fee isn't going to generate enough extra subs to justify the price reduction.