starting to charge at SW: TOR release is a horrid idea

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Originally Posted by Azurymber

FFXIV attracted a lot of people into "story" since the FF series and FFXI were story heavy.

SW: TOR is pretty well the newest MMO out there and heavily story driven. It also has a huge amount of preorders.

Starting to charge right when a competitor is releasing a much better rated product is a really bad idea business wise

On the other hand the "new" version of the game looks -epic.- It would seem a much better idea to start charging -then- rather than now and lose subscriptions.

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I still can't believe this? Why did SE make such a bold move exactly when one of the biggest competitors enters the market??!! Sure, if the ultra awesome FF14 ver. 2.0 comes in a month, then the game will successfully fight against SWTOR! But right now, it's like a little sick kitten against a hulking behemot! (Damn it, I really miss those monsters from FF11).

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Originally Posted by Xatsh

Star Wars ToR

Storyline: Great
Graphics: Horrible
Gameplay: Wow Clone
Heavy Solo based

Yea that game will do great for 2 months, people will beat it get pissed off it is the same old same old. And come back to this game, WoW, or Rift.

ToR has very little chance of being a long term success. Much lower then XIV atm. It will be another Rift nothing more.

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gameplay is -not- a wow clone.
Graphics do suck

Point is, its story heavy and solo heavy meaning that it -directly- competes with what FFXIV was/is supposed to be. Remember? FFXIV is supposed to be casual AND as an FF its supposed to dominate in the story arena.

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Personally I don't mind paying but I do run a business and its -very- common business sense not to "launch" a product when there is a better alternative coming out.

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I think that it's pretty presumptuous to call a game which has yet to be released a 'better alternative.' I know a lot of people in the Beta and with every new build, they go back and forth over whether the game is awesome or terrible.

As for me, I'm over the star wars universe, have no desire to play any further games in what amounts to a pretty limited system.

The only horrid thing I see is a dozen threads like this that are being started by just a couple people.

Just looking at this from a pure business perspective.

When I was studying business finance in college I remember terms like start up capital and pay back period. With any investment, you need start up capital, but with an expectation that you will eventually make money right?

So with this project they had the start up capital to develop the game. The initial game sales probably funded a good amount of that initial development. Now they are not charging for the game and have a staff of 100-150 people on this project that they must pay salaries too. At this point they are losing money and are faced with 2 decisions. A) scrap the project and cut losses or B) Invest more money with a plan to keep their pay back period as short as possible, while keeping enough cash flow to stay in business.

We don't know a lot of the financial specifics of Square Enix other than a few months back they reported a loss in their earnings. It's apparent from the information we have recieved in the past few months that they have chosen to keep this project alive and not scrap it, so plan A is out the window. Now after reading through the action plan, they have a roadmap for key patches and releases, a plan for making the product suitable for PS3 and PC where they can get the maximum number of subscriptions, and also looks like they have a marketing plan for E3 as well as other avenues.

The reality of choosing plan B still comes back to basic business principles: You can't keep running an investment or a business on zero cash flow forever. I"m sure they waived the pros and cons of deciding to charge us, but by generating a little cash flow through subscriptions they are financing and making FFXIV 2.0 possible.

My personal view on this, is I bought the game a year ago. While gameplay has had some obvious flaws and is by no means perfect, I still have gotten hours of enjoyment through this game. I've actually in the long run - SAVED money by forgoing game and movie rentals and other areas of entertainment through something that has been free.

since when do games get their investments from players though? What game is like "Ok we are making a game but need money so send us $12 a month now to play the beta and hope the end product is good"

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Originally Posted by Azurymber

since when do games get their investments from players though? What game is like "Ok we are making a game but need money so send us $12 a month now to play the beta and hope the end product is good"

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You're not playing a beta. The fact that people repeat this over and over again doesn't make it true.

Wow. I actually plan on playing and paying for both. SWTOR has one other thing though, I don't think their forums are nearly as negative as FFXIV's. Just sayin'.

SW TOR has an incredibly awesome and very positive community. not saying FFXIVs is bad but yeah.....

And yes, the fact that they are re-releasing this game is proof its a beta because IT WONT EXIST IN THIS FORM IN A YEAR. I would go so far as to call this an alpha now since its being completely overturned.

i am a star wars fan but i probably won't play it, to me it looks like a wow clone, at first i loved it but now, no thanx i'm sticking with ff

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Originally Posted by Azurymber

since when do games get their investments from players though? What game is like "Ok we are making a game but need money so send us $12 a month now to play the beta and hope the end product is good"

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don't call it investement then call it cash flow then. Excuse the comparison, but if you invest in a movie theatre, you can't keep letting people in for free forever without eventually running out of working capital. If you also own a car wash and a laundry map, you can "borrow money" from those businesses for a little bit, but eventually you will want to see your theatre in the green.

Another more related example is that of the Nintendo Wii. In terms of graphics and such, the Wii is obviously a little behind, but who was Nintendo marketing to? They new that the "hardcore gamer" was going to buy the Wii regardless, meaning, the hardcore gamer has all the systems etc. What they did is market their games to the non-gamer. In otherwords, stores in the U.S were sold out of the Wii for months and months because not just gamers were buying the system, but also moms, grandparents. everyone.

Now let's tie that in with the gamer and FFXIV. The people left in this game are the hardcore FFXIV fan. If those people leave now because they don't want to pay a subscription, I'd put a fair amount of money down to say that when 2.0 is released and is awesome... those people will be back. Square Enix has one shot to hit this project "out of the park" and that is at PS3 release. At that point they will have a chance to market this game to the "general gamer" with a system (PS3) that is widely owned. If they lose players now, at least they will have a little cash flow from the remaining base, so that when the time comes for judgement day, they can save this project.

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Originally Posted by Azurymber

SW TOR has an incredibly awesome and very positive community. not saying FFXIVs is bad but yeah.....

And yes, the fact that they are re-releasing this game is proof its a beta because IT WONT EXIST IN THIS FORM IN A YEAR. I would go so far as to call this an alpha now since its being completely overturned.

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No. If we were playing the new client on a new server, that would be a beta. This is playing a completed game with our characters transferring into a direct sequel.

I am very much looking forward to TOR, art style or no the game looks fun to me and several friends who tend to have very similiar tastes are enjoying the beta. I pre-ordered the CE and can't wait to play it.

I think the timing for SE to charge is a bad plan. I think 2.0 is a better time, mainly because the game is going to continuously go through drastic changes until 2.0 hits.

Note even though I am going to be playing TOR I will be playing XIV as well. FFXIV is shaping up to become awesome soon and I want to be there for that, but I am looking forward to TOR as well.

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Originally Posted by Azurymber

SW TOR has an incredibly awesome and very positive community. not saying FFXIVs is bad but yeah.....

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FF14 has an incredibly awesome and very positive community, who is unfortunately weighed down by a bunch of negative nancy's who like to complain a lot. <Cocks an eyebrow your direction>

And yes, the fact that they are re-releasing this game is proof its a beta because IT WONT EXIST IN THIS FORM IN A YEAR. I would go so far as to call this an alpha now since its being completely overturned.[/QUOTE]

You could say that, but you'd be wrong. So, yeah. Not correct.

It doesn't matter really what other games are doing. People have had plenty of time to get to know FFXIV. If they don't like it by now, they won't subscribe.

Someone on the fence MAY go buy starwars and try it. At that point, the better MMO to the person will win. That said, NOONE is going to go BUY another game because the one they already bought is going to start subscriptions... ESPECIALLY when the subscription cost is less than the cost of buying the new game + their subscription.