Full translation of Yoshi interview, including his openness to F2P

Blue garter translated the entire interview, which can be found here:

http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/120...=1#post6061123



Highlights that haven't been mentioned in other threads:


Yoshida: If there's an impression that I'm determined to stick to a subscription service, that's a mistake.

Do you have a response to the example users you gave in the US who are interested in buying items?

Yoshida: We hope to offer some items for sale, but nothing that will affect game balance.


Regarding 3rd party equipment on ps4:

Yoshida: Yeah, it's a completely different look. We've been developing the PS4 version with the idea of console gameplay in mind, but the UI can also be reduced if you choose to.

Is that because you're expecting a lot of players to transition from the PS3 version?

Yoshida: No, not particularly. We're expecting a lot of new customers to start playing.

I know the PS4 version can be played like the PC version, but do you also plan to support gaming device key assignment like Logitech G13 and G600?

Yoshida: It'll depend on the manufacturer. Some products which require special drivers may not work correctly because of the PS4 specifications. If the peripherals manufacturer is making peripherals which are supported by SCE, they will work.

On the software side for A Realm Reborn, you may lack support for particular gaming devices.

Yoshida: If a button press is recognized, you'll be able to set a macro or other function to that button by using the key bindings in the game. There could be problems if drivers change though, since there isn't full support for that yet. The PS4 just launched, though, so there could be support for in the future.

So where did people get that impression from?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Faedden

So where did people get that impression from?

---

I thought it was common knowledge. /shrug

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Faedden

So where did people get that impression from?

---

People often quoted a out of context quote from him that made it seem like that was his mentality. That he'd rather "have it die before becoming f2p".

If they ever do make it F2P though, I'll simply quit. /shrug

I wonder if someone remembers when he said "If this game ever goes F2P, I will shut it down before that happens."

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Arkghyom

I wonder if someone remembers when he said "If this game ever goes F2P, I will shut it down before that happens."

---

If you read the article, I'm pretty sure he ment under the context that he wouldn't turn it F2P as a way to turn the game around if it was failing. But apparently he is open to it if the majority of the player base wants it. So as long as the majority doesn't want F2P, it won't happen.

Ok... here's what I am concerned about the whole F2P argument. YoshiP has tried to streamline the content so that you don't have to spend 5 hours a day, four days a week just to progress. Hence why coil has no trash mobs and why turns 1-5 can be completed in 1.5 hours. Same with primarls, 10 minute encounters that can be repeated without any headache. Same with CT, practically no trash mobs. You have 45 minutes a night, no prob, you can finish CT.

Here's where F2P comes in, he may offer a F2P person that allows people to play but limits how many times they can run CT, or Coil, or primals. I sincerely hope this does not happen. The best thing about this game is the P2P steady content model every 3 months.

What's the point of offering F2P if you currently do not have a cash shop to make money off of the f2P model. F2P and cash shop are inseparable. The moment any part of FFXIV goes free to play, even if extremely limited, it would need to have a Cash shop component or else it MAKES ZERO MONETARY SENSE to allow people to play the game for free and get no financial gain out of it.

I really don't see how you can balance the F2P, P2P and CASH SHOP interaction without fundamentally changing the current version of FFXIV. I sincerely hope he was speaking rhetorically and hypothetically and that there is no indication the game is going F2P anytime soon... and by anytime.. i mean at least 3-5 years.

I am guessing, this interview will be giving YoshiP a lot of headache because he just opened up pandoras box. We went from "Never F2P because FFXIV is doing great..." to something like "YoshiP is contemplating F2P depending on the circumstances." YoshiP did nothing but cause turmoil in a playerbase that was doing FINE in the current model where FFXIV is currently thriving. He just created his own little mess.

Yoshida: If there's an impression that I'm determined to stick to a subscription service, that's a mistake.


2 days ago my subscription was charged - if i see this before... 35 Euros innecesary spended - i lost my confidence in this person and SE at all... maybe time to finish with on-line games? /sigh

Finally some consumables that I can pay for without QQ of people shouting P2W

"Yoshida: We hope to offer some items for sale, but nothing that will affect game balance."

To me this sounds like, we have will only sell items if it doesn't direct affect the game. ( Fantasia/storage space/server transfers).

Personally, I feel there is nothing to worry about.

Edit: Converting P2P to F2P is no easy feat I can tell you that right off that bat. It takes a lot of coding changes/balance changes/creating a cash shop and have that balanced around the game. They would be spending more money just by attempting the change.

It's a risky move to do this when you have P2P already functioning very well 7 months after release of FFXIV 2.0.

If this game ever goes free to play I'm out.
The amount of RMT/spam/bots is bad as it is, and with it being free, it'll be 100x worse.
No thanks lol

Quote:

---

Yoshida: However, we have about a half and half split for people who are happy with the current degree of difficulty and people who think it's too difficult. The difficulty of WoW has dropped considerably, but the people who loved the time when WoW was difficult are the people who like the difficulty in A Realm Reborn.

As far as the montly billing goes, people are becoming more pragmatic and they're only willing to pay for the things that they want to use. What that means to monthly billing is that there are players who would rather pay based on the amount of time they play in a particular month, after they've played. There used to be no debate about this, since monthly billing was the only standard for MMORPGs, but now F2P is a consideration. We see this desire for players who would rather buy items especially in North America.

---

He's so disconnected from the userbase it's not even funny...

I could see them adding a system similar to other MMOs where you can exchange in-game currency for 30 days of playtime.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LlenCoram

He's so disconnected from the userbase it's not even funny...

---

I think that you not realizing you do not represent the majority of the player base is the disconnect. VAST majority of players have never beat Twintania or all three of the primals. That's a fact.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LlenCoram

He's so disconnected from the userbase it's not even funny...

---

He has a little more Informations than people who believe the ~5% of total Forum-Users is a proper Sample-Size to gather Informations.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LlenCoram

He's so disconnected from the userbase it's not even funny...

---

Perhaps he's better connected with the userbase than you think...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LlenCoram

He's so disconnected from the userbase it's not even funny...

---

I think you mean he's disconnected from the forum userbase, where the "majority" (5% of the people that even play the game post on forums regularly, and I imagine even that number is high) clear all the end game content in 2 hours every week.

To the topic at hand, I sincerely hope that Retainers purchased with real money will not have Ventures associated with them. If they do, I definitely won't be playing this game anymore.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ethos

I could see them adding a system similar to other MMOs where you can exchange in-game currency for 30 days of playtime.

---

This is a horrible idea as gil sellers could undercut their stock and make a killing just due to how much more of a market they'd have for their services. Buying gil to use in game is one thing, but if you can pay your subscription cheaper by buying gil? That's opening up a whole different can of worms.

So they're getting rid of Philosophy tomestones altogether. I wonder what that means for i70 crafted items.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zell

I think that you not realizing you do not represent the majority of the player base is the disconnect. VAST majority of players have never beat Twintania or all three of the primals. That's a fact.

---

And I'm one of them. The fact remains that, as far as difficulty goes, this game isn't exactly at the top. Meanwhile every player that's absolutely clambering for the game to shift to the F2P model are also the types of players who will up and leave at the slightest hint of "the next shiny mmo."

EDIT: Despite everyone jumping down my throat, to not be concerned about his "F2P is pretty cool" talk is idiotic.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LlenCoram

And I'm one of them. Im a special snowflake and Yoshi needs to cater directly to me me me!

---

Legacies need their own forum.

Also I doubt this will go f2p anytime soon, At least not in NA,EU or JPN (wow in china is f2p, so maybe there.)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Moheeheeko

Legacies need their own forum.

Also I doubt this will go f2p anytime soon, At least not in NA,EU or JPN (wow in china is f2p, so maybe there.)

---

I'd like to point out Zell, who you no doubt threw a Like at because he argued my point, is also one of the "legacies."

Nowhere do I insist this has anything to do with my playstyle. I counter that people who want this game to become the cesspool that is a F2P game need their own forum.

Quote:

---

He has a little more Informations than people who believe the ~5% of total Forum-Users is a proper Sample-Size to gather Informations.

---

These forums are a good way for devs to get an idea of what the community wants.

You see all those Polls in regards to what all Americans Feel on a certain subject and "Presidential Approval Ratings".

I don't know about you, but they never asked my opinion.

You don't need to poll everyone that plays the game to get a good feeling for what the masses want.

Well I really really hope this game won't be F2P because it actually doesn't have the social interactivity that keeps most F2P games going - AT ALL!
I'd die within months...

Maybe around the time 3.x - 4.x hits where noone really cares about content anymore and Golden Saucer or possible a card game are out and established...

That might make me a super duper minority but w/e :/

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Wolf_Gang

So they're getting rid of Philosophy tomestones altogether. I wonder what that means for i70 crafted items.

---

I'd wager Philo items will likely still be available but using Myth at a much lower amount. So instead of 125 Philo for coke, it would be 25 Myth. /speculate

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LlenCoram

I'd like to point out Zell, who you no doubt threw a Like at because he argued my point, is also one of the "legacies."

---

And 90% of the "this is too easy I have nothing to do" posts in this forum are from players that had a 3 year head start.

It's a translation so the exact wording and tone are dubious, but to me it sounds like he's just saying that he's not vehemently opposed to F2P model in principle the way people seem to think. If a large number of people wanted this game to be F2P (and it looked like it would make economic sense) then they'd consider doing it. I think he's just being candid. It doesn't look like it's something that's likely to happen. He even goes into the various reasons why he doesn't like the model from a developer's standpoint and why he thinks it's more appropriate to other genres.

About the extra retainer(s) for money though, I guess that is happening. Not sure how useful the retainer ventures will necessarily be, but he does specifically comment that the extra retainer will be all the more useful because of the upcoming features.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ethos

I could see them adding a system similar to other MMOs where you can exchange in-game currency for 30 days of playtime.

---

While that is possible since there isn't really much of anything to spend gil on currently, I somehow doubt it as in this circumstance they can actually LOSE money from subscriptions. Games like EVE Online are kinda unique in that endeavor.

It would also defeat the whole purpose of the Steam launch. You can actually use your Steam Wallet to pay for your monthly subscription. I add funds to my wallet using PayPal, which is directly connected to my bank account so a credit card isn't required at all. it's quite nice.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Noahlimits

Yoshida: If there's an impression that I'm determined to stick to a subscription service, that's a mistake.

---

Wow he's seriously trying to go from MMO hero to dishonest prick all in one day isnt he? Yeah this is probably the last developer I was trusting not to screw its paying customers over. This game goes F2P im done with SE, possibly even MMO's. Never paying for their games again just like EA and Ubisoft.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Failia

While that is possible since there isn't really much of anything to spend gil on currently, I somehow doubt it as in this circumstance they can actually LOSE money from subscriptions. Games like EVE Online are kinda unique in that endeavor

---

Even in EVE, someone has to actually buy the subscription to sell in-game though, if I don't remember completely wrong.

For ARR that would be like someone buys a timecard, converts it to an in-game item, sells that item for gil...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nutz

It's a translation so the exact wording and tone are dubious, but to me it sounds like he's just saying that he's not vehemently opposed to F2P model in principle the way people seem to think. If a large number of people wanted this game to be F2P (and it looked like it would make economic sense) then they'd consider doing it. I think he's just being candid. It doesn't look like it's something that's likely to happen. He even goes into the various reasons why he doesn't like the model from a developer's standpoint and why he thinks it's more appropriate to other genres.

---

Calmer (smarter) minds than I made a good point: he works for a company that also support F2P games, so coming out and saying, "F2P games are bad" isn't really possible. I'll admit I was confused when I read "F2P is ok. Doesn't work for MMOs really, but I'm not against it" but what my friends say makes sense.

Here's hoping it never goes F2P at least. After Imperian, never again.

Quote:

---

Then again, you have games like Rift and Star Wars. Even though people have been saying that yes, there is this change in the market, everything’s moving to free-to-play, they still – up until recently – were developing a system that would be subscription-based. Even though everyone is saying the industry is going free-to-play, they still were developing these huge games with subscriptions in mind. Again, we’re not saying that one is better than the other, that free-to-play is better than subscription or subscription is better than free-to-play. But for a large game on that scale, what’s most important – more important than making a lot of money – is making a stable income, a stable amount of money over a long period of time. And so to develop a large-scale MMO like this, you need to spend a lot of time with a lot of resources and a lot of staff to make this game.

To do that, you need a lot of money, and to get a lot of money to do that, you usually need investors to invest in your game. Because you’ve spent a lot of money on getting this game ready and borrowed a lot of money from these investors, when you release the game, the investors expect to see returns. If your game gets a lot of users and a lot of subscriptions right away, your investors will be happy and you can pay them. But what happens if you don’t hit that number right away? You have a bunch of staff members waiting to get paid. You have a bunch of investors waiting to get paid. You have a bunch of contents that needs to get made because you have to have updates, but you can’t do it because you don’t have enough money, because you didn’t hit that number you were aiming for. And so what do you have to do? One option to get instant money is free-to-play, or selling these items. To get that money so you can pay off your staff, pay off your investors, and start making new content, switching to free-to-play, selling items, and using that money is one way to do it.

So why didn’t Rift or EA with Star Wars do this from the beginning? Why didn’t they start with free-to-play? There’s a reason behind that. With free-to-play, because you’re selling these items, you’ll have months where you sell a bunch of stuff and you make a lot of money in that one month. But it’s all about what happens during that month. Next month, the person who maybe bought $100 worth of items in the last month could purchase nothing at all. You don’t know what you’re going to be getting, and because you don’t know what you’re going to be getting, you can’t plan ahead. You don’t know how much money is coming in. If you can’t plan ahead, then you can’t keep staff, because you don’t know if you’ll have enough money to pay the staff next month.

With a subscription base, if you get maybe 400,000 members, you know that you’re going to have the money from that monthly subscription for the next month. You also know that you’re going to have 400,000 this month, and it’s not going to go down to 200,000 users next month. That type of jump really doesn’t happen with a subscription model. So you know that you’re going to have a steady income. Because you have a steady income, you can plan ahead further. You can make sure you have staff members to create that new content. By creating new content, you’re making the players happy. If they know this game is going to keep creating new content, they’ll continue to pay their monthly subscription fees. So rather than going for the huge $100-million-a-month hit that you might get with the free-to-play model, having that steady income allows us to provide a better product to the players.

---

Not surprised, but....

Quote:

---

“The main reason why we haven’t decided to take the free-to-play option is that, at the game’s original launch, it didn’t live up to expectations and it let down a lot of fans. We lost the trust of fans who had followed us across our 25-year history. We want to regain that trust and to deliver on past promises.

“One of the promises we originally stated was that we would release the game with a subscription model. Players will be able to play it 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days in the year if they paid a subscription fee.

---

Meaning if it goes F2P, it will have several limitations on how much time you can spend in the game which would probably mark the return of the exhaustion system that was in 1.0.

Either way, i take it that it is not a "mistake" and he is just lying to our faces. If it goes F2P, i'm out and this game does seem like its heading to F2P with all the lockouts and Shanda Games handlign the chinese version which is a F2P company i think? - Kinda like how TERA started with frogster.

Quote:

---

Increasing the item level is just one direction, though, we also need to increase the breadth of items available at each level, which we plan to address in the future.

---

Looks like he is opening the doors to Horizontal Item Progression.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kayo

Wow he's seriously trying to go from MMO hero to dishonest prick all in one day isnt he? Yeah this is probably the last developer I was trusting not to screw its paying customers over. This game goes F2P im done with SE, possibly even MMO's. Never paying for their games again just like EA and Ubisoft.

---

All he's saying is essentially that if 90% of the players want it to go F2P, he's not going to stand against them. Try reading the other things he said with regards to F2P as well, not only from this interview, but interviews from the past.

So sad, First cash shops then F2P.

I guess that's what the majority of mmo players want these days.

No time to play mmos: Free to play model, buy what you only have time for.
RMTers - Cash shops.

Quote:

---

Do you think it's good to have two different billing systems for a MMORPG (F2P and subscription)?

Yoshida: I don't think F2P is necessarily a bad thing, it's just one option. Talking about MMORPGs in general, there were a number of MMORPGs that launched around 2005, and almost all of them were subscription based. The thought was that this would guarantee profit from the start, and the development team wanted to depend on a stable number of users and a stable income. With the F2P model, employment is unstable, since what you sell in one month doesn't necessarily predict the next month's profits. This makes developers uneasy and makes it hard to create a roadmap for the game. It's important that content is provided reliably over time, and you need a development team and a steady income to do that.

To have stable sales for a MMORPG, you have to keep development going. After all, you need to keep providing content with updates and people need to be entertained by that content to want to keep playing. With a F2P game, though, you're not getting money from the content, but just from selling items. So then to make a lot of content you have to make a lot of items, which isn't necessarily linked to the players' enjoyment of the game. Rather than having 100% content update, then, you'd have to dedicate, say, 30% of that to items created to make money. Then it goes back to the ultimate question of what are our goals for the game in the first place.

The development of a MMORPG requires an incredible investment. It takes a lot of money raised from investors, and if you don't get the number of users you planned for at the start of your subscription service, the investors might immediately go into panic mode trying to figure out how to increase profit. These games might be forced to go F2P so that they can use the revenue to return the money to their investors.

There are many users now who don't like the idea of being bound to a game for a long time. I feel that way myself, so that I can stop at any point. I think this model works well for these kind of games where you play for a long time overall but only play a little at a time. These aren't MMOs, but F2P works well for games like "World of Tanks" and "League of Legends."

If there are particular elements which are strongly customizable, F2P works well for those cases so that players can pay to instantly expand their experience. I think that's why the choice was made for those types of games. It's important that the business model for the game is selected based on the kind of experience that you want to provide. It could be a positive change for a game to move from subscription based to F2P as long as the change is based on the users' needs rather than trying to turn an unprofitable game around.

If there's an impression that I'm determined to stick to a subscription service, that's a mistake.

Do you have a response to the example users you gave in the US who are interested in buying items?

Yoshida: We hope to offer some items for sale, but nothing that will affect game balance.

It seems that a lot of users are interested in sales of Fantasia (the item to change your character model), so how about that?

Yoshida: We're going to be talking about that in the LIVE producer letter on the 21st. Also, we're planning to introduce the ability to purchase an additional service which increases the number of available retainers. It'll be even more valuable with the additional retainer systems available with the patch which will make retainers more useful than ever.

---

The whole part about the F2P part

I wounder if the additional retainers would cost 1$ each month like it was planned 2010?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Moheeheeko

And 90% of the "this is too easy I have nothing to do" posts in this forum are from players that had a 3 year head start.

---

Had a three year head start. All classes at 50. 5 crafting classes at 50, 2 gathering classes at 50. Beat all three primal extremes for the first time 2 weeks ago. Currently trying to kill Twintania. Getting her to 50%. I think the difficulty is perfect. Not too easy and not too hard. It offers a challenge. So yes, I am legacy but by no means do I feel that this game is a Monday only game. I'm getting my money's worth and I like the way the game is going, so long a it's not F2P.

I dont know about the f2p. Personally I dont care as long they put in barriers to prevent ppl from just doing everything with no limit. Alot of ppl had this mentality when SWtOR when f2p with a sub if you wanted. If you was f2p you had to buy things to be able to wear certain gear or you could only run something x amount of times before you had to buy a pass. I can see micro-transactions becoming a bigger part of this game if it goes f2p.

He mentioned specifically that people only want to pay for the amount of time they play... could that not necessarily mean F2P as we know it but the potentially for a pay per hour type system? There are people who say "I quit because I only log in 3 hours a week to do Coil." I wonder if Yoshi is just expressing consideration for something like paying some reduced amount but only getting X hours of playtime that month.

I'll be gone without hesitation if this goes F2P, as will nearly all, or possibly all of my friends playing.

Don't do it, Yoshi.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by BlueMage

He mentioned specifically that people only want to pay for the amount of time they play... could that not necessarily mean F2P as we know it but the potentially for a pay per hour type system? There are people who say "I quit because I only log in 3 hours a week to do Coil." I wonder if Yoshi is just expressing consideration for something like paying some reduced amount but only getting X hours of playtime that month.

---

I would be completely ok with that.... That's more the Chinese model. However, I think that and F2P discussion are two separate things.. so I really really have no idea where he was going with this.