The FFXIV Cash Shop is greedy

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Originally Posted by SamRF

Nobody has to do what I demand. I'm simply giving my opinion and feedback, feel free to agree or disagree.

I also wonder why you're playing a subscription game and not a F2P or B2P game if you're so adamant on only paying for what you want.

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I wouldn't even call that a demand. Just your proposed solution. It's pretty obvious I disagree.


I'm playing FFXIV because I enjoy the game. The form its monetization takes is minor as long as I enjoy the actual content. And I'm saying that you're asking for an increase in the base sub to wrap in what is considered an extra into the main game. Rather than the choice people currently have where they can decide whether all this extra stuff is something they want. This isn't content that would have been created unless there was demand for it, but it also allows players to CHOOSE whether they want to participate with that or not.

ALSO.. F2P and B2P games generally cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars a year to stay "competitive". The cost is usually hidden in the fact that the whole game is micro transactions. FFXIV is entirely accessible except for a few cosmetics. There is no functional limitation as long as you pay the sub. So again, you're asking others to pay to cover fancy extras.

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Originally Posted by Macleod

...because we needed another thread about this.

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My thinking exactly. This is a literal regurgitation of a thread from like 3 weeks ago too. I just find it funny that this and the other most recent mogstation whine thread are both right here next to each other. It's ridiculous.

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Originally Posted by SturmChurro

My thinking exactly. This is a literal regurgitation of a thread from like 3 weeks ago too. I just find it funny that this and the other most recent mogstation whine thread are both right here next to each other. It's ridiculous.

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Because ppl be lazy and my opinion on the topic is more important than that other thread so i must have my own thread.

this is why nothing ever gets to devs because of too much topic fragmentation.

as for the topic at hand. i've always been of the mindset that it's optional. OPTIONAL. no one is holding a gun to your head and saying BUY THIS OR ELSE. lol
for those that complain that it should be made available for free in game. eh whatever.
if there is an MMO out there that doesn't have a cash shop please tell me so everyone knows to go play that game instead and stop being so whiny haha.

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Originally Posted by SamRF

In terms of micro-transactions... yada yada yada.

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Did you know that you don't have to buy one thing from the cash shop to progress in this game? Not one thing. All of it is completely and totally optional.

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Originally Posted by SamRF

Player satisfaction is why people play the game to begin with and is likely most important factor to consider, especially when you have a subscription business model. Even Activision/Blizzard seems to understand this with how they are relatively conservative with amount of Cash Shop items, however I'm sure that even they are stretching with what they can get away with and have the Cash Shop as a contributing factor of WoW player dissatisfaction.

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So some players are entiteled enough to think "I payed 13 euro in 2013, and still pay 13 euro in 2020, company should give me more and more but don't dare they keep paying their workers money because reasons", and the one who's greedy here is the company?

Cash shop, while can be, and often is, annoying in its existence, is one of the rare ways to keep subscription fee from raising, and that's what matters much more for a consumer than the size of the shop. Believe me, if cash shop would be removed or didn't exist to begin with, and sub fee raised every year, because prices in gamedev don't mysteriously stay the same, that's where the real blacklash and massive unsibbing would happen, even if most people would logically understand why it happened. I personally probably wouldn't play this game if sub was higher, not because I don't want to pay more, but because I just couldn't afford it then - 15$ with 400$ wage (and my country isn't very generous with wages unless you're a politic) is already quite a lot as it is, and I know plenty of people who are the same. Having the compromise in the face of Mog Station helps people, who doesn't want to or can't spend more on a monthly basis, spend less with occasional extra spendings when they want to/can do these extra spendings.

Once again, amount of items in shop doesn't matter more than prices do - it's a factor, but it doesn't exist in a nutshell. What matters is what exactly and how much you can to buy for the same price. Quote, because you either didn't see it or conveniently ignored. I don't care if WoW have just 5 pets in shop if I need to pay 10$ for each at once, when I can take more for the same price in other shop or take the same amount for a lesser price without loss in the quality on top of that. And I don't think that I'm the only person who thinks this way. Mog Station is one of the rare examples of a decent balance between guality, quantity and price (and some items are still considered expensive regardless, and some items could look better than they do).

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Originally Posted by Halivel

I am a consumer. I get spare 20$ (18€) and think "okay, wanna spoil myself and buy something cute in shop". I open Mog Station and can: buy 2 mount for 8.40€ each, or 1 mount for 8.40€ + 2 minions for 3.50€, or 1 mount for 16.80€, or 2 attires for 9€ each, or one attire for 13.50€ + 1 minion for 3.50€. Then I open Blizzard shop: I can buy... 2 minions. Wow, Blizzard certainly wins! (No it doesn't).

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Originally Posted by Halivel

So some players are entiteled enough to think "I payed 13 euro in 2013, and still pay 13 euro in 2020, company should give me more and more but don't dare they keep paying their workers money because reasons", and the one who's greedy here is the company?

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Those are my thoughts too.
I love how people demand more content and more everything, but at the same time they don't want SE to earn more money to make it. They simply want more for the same price.

I'm glad the cash shop exists because I can tell that updates and events have improved from 2.0 times, and I understand that improvement has happened because the game has more revenue, and thus more money can be invested back into the game. Yet I'm still paying the exact same quantity for my sub (and I barely use the cash shop because the game already provides all the glamours I need). I think all is good.

People vote with their money.

You gotta realize a lot of this games success is because of how pretty looking it is.
Of course the cash shop is going to have more glamours and such than WoW.

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Originally Posted by Halivel

So some players are entiteled enough to think "I payed 13 euro in 2013, and still pay 13 euro in 2020, company should give me more and more but don't dare they keep paying their workers money because reasons", and the one who's greedy here is the company?

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I agree that the sub cost may be too low and that most players likely aren't ready yet to pay more. I've acknowledged this before (in this thread and others) and it might be true that a Cash Shop may provide a good middle ground for now. I wish that the MMO market (players as well as games) was more saturated so more players would have more choice and that a solid game with higher sub fee and no Cash Shop would indeed exist, then I likely wouldn't be voicing my concerns and feedback here but instead pull the trigger way faster and switch game.

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Originally Posted by Halivel

Once again, amount of items in shop doesn't matter more than prices do - it's a factor, but it doesn't exist in a nutshell. What matters is what exactly and how much you can to buy for the same price. Quote, because you either didn't see it or conveniently ignored. I don't care if WoW have just 5 pets in shop if I need to pay 10$ for each at once, when I can take more for the same price in other shop or take the same amount for a lesser price without loss in the quality on top of that. And I don't think that I'm the only person who thinks this way. Mog Station is one of the rare examples of a decent balance between guality, quantity and price (and some items are still considered expensive regardless, and some items could look better than they do).

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I had read it and I appreciate you taking the time voicing your and other's opinion but I simply don't agree with it so I didn't bother replying

I don't care what the prices of Cash Shop items are because I won't buy it. I don't want a Cash Shop out of principle (immerion, potential slippery slope, authenticity, p2p game, 4th wall, ...), so if there is in fact a Cash Shop, I just want it to have as few items as possible. The difference in amount of items is huge when you compare both games all things considered.

Realize how WoW sells 0 glamours, meaning that when you play WoW you know that you can only get all available transmogs in game. This alone is a reassuring feeling imo and is a big deal. The amount of items in WoW Cash Shop is small enough (for how long it exists) that you won't immedietaly get suspicious that they do or will decrease the quality of items ingame to drive up Cash Shop sales (especially for glamours since there are none in Bliz Store). Not saying this is the case in FFXIV but the concern will be there and that alone is not pleasant.

Meanwhile you go to FFXIV Mog Station and see pages upon pages of items, easily makes it look like a b2p game with no supscription. In fact I'm sure it offers more items than ESO or GW2 offer in their ingame stores (especially for glam attires) at a given time and those aren't even supscription games. (of course the nature of GW2 and ESO stores are more greedy, as they probably should be being b2p)

I'd be much more happy if we only had 5 minions/glams/mounts that each cost 100$ than have a Cash Shop of this magnitude. If that doesn't make sense to you, then so be it, we can't always understand each other's perspective and that's okay.

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Originally Posted by SamRF

I agree that the sub cost may be too low and that most players likely aren't ready yet to pay more.

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They will never be for a variety of reasons, and MMO games don't aim only at those who can pay as much as possible, they try to catch people with different wealth backgrounds (even f2p games do, as much as greedy they are). Cash Shops are a compromise for that. Having 10 items for 5$ each instead 1 for 50$ is also a compromise because:

1. They give more options for same price

2. It places lesser stretch on consumer's wallet than one single pruchase for a significant amount you owed to pay immediately. I will much more willingly buy an item for 5$ then buy one more released later also for 5$ than one single item for 50$ even if it's astonishingly amazing. No way I will buy a minion for 100$ which is 25% of my monthly wage, my (and hundreds other people) only reaction will be "are you mad there? do you suppose your players have 4000+$ wage or what?" And even for 4000$ wage asking 100$ for a minion is a poor marketing decision. It won't make the game more attractive for players.

That said... thanks god you're not developing this game.

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Originally Posted by Clover_Blake

Those are my thoughts too.
I love how people demand more content and more everything, but at the same time they don't want SE to earn more money to make it. They simply want more for the same price.

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Generally, people have been expressing dissatisfaction at the feeling that they're getting less content for the same subscription/expansion price-point. There has been a pretty clear demonstrable downward trend in content-per-patch lately, and it's frustrating for them to watch as SE continues to stock their cash-shop while cutting corners on the game proper.

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Originally Posted by SamRF

I agree that the sub cost may be too low and that most players likely aren't ready yet to pay more. I've acknowledged this before (in this thread and others) and it might be true that a Cash Shop may provide a good middle ground for now. I wish that the MMO market (players as well as games) was more saturated so more players would have more choice and that a solid game with higher sub fee and no Cash Shop would indeed exist, then I likely wouldn't be voicing my concerns and feedback here but instead pull the trigger way faster and switch game.

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Originally Posted by Halivel

That said... thanks god you're not developing this game.

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Was hoping we could get to a respectful agree to disagree conclusion, with how much room I was giving your argument. Can't expect people to be decent on the internet I guess.

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Originally Posted by SamRF

Was hoping we could get to a respectful agree to disagree conclusion, with how much room I was giving your argument. Can't expect people to be decent on the internet I guess.

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Just as much as I was trying to give a room to yours in the beginning, and I didn't mean that sentence as an insult - you just don't seem to be suitable to work in marketing. Every time I see you in threads you're claiming you want the game to be better, but ideas itself just aren't any good in long time perspective (some of them could give an improvement for a short time). Your idea to give "5 pets for 100$ each", even if it's an exaggeration, is very weak from marketing standpoint, because that's not how consumer's mentality works. At this point I wonder if you're geniunely that naive or just a troll.

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Originally Posted by Halivel

Just as much as I was trying to give a room to yours in the beginning, and I didn't mean that sentence as an insult - you just don't seem to be suitable to work in marketing. Every time I see you in threads you're claiming you want the game to be better, but ideas itself just aren't any good in long time perspective (some of them could give an improvement for a short time). Your idea to give "5 pets for 100$ each", even if it's an exaggeration, is very weak from marketing standpoint, because that's not how consumer's mentality works. At this point I wonder if you're geniunely that naive or just a troll.

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Yeah I thought it was pretty obvious what I meant with that 100$ example.. you're taking it out of context and I hope not with awareness just to score points. I'll clarify just in case though.

That 5 items for 100$ was just an example to clarify how and why I believe the amount of items are more important to me instead of the price. Of course I know that it won't sell at that price. It wasn't an idea at all, it was just an example to give perspective.

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Originally Posted by SamRF

I believe the amount of items are more important to me instead of the price.

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Unfortunatly, it doesn't work like that and the food is a fair example of customers behavior, a lot of them look at the price first and the quantity after. That makes they will pay more for less thanks to the false feeling they save money.
100g for 2€
90g for 1€90
People will take the one at 1€90 thought they pay actually 10 cents more, the price should be 1€80

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Originally Posted by SamRF

Yeah I thought it was pretty obvious what I meant with that 100$ example.. you're taking it out of context and I hope not with awareness just to score points. I'll clarify just in case though.

That 5 items for 100$ was just an example to clarify how and why I believe the amount of items are more important to me instead of the price. Of course I know that it won't sell at that price. It wasn't an idea at all, it was just an example to give perspective.

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I get it. It's just that we have to take into consideration that it's not as simple as it looks to be. Quantity and price both work in tandem, and they work in tandem with payment model of the game itself. No cash shop at all means higher sub and its increasing after some period of time. It's not a bad thing technically, but it will attract less players, and games are usually aimed at different kind of players, not only wealthy ones.

For same reason, cash shop with less quantity for a higher price has less potential than higher quantity for a lesser price. Yes, you can see the second as a bit more greedy model, but it gives more freedom and choice (and, in fact, possibility to spend less money in some cases) to those who buy these items.

So while your idea potentinally could work in ideal circumstances, it won't be that good in reality.

To be fair, WoWs cash shop is in game. And from what I've heard it once sold a mount in game which had the best speed. No other mount in game was that fast. and it was pretty pricey too.

Some stuff in WoWs cash shop is also a limited time thing as well.

FFXIVs is outside the game and most glamour items were originally from a previous event or a Korean exclusive.

Personally I don't like cashshops though i heard most sales from the mogstation goes to the Devs. Since square takes the sub money.

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Originally Posted by Halivel

I get it. It's just that we have to take into consideration that it's not as simple as it looks to be. Quantity and price both work in tandem, and they work in tandem with payment model of the game itself. No cash shop at all means higher sub and its increasing after some period of time. It's not a bad thing technically, but it will attract less players, and games are usually aimed at different kind of players, not only wealthy ones.

For same reason, cash shop with less quantity for a higher price has less potential than higher quantity for a lesser price. Yes, you can see the second as a bit more greedy model, but it gives more freedom and choice (and, in fact, possibility to spend less money in some cases) to those who buy these items.

So while your idea potentinally could work in ideal circumstances, it won't be that good in reality.

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Yes and again, I generally agree what you're saying. As a player who gives feedback though I don't like this model.

Beside the sub cost argument, consider that Cash Shop may or may not drive players away from the game and stunt its player growth (I've seen FFXIV Cash Shop as argument against playing this game on other forums), the amount of players that are driven away would perhaps cost FFXIV more than current Cash Shop sales in terms of profit.

However there's no obvious indication Cash Shop is driving that many players away so it's not unreasonable to disregard this argument. I wouldn't say it's a meaningless argument though and I'm sure SE considers that (it's the reason there are no P2W items in Cash Shop).

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Originally Posted by Eldevern

Unfortunatly, it doesn't work like that and the food is a fair example of customers behavior, a lot of them look at the price first and the quantity after. That makes they will pay more for less thanks to the false feeling they save money.
100g for 2€
90g for 1€90
People will take the one at 1€90 thought they pay actually 10 cents more, the price should be 1€80

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Food is a good example of how consumer's mentality work, though it doesn't sit exactly well with ingame shops, at least for those categories we compare here. In case with food it's "catch them with price while also decieving them with the amount". When we talk about things like mounts or minions - we buy in pieces, which are whole numbers. If I buy 2 minions for 7€ in one in-game shop, while I buy 1 minion for 5€ in another, it's quite obvious that I either get more from 1st one or have the possibility to spend less if I like only one of two minions.

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Originally Posted by SamRF

Yes and again, I generally agree what you're saying. As a player who gives feedback though I don't like this model.

Beside the sub cost argument, consider that Cash Shop may or may not drive players away from the game and stunt its player growth (I've seen FFXIV Cash Shop as argument against playing this game on other forums), the amount of players that are driven away would perhaps cost FFXIV more than current Cash Shop sales in terms of profit.

However there's no obvious indication Cash Shop is driving that many players away so it's not unreasonable to disregard this argument. I wouldn't say it's a meaningless argument though and I'm sure SE considers that (it's the reason there are no P2W items in Cash Shop).

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It's a bit hard to count how much they can potentionally lose, too. For all the time I play (6 years) I spent about ~1500€ in amount I think (this includes sub, the game itself, all expansions in CE and some items from Mog Station. Also I'm not sure on the exact amount of money because in the past Russia had regional prices, plus exchange course changes daily so it can be ~1500 or a bit less). They most likely do much more than this from a single Mog Station item right after releasing it and also later with "catching up" purchases. Amount of potential players that were droven away by Mog should be quite significant to outplay it, so the loss is either even or less. I'm quite sure their finances department did their calculations on this, otherwise the way Mog Station works now would be already changed.

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Originally Posted by Halivel

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Micro-transactions are a suject of economy studies in itself. ^_^

People will make the difference between a minion at 5€ and one at 7€ but they will often prefer to buy one fantasia at 7€ rather than five at 31€.

All is in the catch-up price.

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Originally Posted by SamRF

Yes and again, I generally agree what you're saying. As a player who gives feedback though I don't like this model.

Beside the sub cost argument, consider that Cash Shop may or may not drive players away from the game and stunt its player growth (I've seen FFXIV Cash Shop as argument against playing this game on other forums), the amount of players that are driven away would perhaps cost FFXIV more than current Cash Shop sales in terms of profit.

However there's no obvious indication Cash Shop is driving that many players away so it's not unreasonable to disregard this argument. I wouldn't say it's a meaningless argument though and I'm sure SE considers that (it's the reason there are no P2W items in Cash Shop).

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It's a fringe argument. Basically most people look at upfront costs and decide if those upfront costs are worth the money or not. Would you pay...I dunno, 50 a month for a sub on the belief that everything ever developed would end up in game, or 15 a month and pay additional fees for items you can pick and choose from. Keep in mind with the former model, there would be no distinction between additionally developed items adn what would be in game as a 'default'. So there is no 'mogstation' for you to see "Oh, this is why its worth 50 a month." Most consumers wouldnt be down for this model for two reasons - the inability to quantify if 50 a month would be worth it, and the sheer up front cost. It also creates a huge barrier to entry for new players. If youre new to FFXIV and are told you need a 50 a month sub, how likely are you gonna be to drop that on top of 60 for the game itself.

And if were gonna be honest, the immediate push would would be things like "Gee for 50 a month, do I a butler too" and "This games sub is not worth 50 a month! It's way over priced. Look at what I can get by paying 15 a month for WoW, or look at GW2 structure" or what not. And you could say "Well look at this nice glamour you get" but then people would be "So what, thats part of the game and isnt worth the price point."

At least with a cash shop you allow people to pick and choose what they want to buy, rather than saying "you take it all or no deal." Cause frankly I dont spend enough per year on a cash shop that would justify a huge sub per month. Even if I bought 3 fantasias for 30 (for even numbers), in the course of a year that is only like 2.50 a month more.

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Originally Posted by Eldevern

Micro-transactions are a suject of economy studies in itself. ^_^

People will make the difference between a minion at 5€ and one at 7€ but they will often prefer to buy one fantasia at 7€ rather than five at 31€.

All is in the catch-up price.

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Well, that's true. In case with bundles it's a bit complicated, because there's also a factor such as "Do I need 1 fantasia or more?", but either way you are right - even if a player will end up buying more than one, most people will prefer taking one rather than a bundle of them. They aren't exactly at loss for it (depending on what period of time passed between purchases), but their money could be spent more efficiently for the same item indeed (especially considering that fantasia doesn't expire as food does).

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

It's a fringe argument. Basically most people look at upfront costs and decide if those upfront costs are worth the money or not. Would you pay...I dunno, 50 a month for a sub on the belief that everything ever developed would end up in game, or 15 a month and pay additional fees for items you can pick and choose from. Keep in mind with the former model, there would be no distinction between additionally developed items adn what would be in game as a 'default'. So there is no 'mogstation' for you to see "Oh, this is why its worth 50 a month." Most consumers wouldnt be down for this model for two reasons - the inability to quantify if 50 a month would be worth it, and the sheer up front cost. It also creates a huge barrier to entry for new players. If youre new to FFXIV and are told you need a 50 a month sub, how likely are you gonna be to drop that on top of 60 for the game itself.

And if were gonna be honest, the immediate push would would be things like "Gee for 50 a month, do I a butler too" and "This games sub is not worth 50 a month! It's way over priced. Look at what I can get by paying 15 a month for WoW, or look at GW2 structure" or what not. And you could say "Well look at this nice glamour you get" but then people would be "So what, thats part of the game and isnt worth the price point."

At least with a cash shop you allow people to pick and choose what they want to buy, rather than saying "you take it all or no deal." Cause frankly I dont spend enough per year on a cash shop that would justify a huge sub per month. Even if I bought 3 fantasias for 30 (for even numbers), in the course of a year that is only like 2.50 a month more.

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50$ is quite the exaggeration, I'd say 20$ entry would cover the Mog Station Profit.

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Originally Posted by SamRF

50$ is quite the exaggeration, I'd say 20$ entry would cover the Mog Station Profit.

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5 x 12 = 60 a year more....Thats a mount and a set of 3 fantasia about. In my case, Im not worried about that price point, but there's more items on the mogstation that would make this price point a net loss for SE.

Though you know, maybe there is a middle ground. You pay, I dunno, 25 a month on a 12 month fee, and you get whatever gets put onto the mogstation free of charge. Meaning, youre locked into a yearly sub and you pay more than a standard sub, but you get the benefit of whatever is released on mogstation. Call it a complete sub, or premium sub, or wahtever. You get to pay a sub and not deal with mogstation shenanigans. I mean its worth while if you spend more than 120 a year on mogstation.

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

5 x 12 = 60 a year more....Thats a mount and a set of 3 fantasia about. In my case, Im not worried about that price point, but there's more items on the mogstation that would make this price point a net loss for SE.

Though you know, maybe there is a middle ground. You pay, I dunno, 25 a month on a 12 month fee, and you get whatever gets put onto the mogstation free of charge. Meaning, youre locked into a yearly sub and you pay more than a standard sub, but you get the benefit of whatever is released on mogstation. Call it a complete sub, or premium sub, or wahtever. You get to pay a sub and not deal with mogstation shenanigans. I mean its worth while if you spend more than 120 a year on mogstation.

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Didn't think of that middle ground. It might be a decent compromise, however still hurts immersion and such since you'll be getting a bunch of items for no effort with ingame mechanics, the principle does get violated. By the way I don't really have that much of a problem for charging additional services like Fantasia or name change and such, since those don't really provide more content. Whenever I'm talking about Cash Shop I'm not really considering those additional services with it.

Just to entertain the thought, how would a supposed premium sub work exactly? I'd assume it would give you access to to the Mog Station items only when you are subbed? Like would the items become unavailable for use once the premium sub is cancelled? I suppose that's how it should work. I'm not sure if Fantasias and other additional services should be included there. Retainers should be included right?

What if they made it so you still need to grind for an item after purchase in Mog Station (or receive with this premium sub)? Like you unlock the ability to grind for the item instead of directly receiving it. Perhaps require certain duties/instances to be completed for certain amount of times or some kind of mob or fate grinding (perhaps offer multiple ways to grind for it). Doesn't have to be very grueling grind. If Mog Station items have to be grinded for after purchase AND there's a premium sub available giving access to all those items, then I'd personally be more satisfied with it as a middle ground.

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Originally Posted by SamRF

Didn't think of that middle ground. It might be a decent compromise, however still hurts immersion and such since you'll be getting a bunch of items for no effort with ingame mechanics, the principle does get violated. By the way I don't really have that much of a problem for charging additional services like Fantasia or name change and such, since those don't really provide more content. Whenever I'm talking about Cash Shop I'm not really considering those additional services with it.

Just to entertain the thought, how would a supposed premium sub work exactly? I'd assume it would give you access to to the Mog Station items only when you are subbed? Like would the items become unavailable for use once the premium sub is cancelled? I suppose that's how it should work. I'm not sure if Fantasias and other additional services should be included there. Retainers should be included right?

What if they made it so you still need to grind for an item after purchase in Mog Station (or receive with this premium sub)? Like you unlock the ability to grind for the item instead of directly receiving it. Perhaps require certain duties/instances to be completed for certain amount of times or some kind of mob or fate grinding (perhaps offer multiple ways to grind for it). Doesn't have to be very grueling grind. If Mog Station items had to be grinded for after purchase AND there's a premium sub available giving access to all those items, then I'd personally be more satisfied with it as a middle ground.

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Not sure about the idea with grinding for technically pre-bought items. Would depends on price, but in general it looks like seasonal pass type of system, so it has some potential. The question is what kind of feedback such option would recieve from those who would use it, because I can see both cons and pros in it.

As for retainers: uhhhhmmm. Depending on how you implement it, 25$ sub can end up being not enough to cover it, I'm afraid. You can buy up to 6 retainers at 2$ each, which is 12$ per month and 124$ per year. So if we just give a green pass and unlock all 6, then sub + retainers alone do for 27$ per month, and we are still supposed to give access to other Mog Station items. So the hypothetical "premium sub" should either have some kind of customisable tiers where user decides what they want to include, or the price per month would be higher, up 35$ at least, it seems.

If you don’t like the cash shop, don’t buy stuff from it. You don’t have to get that stuff, and they just keep making those items because the demand is there.
It feels scummy because we’re not their target audience for these items, the “whales” are, the small amount of people that buy anything and everything from the cash shop.

Also, FF14 devs are probably feeling a pinch atm, as all their sub money is being siphoned off to fund the FF7 remake games, the cash shop however, goes back to the devs. WoW probably doesn’t have this problem, as it’s their main game, their main moneymaker, so more of the profits from WoW probably go right back into WoW than it does for FF14.

I remember when FF15 was close to coming out, the same thing happened, less content, and a truck load of more mogstation items, so it’s probably Squeenix squeezing the FF14 team of money right now.

(Also, WoWs stupid cash shop is pay to win. I can spend hours and hours getting a critter for critter battles with the best stats and abilities, and then get beaten by a stupid critter bought from the cash shop that is stupidly OP. Grinds my bloody gears, it does.)
(Like, I had to wake up at 3am every morning to try to get a Scourged Whelpling, as this critter would only spawn at this time, and compete with other players who were trying to get it, in which there was no guarantee that the one you would get would be rare quality, and when I did FINALLY get one that was good, I was winning 9/10 critter battles until..... Until WoW put on their cash shop an UGLY AS SIN tree which was stupidly OP in pet battles. All my hours wasted, as someone with a few clicks and a credit card could now beat me so easily. Oooh man, I didn't know how mad I still am about this.
One of the best pets is still a cash-shop item, Lil' Ragnaros, so there more than one OP pet on there, they know what they are doing -.-)

No it's not. Please stop with this asinine topic.

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Originally Posted by SamRF

Didn't think of that middle ground. It might be a decent compromise, however still hurts immersion and such since you'll be getting a bunch of items for no effort with ingame mechanics, the principle does get violated. By the way I don't really have that much of a problem for charging additional services like Fantasia or name change and such, since those don't really provide more content. Whenever I'm talking about Cash Shop I'm not really considering those additional services with it.

Just to entertain the thought, how would a supposed premium sub work exactly? I'd assume it would give you access to to the Mog Station items only when you are subbed? Like would the items become unavailable for use once the premium sub is cancelled? I suppose that's how it should work. I'm not sure if Fantasias and other additional services should be included there. Retainers should be included right?

What if they made it so you still need to grind for an item after purchase in Mog Station (or receive with this premium sub)? Like you unlock the ability to grind for the item instead of directly receiving it. Perhaps require certain duties/instances to be completed for certain amount of times or some kind of mob or fate grinding (perhaps offer multiple ways to grind for it). Doesn't have to be very grueling grind. If Mog Station items have to be grinded for after purchase AND there's a premium sub available giving access to all those items, then I'd personally be more satisfied with it as a middle ground.

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This is where hammering out the details would be at. Possibly the way it would operate is that 1 time items would become permanent (Mounts, Glamours, etc). You have to collect them though. So thats on you. Most Repeatable items and Account items wouldnt be part of it (Jump Potions, Dyes) with Phantasia being the exception. Have as many phantasias you want, but you can only pull one at a time. So no stockpiling them. Retainers operate as a separate service, but I suppose if we wanted to sweeten the pot, get 2 additional retainers for the sub duration. That Handles pretty much most of what youd get on mogstation.

The point is youd gain access to the stuff that people probably would want most - glamours/mounts. Youre locked into a sub so you cant sign up for premium, grab all the items, and sign off. repeatable items like dyes and the like would have to be excluded cause that would mess with MB since there is an in game equivilant of those. Fantasia is fine cause thats just redesign whenever and may be a big draw. Halivel's comment rpetty much explains how retainers probably wouldnt be a part of the model.

My primary purpose for the cash shop over the years has not been for myself, now that I think about it. I suspect about 90% of my purchases have been in the form of contest gifts.

Sure, there's the folks that drop hundreds of dollars and buy every single mog station item, but it's much easier for me to give away minions as door prizes at FFXIV panels at conventions, as monthly screenshot contest prizes for ENTM, or as donated prizes for the discord channels I help moderate. The last item I bought just for myself was the Fat Cat mount.

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Originally Posted by SamRF

50$ is quite the exaggeration, I'd say 20$ entry would cover the Mog Station Profit.

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Even if the Sub was $50 a month, that wouldn't stop a Cash Shop

I wouldn't mind the shop if the prices weren't so asinine.

I mean a virtual item the price of a new game? Really?
Everything should be $1/$2.

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Originally Posted by tymora

I wouldn't mind the shop if the prices weren't so asinine.

I mean a virtual item the price of a new game? Really?
Everything should be $1/$2.

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1 or 2 dollars is still "the price of a new game" if you wanna get nitpicky. It's still more than the entire cost of playing other games (f2p).

Lets try and go with the going market value of cosmetics in an MMORPG.. which it seems to follow.

Quoted from the other thread because the concept of a single thread to translate and have their concerns brought to the dev team is absolutely unheard of.

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Originally Posted by Shofie

Your subscription fee goes to Square-Enix.

The Mogstation profits specifically go directly to the team working on FFXIV.

That's why I support the Mogstation. Yoshi's even flatly admitted it was because of the Mogstation they could do stuff like get new datacenters, which have been a lot better than the old ones by a noticeable amount. The Mogstation funds things that the parent company, SE, won't necessarily fund. There's even a fairly reasonable chance that the Mogstation helped fund Viera and Hrothgar, to be honest--as those were both things fans were wanting and got (admittedly not in the way people probably wanted them, but still better than none at all, yeah?)

This really really does boil down to: If you don't like it, that's fine, don't buy stuff from the Mogstation. But the Mogstation is overall much more beneficial to the game than not having it, despite how gloom and doomy people get about not getting some outfit or mount they wanted.

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Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

Money from 7 also funds XIV. Money gets pooled at a company, then budgeted out accordingly. Extra money from the cash shop is on top of the budget they receive from SE. Its how nearly every company in the world works.

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Originally Posted by Gula

Quoted from the other thread because the concept of a single thread to translate and have their concerns brought to the dev team is absolutely unheard of.

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Can I get a source on the mog station funds going to FF14? I am only finding hearsay for it, and older posts (2017-2019 forums and reddit) saying it's straight to SE- which is also hearsay, no proof. I'd be more open with my wallet if I knew it was going to support the game.

While FF14's cash shop does have deficiencies that could be worked upon - the lack of dyeable NPC cosmetics being the chief among them - I have to say I'm rather grateful that SE made it fairly bog standard compared to other MMO's. I did a brief jaunt to double check MMO cash shop pricing to reply to another poster and it just reminded me of all the shenanigans EA put players through with SWTOR. Between constant cartel packs, the fact that you needed to pay to unlock outfits across players even if you lucked out and got all the set together, the tantrum over going F2P which caused them to lock many services behind pay walls including parts of the mailbox unless you subbed (thankfully gone now that Ben Irving is gone), and the insane pricing on housing items (SE is also guilty of this to be fair but at least in most cases allows you to get the items for free once in game) it kinda makes me happy that SE's worst infraction is a lack of dye options for a handful of armors. At least we don't have nearly $40 weapons to buy.

https://i.gyazo.com/8fb09ab14cd43877...f7cac8d6e8.png
https://i.gyazo.com/36bceb4fac271dc5...4e6defa3d4.png

Again, not saying the cash shop is perfect or can't improve, but it could be so SO much worse.

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Originally Posted by Enla

While FF14's cash shop does have deficiencies that could be worked upon - the lack of dyeable NPC cosmetics being the chief among them - I have to say I'm rather grateful that SE made it fairly bog standard compared to other MMO's. I did a brief jaunt to double check MMO cash shop pricing to reply to another poster and it just reminded me of all the shenanigans EA put players through with SWTOR. Between constant cartel packs, the fact that you needed to pay to unlock outfits across players even if you lucked out and got all the set together, the tantrum over going F2P which caused them to lock many services behind pay walls including parts of the mailbox unless you subbed (thankfully gone now that Ben Irving is gone), and the insane pricing on housing items (SE is also guilty of this to be fair but at least in most cases allows you to get the items for free once in game) it kinda makes me happy that SE's worst infraction is a lack of dye options for a handful of armors. At least we don't have nearly $40 weapons to buy.

https://i.gyazo.com/8fb09ab14cd43877...f7cac8d6e8.png
https://i.gyazo.com/36bceb4fac271dc5...4e6defa3d4.png

Again, not saying the cash shop is perfect or can't improve, but it could be so SO much worse.

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Main difference being SWTOR is free to play, FFXIV is not.
Plus, if you take a SWTOR sub to support the game, you get Cash shop currency every month to spend on the Cartel Market, pretty much like Rift or TSW did before Legend to show appreciation towards those willing to pay every month, which in FF14, you don't.

Considering they don"t have the same economical system or attitude towards CS, you can't compare them.
The moment FF14 become a F2P, add a currency for the CS and reward those supporting them with a monthly sub, it becomes relevant to compare their economical system.

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Originally Posted by Imbrium

Can I get a source on the mog station funds going to FF14? I am only finding hearsay for it, and older posts (2017-2019 forums and reddit) saying it's straight to SE- which is also hearsay, no proof. I'd be more open with my wallet if I knew it was going to support the game.

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Indeed it would be nice, all we have are assumptions (from both sides)

I'll decide how I feel about Mog Station once I see actual proof of how much (and to what portion) funding is coming and going between XIV and Mog Station.

Proof was provided on page 8.

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Originally Posted by Catwho

It's straight from Yoshi P. Cash shop funded the EU data center (they used to have to cross the Atlantic to play in Montreal) and later on the upgrade to the NA data center and its move to California.

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...from-EU-Stream

The XIV division remits all its profits to SE, who then handles their HR, payroll, facilities costs, etc, because they are a mega corp and that is how mega corps handle that kind of thing.

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You're welcome.

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Originally Posted by Halivel

As for retainers: uhhhhmmm. Depending on how you implement it, 25$ sub can end up being not enough to cover it, I'm afraid.

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Retainers are not sold through the Optional Items (Cash Shop) pages of Mog Station. They are an additional paid option to your subscription service and are charged as part of your subscription.. So, 6 retainers, at $2 each, adds $12 per month to your subscription price. That is why SE charges me $150 for a 180 day subscription, which comes out to $25 per month.

Note that there is not a single Cash Shop item included in that price, so a 25$ sub still wouldn't include anything from there.

(Agreeing with you there, Halivel)