Going to have to agree with the majority here: this is a downright low, insulting move. And people can't say Square Enix doesn't know what they're doing. They know exactly what they're doing.
- They tried to turn Deus Ex's pre-order campaign into
a mobile-esque cash crab (Augment your Pre-order).
- You needed
a dang chart to figure out FFXV's pre-order campaign (and that one isn't even fully accurate, there's still stuff
missing. )
-
Final Fantasy Dissidia NT has completely gutted the content the spin off franchise is known for supposedly to make room for the online PvP component. Yet despite offering less content, they still charge a $60 USD price tag.
- Wanting to turn the FFVII remake into an episodic game to save on resources yet still charge a premium.
- Deemed their 2013 reboot of Tomb Raider an absolute failure despite selling nearly 4 million copies,
because they spent so much on marketing that their target was nearly
15 million copies.
This is not the first time Square Enix's strategy as a company has been to squeeze out as much cash out of their customers as they can with as little effort as possible, and it certainly won't be the last. The company has a horrible history when it comes to budgeting and what they consider worth the money. Promotions and graphics are always on their radar, but actual QoL features and gameplay content tend to be hit or miss because of it.
And since they're using F2P mobile game strategies for this app (free and premium currency), I think it's only fair to take a look at how Square Enix handles their F2P mobile games:
Kingdom Hearts Unchained X: there have been multiple times where if you wanted to guarantee yourself even one copy of a set of medals, you would need large sums of money for that. In one case it was $2,000 USD (
Kairi EX and Foretellers fiasco). Not to mention they outright still strip of players in NA of certain features (like voice acting and certain banner types) when other countries (like Taiwan) gets them. For no explanation whatsoever.
Final Fantasy Dissidia Opera Omnia: While by far one of the most generous mobile app games currently on the market by guaranteeing a 5-star relic/weapon with each draw, which one you get is still left up to chance. Because of their pricing for currency you would need the equivalent of $148 USD to fully limit break the weapon of one character. For a team of three that's a minimum of $369.90 USD. If you're a collector? Well at the time I first wrote about the game (not gonna link because I don't want to self promote, not sure what the rules are on that here) there were 27 characters. That's $3,329.10 USD. And more characters have been added since then, so that price continues to grow.
Guardian Codex: Oh this one had a slew of issues, and they didn't bother fixing most of these (as far as I'm aware). Aside from typical F2P currency BS they made it so that the two versions (despite being launched globally on the exact same day) were different in terms of quality and the Japanese one showed in writing what the terms and chances of certain things were. They deliberately hid those details in the NA version. This was before the big Battlefront fiasco that made the app stores make this a requirement.
Mobius Final Fantasy: This one is in some ways far friendlier than most, however you can pay a monthly fee for a premium VIP package on top of spending money for premium currency for the gacha roulette stuff. So basically a F2P game with a lower monthly sub. This isn't a new concept in the mobile F2P space, and it is absolutely not a new concept for Square Enix. This sounds closest to what this companion app is aiming for.
And that's all just the tip of the iceberg. Now you look at those numbers and tell me with a straight face they're not testing the waters to see what they might be able to rake in with premium currency for FFXIV.
Because frankly, with SE's history in terms how they treat microtransactions, I'm not optimistic of how they handle this feature. You can say it's optional all you want, but so were all of the above cases I just described.
The bottom line is if they didn't think people would use it (and therefore give them money), they wouldn't make it. People will use this to manipulate the market board at all times (Fashion Report says hello. Now all you have to do is pay attention to Reddit, then open the app and pop your items up there without even opening the game). If they truly, sincerely only wanted a chat app then that's all this would have been: a free chat app. It's not.
