Cash shop confirmed

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Originally Posted by Sinroth

I see it as more like Blizzards approach to the cash shop. As long as it stays away from gambling loot boxes, its perfectly fine for a pet here and a mount there.

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Except its already not like Blizzards approach. Even they don't rip out past items and place them up for ridiculous amounts of money.

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Originally Posted by Xairos

They somewhat tried being different with FFXI, while it was profitable for what it was, it was a very small game and as such it took it a long time to be profitable.

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Exactly and, from a business standpoint, I can certainly see why SE has taken the path they've chosen. The fact that it disappoints me personally, along with other players, doesn't change this fact.

To each their own, I suppose. I just regret that myself (and others) have been sacrificed in the name of larger profits - not in the least because I need to hunt down a new MMO in the sea of available titles if I want to continue to enjoy a modern-day version of FFXI ;)

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Originally Posted by Sinroth

Not a disappointment if you support a game that deserves to be supported.

When I hear the words cash shop I think of SWTOR. But this is not at all along the same lines.

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Isn't that game F2P now?
It's hard to compare many P2P games nowadays because almost all of them jump ship and roll CS/F2P road and they end up doing a lot better lol.

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Originally Posted by SevenHeavens

I hope everyone who whines about the cash shop will unsub.

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Because hoping for people to leave a game with legit concerns and all is a cool thing.
Have fun with a dead game again, because watch them go and make something exclusive.
SE is silly enough to do it...they are almost always doing SOMETHING wrong.

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Originally Posted by Sinroth

As long as it stays away from gambling loot boxes, its perfectly fine for a pet here and a mount there.

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Oh man, the nefarious RNG box that ruined GW2 for me... Do we not already have stuff of similar nature in-game? Unfortunately, I believe this game has the type of player base that would enjoy and defend such business practices(e.g., rng cash shop boxes).

Time will tell, I suppose.

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Originally Posted by Vhailor

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How does this make sense to anyone? To plenty of people, P2P is a dying breed and not many people like paying 15$ a month just to play a game as is, now you are saying you are okay with an extra 5$ to make it more selective!? I'm not really sure what your aim is, but it's definitely not trying to be a "consistent image".
You need to get that despite what XI was doing, it was only a sucessful MMO in terms on not screwing over SE. Like it or not, sometimes pandering to everyone is the best way to make cash and while it sucks, it's understandable comparing to watching a game wither and die. I'm not the biggest fan of cash shops, but I would absolutely take one than pay more out of a subscription just to play a game.

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Originally Posted by ZohnoReecho

I guess you are one of those people happy to get half baked stuff priced the same as the old full content.
They just made my subscription worth less, so it's like I'm paying more.

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Assumptions, assumptions and more assumptions. "Let me continue acting like I know this person based on what he says rather than what he's thinking".
1. By your own assumptions, you think before you speak and you are pretty damn hostile already, making this conversation pointless.
2. I don't care about the content because the 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 is obviously the biggest gamechangers while everything else is mainly "new dungeons, a new small area" and patchnotes in the meantime. And no, I'm not that type of person, so thanks for that.
3. I AM NOT A FAN OF THE CASH SHOP, BUT I'D RATHER TAKE THAT THAN BUMPING THE SUBSCRIPTION! None of that means getting half content or any other stupid things like that.

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Originally Posted by Xhominid

How does this make sense to anyone? To plenty of people, P2P is a dying breed and not many people like paying 15$ a month just to play a game as is, now you are saying you are okay with an extra 5$ to make it more selective!? I'm not really sure what your aim is, but it's definitely not trying to be a "consistent image".
You need to get that despite what XI was doing, it was only a sucessful MMO in terms on not screwing over SE. Like it or not, sometimes pandering to everyone is the best way to make cash and while it sucks, it's understandable comparing to watching a game wither and die. I'm not the biggest fan of cash shops, but I would absolutely take one than pay more out of a subscription just to play a game.

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My point is that the type of MMO I want to play is a selective one. This is completely independent from whether or not such a model is economically viable or not - I'm merely stating my preferences as a gamer. In my case, pandering to everyone is sufficiently damaging to a MMO that I simply won't play it. This doesn't hold true for everyone, but it does for me. I'd rather not play a MMO at all than play one that only half-manages to meet my desires from a title.

This really holds true for any genre. We all have things that we like, and if the market doesn't provide them, many of us choose to simply abandon the market, rather than settle. It's entertainment, after all - why settle when there are countless other options?

Edit: This relates to my desire for a "consistent image" because a development team that pursues a rich and varied game world, while ignoring unnecessary or market-focused accommodations, might need to charge a higher fee in order to be economically viable. In other words, I'd rather pay more for a niche title that is designed with gameplay as the sole focus, rather than pay less for a broadly based title that is designed with the size of the user base in mind.

I would like to hazard a guess and throw this out there that a few of those who are against the cash shop aren't against it because of what it is, rather what it could represent: SE making an mmo to be popular instead of trying to be different. Buck the trend. Swim upstream... what have you.

I am fine with the shop, but that is because after playing 2.0 I realized that SE was moving towards trying to make a popular mmo that has slight differences from your average WoW clone.

Yoshi looked at what makes a mmo popular in today's market and tried to make somewhat of a compromise. I hate wow, but i will admit, it has some good ideas on accessibility and how they present their content. In my youth I would have adamantly argued for SE to sink and be different rather than change and try to find some workable medium.

Also, I admit to getting the CE upgrade (digital because i was impatient) just for the minions and the mount and the gear. But this was after getting the 2.0 for free because I had 1.0.

I don't get the displeasure. I mean if we think about it, paying for an FFXIV sub does not prevent you from buying FFXIV artbooks/merchandise/posters/etc. In fact, when the meteor survivors out people were trying to see if they were for sale! Why is it, then, that "digital" merchandise is a problem? Instead of buying posters and t-shirts, you now have the option to buy cool ingame stuff.

For some reason, adding merchandise inside of a game causes people to go up in arms. If we were to take that same coolDRG vanity armor and sell it outside of the game as a cosplay piece, you guys would be all over it! Why the difference?

Merchandise is not game content, I don't understand why you would even compare the two. I sub to play the game, not to get posters.

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Originally Posted by Moqi

Merchandise is not game content, I don't understand why you would even compare the two. I sub to play the game, not to get posters.

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That's just it...you say there's a difference but there really isn't one. An ingame costume is as much "merchandise" as a cosplay piece in a retail store. Either way you are dealing with an item that has no bearing on gameplay.

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Originally Posted by Xairos

I would like to hazard a guess and throw this out there that a few of those who are against the cash shop aren't against it because of what it is, rather what it could represent: SE making an mmo to be popular instead of trying to be different. Buck the trend. Swim upstream... what have you.

I am fine with the shop, but that is because after playing 2.0 I realized that SE was moving towards trying to make a popular mmo that has slight differences from your average WoW clone.

Yoshi looked at what makes a mmo popular in today's market and tried to make somewhat of a compromise. I hate wow, but i will admit, it has some good ideas on accessibility and how they present their content. In my youth I would have adamantly argued for SE to sink and be different rather than change and try to find some workable medium.

Also, I admit to getting the CE upgrade (digital because i was impatient) just for the minions and the mount and the gear. But this was after getting the 2.0 for free because I had 1.0.

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Are you sitting here trying to rationalize that the existence of a cash shop is going to make a game more popular? That there are that many people that are on the fence where they'll decide to start subscribing because they can pay another few bucks to get an item in the game instead of playing the game and getting the item?

Personally I am trying to rationalize why anyone except someone that holds stock in Square-Enix, Inc would be accepting of a cash shop. The only other idea I have is it's some sort of twisted form of battered wife syndrome.

There is no rational reason to be happy about paying extra for an item that could be put in the game for free. You are already supporting SE with a monthly subscription fee. If for some reason you feel that you are not paying SE enough for their services, the do actually take donations and you'd actually get a tax write-off.

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Originally Posted by Lux_Rayna

For some reason, adding merchandise inside of a game causes people to go up in arms. If we were to take that same coolDRG vanity armor and sell it outside of the game as a cosplay piece, you guys would be all over it! Why the difference?

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I think there are two core reasons for this difference. One is the feeling that, when buying a game or subscribing to a title, one should be getting the "complete" official package. People don't like the idea that they're "missing" access to certain pieces of official content. I also think that many feel that games, MMOs included, should provide an "equal footing" for people, independent of wealth in real life. After all, we have to put up with uneven economic footing in every other aspect of life - why should our entertainment be infested with it as well?

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Originally Posted by Ladon

Personally I am trying to rationalize why anyone except someone that holds stock in Square-Enix, Inc would be accepting of a cash shop. The only other idea I have is it's some sort of twisted form of battered wife syndrome.

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This is a little bit naive. Casual gamers with day jobs who have larger chunks of spare income would almost certainly prefer spending a few extra bucks for quick reward than putting even a dozen hours into the game. After all, many people play MMOs to interact with friends and goof around - to them, it is quite likely that "barriers" to content requiring hours invested into the title are an annoyance, rather than good design. World of Warcraft became the mega-hit that it is by appealing to this crowd; SE is attempting to emulate its success.

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Originally Posted by Ladon

Are you sitting here trying to rationalize that the existence of a cash shop is going to make a game more popular? That there are that many people that are on the fence where they'll decide to start subscribing because they can pay another few bucks to get an item in the game instead of playing the game and getting the item?

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I am not trying to rationalize anything in saying that the game will be more popular. It is already popular given that there are threads and threads and pages and pages of topics like this on this site. Back in the FF11 days, I had Killing Ifrit for all my news and the only multi-page threads i saw there were people calling out other players for linkshell drama.

I am saying from the get-go of 2.0 the goal was to make a more visible, popular FFMMO. One part of that change is that our voices to have a chance to change things. I mean look at how SE is thinking about nerfing coil. I bet you that came mostly from these forums.

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Originally Posted by Lux_Rayna

That's just it...you say there's a difference but there really isn't one. An ingame costume is as much "merchandise" as a cosplay piece in a retail store. Either way you are dealing with an item that has no bearing on gameplay.

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And the piece of cake I ate before has no bearing on gameplay either. What are you even trying to say?

Seriously. Hey, I like this game => here's my sub money to play it => thanks for the content you made with the money I gave you.

Where does merchandise fit in all this? Nowhere, because it has nothing to do with the game. I'm honestly trying to understand what you're trying to say but... it's not making any sense. I just told you why it's not the same thing. Everything outside of game content has absolutely nothing to do with the game itself, its subs, its cash shop, or any discussion about it. You pay a sub to access game content, not a cosplay piece in a retail store.

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Originally Posted by Ladon

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Well here's the reality: the subscription model is no longer effective due to a saturated market. A game will not generate the revenue it needs to on a sub-only model in this day and age. It just won't happen unless its extraordinarily superior to everything else. The fact of the matter is that cash shops generate more revenue. People like going to the store and buying things that other ppl can't. Its human nature, and one major reason we still have shopping malls. Since my interest is in the game, I am in favor of whatever will keep the game both enjoyable and alive.

The benefit of cash shops are that: (a) more content can be released (b) more revenue has a positive impact on the game (c) more diversity/customization. These are all wins to me.

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Originally Posted by Xairos

I am not trying to rationalize anything in saying that the game will be more popular. It is already popular given that there are threads and threads and pages and pages of topics like this on this site. Back in the FF11 days, I had Killing Ifrit for all my news and the only multi-page threads i saw there were people calling out other players for linkshell drama.

I am saying from the get-go of 2.0 the goal was to make a more visible, popular FFMMO.

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Yes and that is exactly what I addressed. What logic is there behind that concept that tacking on a cash shop is going to make the game more popular?

You might have an argument if say they planned to open the cash shop then lower the monthly subscription cost a few bucks as a result therefore lowering the entry cost of playing the game, therefore possibly attracting more players.

Except they are not doing that. So this idea that they are going to attract more players by inciting them to spend even more money than before is completely absurd.

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Originally Posted by Vhailor

This is a little bit naive. Casual gamers with day jobs who have larger chunks of spare income would almost certainly prefer spending a few extra bucks for quick reward than putting even a dozen hours into the game. After all, many people play MMOs to interact with friends and goof around - to them, it is quite likely that "barriers" to content requiring hours invested into the title are an annoyance, rather than good design. World of Warcraft became the mega-hit that it is by appealing to this crowd; SE is attempting to emulate its success.

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If their actual goal was to attract more casual players, you know what they would actually do? Put in a vendor in the game that gives these items out at no additional cost.

This entire line of thinking is dumb. They aren't trying to attract more players with a cash shop. They are trying to make more money off of you, the current player. That is the only goal of the cash shop, and you are a fool if you actually accept it.

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Originally Posted by Lux_Rayna

Well here's the reality: the subscription model is no longer effective due to a saturated market. A game will not generate the revenue it needs to on a sub-only model in this day and age. It just won't happen unless its extraordinarily superior to everything else. The fact of the matter is that cash shops generate more revenue. People like going to the store and buying things that other ppl can't. Its human nature, and one major reason we still have shopping malls. Since my interest is in the game, I am in favor of whatever will keep the game both enjoyable and alive.

The benefit of cash shops are that: (a) more content can be released (b) more revenue has a positive impact on the game (c) more diversity/customization. These are all wins to me.

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I'd really like to understand your claim that the sub-only model can't support the game due to saturation. Again this makes little sense.

1) Costs of maintaining a service go down, not up. At worse they will remain the same. The infrastructure is already in place and they are able to re-use a whole lot of assets. Subscription fees cover maintenance and continual development. Yoshi-P even provided a very good breakdown of this when he explained why FF14 was to be a subscription based game to being with.

2) They are charging for expansions, therefore the cost of development is covered by expansions initial sales revenue. This is where most of the major content is going to come from and where most of the costs will be.

Bottom line is they don't need cash shop revenue to maintain the status quo or to provide new content. Subscription fees and expansion revenue cover this without needing to hurt the integrity of the game.

I appreciate the detailed response, Preypacer - a couple of notes, though I agree with most of it.

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Originally Posted by Preypacer

People are going to complain about things being too slow no matter what. If someone thinks something should take an hour, and it takes three, they're going to complain about it being too long of a grind. Welcome to the modern MMO genre.

No matter how far SE goes, or what they do, it's not going to be enough, and people are still going to be pissed off.

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I agree in principle, though I think in many notable cases (the rarity of Primal horses, ATMA, etc.) they've clearly failed to hit anything remotely close to a reasonable rate. There will never be something that's perfect for everyone, but there's a broad grey area that's acceptable to the majority, and they can at the least do a better job in hitting that.

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Well, any hope of appealing to a more select audience was gone the moment Yoshi-P decided on the new direction for the game. That decision has been underscored increasingly with various changes and additions to the game, the cash shop being the latest, but probably not last example.

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I agree, which is why I unsubbed months ago. The reason I am disappointed for this announcement is that frequently, MMOs shift from "attracting" mode to "retention" mode when they release their first expansion. The announcement of a cash shop clearly indicated to me that the approach wouldn't be changing with the release of Heavensward, which is a shame in my eyes.

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As for the community, eh... community isn't something you can "control". Community is the collective sum of many individuals acting of their own accord, personalities, behavior, etc. It's not some single, malleable blob to be shaped and formed according to players' wishes. May as well try herding cats.

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In a certain sense, you're right; no company can precisely control its community. They can influence it broadly, though. Deep mechanics with relatively steep learning curves, for instance, tend to attract more serious gamers and fewer casual types. Subscription fees tend to result in higher community continuity - i.e., people willing to embrace a P2P model are less likely to disappear and reappear frequently. A strong emphasis on vanity, including cash shops, appeals to players for whom looking pretty is just as much of an objective as acquiring end-game gear and embracing challenging content. When taken in combination, I think these actually have a powerful impact on who plays a title. You'll always have plenty of exceptions to the rule, of course.

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Now, as for the compromise bit.. I mention that it's the best possible compromise I can imagine. I would much rather have no cash shop at all, outsie of character or account services (name/server/race/gender change, etc). However, knowing that the cash shop is there, and is going to be there no matter how loudly people protest (the OP of this thread could get 2000 likes, and it won't matter... it's a done deal), the best compromise we can hope for is to allow those who don't want to deal with it at all the option of completing content in-game to obtain those items, so they don't have to.

Under the circumstances, I would be perfectly okay with that.

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Fair enough. For those willing to compromise in the first place, I completely agree on this point.

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Originally Posted by Ladon

If their actual goal was to attract more casual players, you know what they would actually do? Put in a vendor in the game that gives these items out at no additional cost.

This entire line of thinking is dumb. They aren't trying to attract more players with a cash shop. They are trying to make more money off of you, the current player. That is the only goal of the cash shop, and you are a fool if you actually accept it.

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You clearly haven't read my previous opinions, and being rude gives a bad name to everyone who is opposed to the cash shop.

What you clearly missed is that there is a degree of relativity involved in attracting new players. You're right that offering vanity items for free would attract more new players than a cash shop, but a cash shop will likely help to retain or attract more new players than doing nothing at all. Not only that, but it will have the added benefit of "dragging out" vanity content for casual players, thereby helping with retention, and also making SE some extra money in the process.

You're acting like goals are one-dimensional rather than multifaceted, which is a rather ignorant perspective to have.

I doubt they'd let this game bleed money for a year before introducing a cash shop because it's not generating the revenues it should've, especially after the failure of 1.0

I support this game already with my sub. If they are not able to manage development costs with what I give them, tough luck, it's their problem, not mine. They're not entitled (look! I can use it too) to more money from me just because they can't do their job.

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Originally Posted by Sho86

Even they don't rip out past items and place them up for ridiculous amounts of money.

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Hm?

http://i.imgur.com/X3Kjfh2.png

These...don't look ripped out to me..and didn't when I went to the CS.

(Inb4 someone tries to argue against it by predicting the future.)

Btw: They stated they put them on NPCs to allow people who didn't play 1.x to get the items - Most of the event items you see came from 1.0 and were only offered once a year, meaning one year it was yukatas the other it was swimsuits.

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Originally Posted by Dwill

And by the way, do tell me how my conclusion of that report is wrong. An argument using numbers supported by facts, not mere suppositions based on a whim after you skimmed through it or saying that I just need to look at it because you disagree with me.

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Mmm... Okay. I'm not going to argue over that as I don't want to lose my time proving and explaining to the least detail something that I didn't even bring up (and that I'm sure that you'll still tell me to look once again, after that). So you win, I don't care. However...

Should it really matter to us if SE as a whole needs more money? No, bear with me before you click "reply". This game, as in ARR, is financially successful and everyone knows it. It's even funding other parts of the company, so the money seems to be flowing. If SE is having problems with other projects they should try to get/save money by other means, maybe waiting until they get back more money before they open up more projects, or maybe making better games (and ports) or improving them. That way maybe people will invest more in the company, as seen in how a lot of us invested in ARR after they had the balls to do what not many others did before: redoing the game to improve it.

Now you can argue that they are not a charity, and blahblahblah, but I think that it's clear as water that ARR worked because many people (including myself) got attracted by the good faith of the company (something that was hard to see nowadays) and the quality of the "new" product. If they now try to change any of these, they're just shooting themselves in the foot. The aren't just alienating or directly losing many of ARR's customers, but also potential sales for other of their products that people might have gotten simply to support them, as it was happening until now. In other words, I see that as a financial suicide for them to take the "EA/ActiVision Route", specially if they "really" needed the money so hard.

TL;DR: ARR was successful "as is" and it seems that it was able to rescue the company from the hole that it was in. There was no need to change the status quo with a chance of alienating a big chunk of your playerbase and scaring away other potential customers with something as controversial as a cash shop, instead of just keep doing what they have been doing since 1.x's disaster. Haste makes waste.

I debated if I was just going to put this here and risk it being lost in this massive thread, but I don't really see a point in making another thread just for my point of view.

Here is my stance on the issue:

I am very against the existence of a cash shop in FF14. It isn't about the money (epeen alert, I am a working adult pulling 6 figures), it is about integrity and trust.

Well what does integrity and trust mean?

Some of you might not be aware, but ARR was basically created under an informal contract with the players of 1.0 and other fans. Yoshida and company where very transparent with their plans when they took the game over. They basically went into agreement with the 1.0 players that they will continue to collect monthly fees in order to make a better game. They even outlined what they were planning and what the players were to expect of of 2.0. There were three very important features of this agreement:

1) FF14:ARR would continue to be subscription based.
2) Subscriptions would be put toward point version improvements that included both fixes/improvements to the games as well as minor content patches.
3) Major expansions would cost a one time fee but would feature far more content than the point releases.

Yoshida and team have, up until now greatly honored their side of the bargain and as a result players in general have been very happy and SE has seen great financial success with ARR. However most of the sucess has come from how Yoshida and team have actually handled the project. They have been very open and honest, have treated community with great respect and have also treated the game they have made with respect.

Now we have this announcement of a cash shop. To me this is a huge breach in the contract Yoshida had made with the players and fans. This is telling me that Square-Enix corporate and marketing have noticed they have a success on their hands, and now Yoshida is getting pressure to increase those margins. That is very concerning as now the integrity of Yoshida's future decisions are in question. What's going to be put in the cash shop that should have just been put in the game? Are decisions about the game going to start moving toward what is best for the corporate bottom line rather than what will make the game a better game? It's a very unfortunate situation for a team that has built so much integrity up until now.

So that is my concern more than anything. That this game is going to start being optimized for the benefit of Square-Enix rather than for the benefit of the players.

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Originally Posted by Ladon

Bottom line is they don't need cash shop revenue to maintain the status quo or to provide new content. Subscription fees and expansion revenue cover this without needing to hurt the integrity of the game.

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Ignoring the argument about whether or not a cash shop hurts a game's integrity, what you are suggesting is not how businesses measure performance. I think this is where your confusion comes in. Businesses are not in the business (lol) of maintaining status quo. Its quite the opposite. Businesses are about growth of revenues, sales, and profits over a significant period of time. "Growth" is the name of the game...not status quo.

A sub model fails to do the above for obvious reasons. The only source of growth in a sub model comes from either (1) net subscriber growth (players gained - players lost), and (2) increased subscription rates. Competition and a saturated market prevents SE from raising subscriptions without crippling their userbase. We can both agree that is not an option. This leaves only one real option, which is to gain new players significantly faster than you lose them, and to do so at a greater rate every year going forward. That's a tall order, especially when you realize that it costs money to acquire each and every new player.

This creates a problem. The only way to grow players at a faster rate is to throw more money at gaining players. When you factor in competition, new releases, etc etc., your ROI goes south rather quickly. This is normally where games go on life support and maintain a status quo, *if* a company feels it is worth it to do so. It doesn't cost *that* much (relatively speaking) to run an MMO. Its just there's an opportunity cost associated with keeping a game alive, as that money could be spent on a game that will actually generate a lot of growth/revenue. Every company's decision on this is different, but in SE's case they kept FFXI up and running with a few changes. I'm guessing FFXIV had a lot to do with that decision.

Long story short, a strictly sub-model does not meet the growth standards necessary to justify SE throwing a lot of $$ at the game. Whether or not you agree with having those kind of growth standards in the first place is another discussion entirely.

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Originally Posted by Moqi

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It takes a good amount of time to get a clear picture about whether or not a model is going to work. You need 3 quarters at a minimum, which is essentially a year. For example, I run a business and it typically takes about 3 months, or one quarter, for today's efforts to turn into revenue. In order to analyze 3 months' worth of effort, I'd have to analyze the results 6 months later. For 6 months worth of effort, I'd have to analyze it 9 months later.

My point is this is not something they could look at and decide right away. They'd have to wait a while and see how performance measured up to standards.

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They're not entitled (look! I can use it too) to more money from me just because they can't do their job.

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Cash shop is optional, so I'm not sure why you use the word "entitled" there. You are free to purchase optional items as you see fit. SE isn't demanding more money out of you.

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Originally Posted by Tupsi

Hm?

http://i.imgur.com/X3Kjfh2.png

These...don't look ripped out to me..and didn't when I went to the CS.

(Inb4 someone tries to argue against it by predicting the future.)

Btw: They stated they put them on NPCs to allow people who didn't play 1.x to get the items - Most of the event items you see came from 1.0 and were only offered once a year, meaning one year it was yukatas the other it was swimsuits.

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Your that far behind in the convo eh? No event NPCs.

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Originally Posted by Lux_Rayna

Long story short, a strictly sub-model does not meet the growth standards necessary to justify SE throwing a lot of $$ at the game. Whether or not you agree with having those kind of growth standards in the first place is another discussion entirely.

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What "growth standards" would you argue are necessary?

Clearly subscription-model MMOs fall under the category of cash cows. Their success is viewed through the prism of customer retention and longevity, not growth. As you yourself stated, maintenance of an MMO is relatively cheap; FFXIV likely makes enough in one or two months of subscriptions to pay for an entire expansion's development (and this is a conservative estimate). The expansion, of course, not needing an extensive marketing campaign and having a fairly predictable number of purchases, will pay for itself almost immediately upon release. The only uncertainty from SE's perspective is whether an expansion will contribute to enough retention to justify the investment.

I'm not certain how you're linking a decision with these obvious factors to a cash shop.

So, why not openly discuss the addition of a cash shop back since the 1.0 days when the 2.0 information was just starting to get released? Why mislead people in interviews stating how cash shops are bad and how the P2P model is better because devs aren't forced to decide which items go into the game and which ones go into the cash shop?

I mean they themselves said they didn't expect the success ARR had on release, they themselves expected moderate to maybe even low sales. That's why all those server errors happened, because they weren't prepared for the traffic, even though they could have easily made a better estimate of how many people would be playing by both looking at the preorder numbers up to a month or two before the final beta, and by how many people had active subscriptions before they were temporarily suspended on September 2012.

You say all this takes time to measure and decide, but it's all just one big contradiction. If modern MMOs can't sustain themselves without cash shops, why not simply launch with one? If the game is successful enough with 2.5 million "adventurers" then why add a cash shop then? It's all about making money I know, business and all, but the transparency that characterized Yoshida should have come into play here. Yes yes, they don't owe anyone any explanation of what they do as a business, but Yoshida did get most of his goodwill and positive image by being transparent and open about 1.0's development, only to seemingly forget about it after 2.0's launch, and yes I know there are people above him the ultimately decide all this even though he was promoted to Corporate Executive, but still.

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Originally Posted by Roris

So, why not openly discuss the addition of a cash shop back since the 1.0 days when the 2.0 information was just starting to get released? Why mislead people in interviews stating how cash shops are bad and how the P2P model is better because devs aren't forced to decide which items go into the game and which ones go into the cash shop?

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Well based on a lot of their recent decisions, i.e. the cash shop, the atrocious ports of older FF titles to the PC in an attempt to make a few bucks, and the sellout to Microsoft over Tomb Raider 2, I'd say that SE is aiming to emulate EA. At least, I can't think of any other viable explanation.

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Originally Posted by Vhailor

What "growth standards" would you argue are necessary?

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FFXIV has to grow revenues/sales/profits at a reliable rate YoY. For a sub-based model, this can only be measured through box sales, subscriber-base, and retention rates. Box sales are obviously the least important after initial release. You are right in that the raw revenue of subs is probably enough to cover an expansion. But we have to consider a cpl of things:

How much did it cost to get those subs? Whats the net profit? How much of that profit can be reinvested and how? We also have to consider how many subs we lost over the specified period of time. Finally we need to make sure that the money reinvested will not only improve customer retention (as you said), but also pull in more subscribers (to make up for lost ones).

A cash shop alleviates the pressure on an expansion to do well. Its cheap content to produce, and generates revenue w/o having to find new subscribers.

Eh, as a former 11 player, 1.0 player, 2.0 player and frankly just pure gamer. I as long as only vanity related items are sold in the cash shop I don't care. No given in game advantage for cash. It's how I've enjoy games while people rage on about about possible "ethics" of game companies. If a game gets to the point I can't find entertainment out of it I leave it behind.

If I don't want something in the cash shop I just won't buy it. If I want to pay $400 for a mount that does nothing but look "pretty" so be it. I went to fan fest, got a plush that gives me a minion. I didn't go to fanfest and buy merch to just get minions. My primary goal was achieved to meet fellow players to have a good time and hear about new content.

This thread shows very passionate opinions on both sides. Thanks for the good read folks.

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Originally Posted by Lux_Rayna

FFXIV has to grow revenues/sales/profits at a reliable rate YoY.

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This is absurd; SE as a whole aims to increase their revenue and profit when measured year over year, but FFXIV as an individual product will never be held to that standard. Cash cows exist to provide steady revenue streams which are then used to invest in higher-growth (and higher-risk) areas. The MMO market is not suitable for sustained growth in profits, and companies know this. Certainly MMOs will exhibit growth within their first couple of years, but they will inevitably fall off after that, no matter what additional revenue streams SE attempts to create.

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Originally Posted by Tsukino

This blows. Just because it's not as bad as "pay to win" doesn't mean it's not bad.

Charging $5 for a minion and $? for a Sleipnir mount that should already be in the game we pay a monthly subscription for is ridiculous. They most they should ever do is provide items with actual goods like art books and soundtracks.

You should all boycott this, but instead you'll all pay in and encourage them to move more content to individual charges.

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It really comes down to vanity pets/mounts or a flat raise to subscription. I'm fine with the former.

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Originally Posted by Sheer

It really comes down to vanity pets/mounts or a flat raise to subscription. I'm fine with the former.

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I'm fine with neither, I'm sure they can do fine with neither.

This cash shop is just a cash grab.

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Originally Posted by Vhailor

This is absurd

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Its not really. Granted it wont be held to the same growth standards as other products for obvious reasons (ie its a diff product), but it is held to some kind of growth standard. Just because its a cash cow doesn't mean it has 0 growth as a benchmark; it just means that growth, while necessary, does not trump retention. The presence of inflation in any economy makes growth a requirement. A cash cow that cannot keep pace with inflation will actually lose you money over time. That obviously defeats the purpose of the cash cow.

SE has it made. They are going to charge us for items we could have had the chance to get as paying subscribers, yet not only are people accepting the practice, they're defending it. That's not a bad position to be in, since not every company's customers react that way to cash grabs.

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Originally Posted by Lux_Rayna

Its not really. Granted it wont be held to the same growth standards as other products for obvious reasons (ie its a diff product), but it is held to some kind of growth standard. Just because its a cash cow doesn't mean it has 0 growth as a benchmark; it just means that growth, while necessary, does not trump retention. The presence of inflation in any economy makes growth a requirement. A cash cow that cannot keep pace with inflation will actually lose you money over time. That obviously defeats the purpose of the cash cow.

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They can't possibly be held to a standard of positive growth. There is no feasible way in which FFXI has exhibited growth in profits over the past five years, nor has WoW. More to the point, your statement about inflation being applied to profit is flatly wrong. You have to look at it in the context of how much the company invested in the title for that statement to hold any water. All profit has to do in order to have a net benefit for the company is outpace the rate of inflation on the amount of money invested.

For instance, if a company spends $10/yr to support a product, which features declining profits of $100 in the first year, $90 in the second year, and $50 in the third year, then even at its worst, it's producing a 400% ROI. That's not losing the company money. The MMO model closely tracks this; a company spends an initial sizable investment, and then has a steady (relatively low) cost of investment year to year in order to maintain the title. Profits can drop, but in successful sub-based MMO models, like FFXI, the annual profits (while dropping in a YoY sense) still produce a strong ROI year over year. That's not to say it will happen indefinitely, but certainly over a 10-15 year period, titles have managed it (WoW and FFXI being examples of this).

I'm surprised to hear you're running a business while misunderstanding this principle - the mathematics of it is fairly simple.

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Originally Posted by DefendPopPunk

SE has it made. They are going to charge us for items we could have had the chance to get as paying subscribers, yet not only are people accepting the practice, they're defending it. That's not a bad position to be in, since not every company's customers react that way to cash grabs.

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Haven't you heard? "It's just business." "They gotta put food on the table, this is just a great way for fans to give them added support!" Apparently, Square Enix is both a for-profit company and a charity case.

Yet, someone who merely buys the game and pays their subscription is accused of expecting a "free ride" if they don't like the idea of a cash shop. If you are so against it, "then just ignore the cash shop and vote with your wallet." However, if we do vote with our wallets and unsubscribe from the game, that is "pathetic" and "blowing things out of proportion."

"FFXIV is not a WoW clone." "Stop suggesting features I don't like and go back to WoW." But as soon as we suggest that games with subscription fees should not be adding a cash shop: "WoW is a sub-based game, and it has a cash shop." As if that is some kind of excuse, and WoW is now the model all games should be following.

The mental gymnastics some of these people put themselves through to defend their favourite corporation is astounding.

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Originally Posted by Sheer

It really comes down to vanity pets/mounts or a flat raise to subscription. I'm fine with the former.

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Case in point. Where on earth did you get the idea that a subscription increase was even being considered, or was ever a possibility? Has any MMORPG ever randomly raised its subscription? And is that how you convince yourself that a cash shop is a good idea? Because you can imagine something worse?

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Originally Posted by Lux_Rayna

Its not really. Granted it wont be held to the same growth standards as other products for obvious reasons (ie its a diff product), but it is held to some kind of growth standard. Just because its a cash cow doesn't mean it has 0 growth as a benchmark; it just means that growth, while necessary, does not trump retention. The presence of inflation in any economy makes growth a requirement. A cash cow that cannot keep pace with inflation will actually lose you money over time. That obviously defeats the purpose of the cash cow.

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So again, why not openly discuss it way back before ARR's launch? Back when both the uncertainty of ARR's success and the necessity for more funds was even bigger. I'm sure a simple statement like "We'll be launching with a cash shop limited to past seasonal event items" would have still be met with a backlash, but it would have been more understandable considering 1.0's financial situation and also because there was already the antecedent of older event items not being available for purchase with gil from event NPCs, like how both the Santa suit materials and the suits themselves weren't made available again when the reindeer costumes were introduced in 1.0.

Why wait after the success of a game to double dip? The answer is obviously that they now have that extra playerbase they know they can get that extra money from. Them making money is not the issue, I'm sure no one has an issue with a company making money or else players wouldn't be subscribed to this MMO. It's them being upfront about it months before, if not before ARR's launch, not just a week away from 2.4 out of nowhere and especially after stating their views on cash shops and F2P models in multiple past interviews.

lol @ people against cash shop yet have the deluxe edition

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Originally Posted by zar

lol @ people against cash shop yet have the deluxe edition

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Yes, because clearly my upgrade to the CE, made primarily out of gratitude to SE for successfully transforming their next-gen MMO into something I wanted to play, is the same thing as a cash shop. Totally the same thing. /sarcasm

There's no reason to try and ridicule people with valid opinions and, if you are going to do so, using something other than an irrelevant one-liner is preferable.