[THEORETICAL] Reverse cash shop?

With all of this outcry over the advent of the cash shop, I wanted to see what peoples reactions would end up being if the reverse were true. I mean being able to buy subscription time with gil, and have those two be interchangeable. I come from the EVE online universe, where people can literally buy a 30 day subscription and sell it for in game currency, openly. It added a standard to the in game currency, and created one of the most stable MMO economies in existence, that is literally tied to the out of game world economy. This would eliminate RMT, since SE essentially becomes the RMT.

I'm just curious, and this is welcome to trolls and flamers alike, what people would think if such a thing came into fruition? how many people would unsub?

edit: also, keep in mind this doesn't result in lost money for SE at all. It just means that player x is paying for player y's sub, in return for gil.

edit 2: based on entries so far, I will further clarify this, to see if we can get something open as possible.

1. Gil cannot be traded out of the game for real world money. For that matter, gil does not get created or deleted during this, only gil already in the system gets circulated.

2. the marketplace directly determines the value of a subscription. Literally, someone uses real world money to buy a sub, sells it for gil, then uses the gil to buy items from the people looking to fund their sub again.

I like that...

Full support from me. Wildstar does this too with its C.R.E.D.D system and it works very well there. Who knows, it might even act as an effective way to bleed excess gil from the economy and better balance/stabilize it.

Thus far 3 MMO's have such a pay through play system in place. EVE with their PLEX, WildStar with CREDD and Runescape with Bonds. The latter has even taken it to the next level, by allowing players to buy RuneFest + hotel tickets directly through bonds. RuneFest is comparable to what the FanFest is for FFXIV. Tying not only the purchase of digital gold to real life cash, but also indirectly allowing for the purchase of physical goods with digital gold.

Myself I have no issues with such systems. RMT is bound to happen anyway, letting it take place in a controlled manner is no problem to me.

Although there are plenty of players who'll jump on to the concept, pulling a pay 2 win card and whatever more.

They should do a reverse cash shop where players cash out gil onto a real money prepaid debit card.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RaspberryRipple

They should do a reverse cash shop where players cash out gil onto a real money prepaid debit card.

---

That is very likely to run into the same issues the Diablo 3 real money auction house had. Players would become reluctant to spend ingame currency or bind items due to the real life value associated with it. It created a very undesirable market. One which is best to be avoided.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RaspberryRipple

They should do a reverse cash shop where players cash out gil onto a real money prepaid debit card.

---

Yeah, even in the existing models, "cashing out" in game currency can break the system. the trick is using real world money to circulate gil through the system at faster speeds, and incentivize both end game crafting and gathering as legitimate avenues to paying for your sub. if you want to do dirty work for 20 of your 30 sub days, you can buy your sub and play the other 10 days on someone else's wallet.

You shouldn't be able to get gil using RL money, and i hope they don't allow us to sell cash shop items in game, so if you can find a system that follow those rules they can do w/e they want.

Don't forget, if RL money gives you access to any in-game currency, it is indeed pay to win.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Renik

Don't forget, if RL money gives you access to any in-game currency, it is indeed pay to win.

---

Then by that note we already hit pay-to-win at a point with 'Enquire Within' painting that is/was a sell-able housing item from vet rewards. You could just make a new alt and plop them up, and I've seen them go anywhere from 2mil to 100k depending on the server.

On the topic of D3 cash-outs, that honestly was fun for a little while when it was new. Getting $25 for a 'Yellow' (roughly our Blue, but range in rolled stats were wider) was nice, but considering they designed the game around it, things got stale fast. I still think it would've been interesting had they made the game just a game with R-AH as a truly side-thing.

I have no experience with payable sub's through gil, although I certainly wouldn't object being a crafter. xD

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sho86

Then by that note we already hit pay-to-win at a point with 'Enquire Within' painting that is/was a sell-able housing item from vet rewards. You could just make a new alt and plop them up, and I've seen them go anywhere from 2mil to 100k depending on the server.

---

That's a big mistake, but it's just temporal, everyone will get it for free sooner or later, but just because they made one mistake we can't let them make more, Yoshida said already that the cash shop policy will be "no pay to win," he even said it in English, of all the lies or false lies (misunderstandings), this would be the worse one, and the players should take the responsibility to make that statement true, even if it means making some players pay for a game that since the start have been tagged as a pay to play.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Renik

You shouldn't be able to get gil using RL money, and i hope they don't allow us to sell cash shop items in game, so if you can find a system that follow those rules they can do w/e they want.

Don't forget, if RL money gives you access to any in-game currency, it is indeed pay to win.

---

I don't think you understand what "Pay to win" means. You wouldn't be outright buying gil. No gil would be generated by this process. You'd simply be trading your item with players that acquired the gil via alternate methods. That's more of a "Trade to win" system.

Gil doesn't equal "win" in this game anyway. Ask the players that have 60mil+ and still can't beat T6.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Raxion

I don't think you understand what "Pay to win" means. You wouldn't be outright buying gil. No gil would be generated by this process. You'd simply be trading your item with players that acquired the gil via alternate methods. That's more of a "Trade to win" system.

Gil doesn't equal "win" in this game anyway. Ask the players that have 60mil+ and still can't beat T6.

---

Ppl is not thinking enough... with gil you can buy full melded gear, you can buy the materias for your relic, you can buy a big house to improve the recruitment of your FC, you can buy expensive food mostly used in coil... gil affects game-play so it should be obtainable by game-play only, and i don't care about what you or the majority thinks, this is not about preferences or convenience, it's about fair play in a pay to play game.

And even with their melded gear, glowy relic, full FC and large house they will still suck just as much as they did before. You can't fix stupid even if you give it a fancy outfit and a turbomansion.

A shop where I can sell my items/gil ingame for real money? Sign me up!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Filtiarne

snip

---

Doesn't matter, it's still in-game currency, i understand, some want this hybrid pay model, or they want to buy cosmetics with gil because they don't have or can't spend more cash, but it still causes an unfair advantage originated outside of the game.

They may not clear coil with this extra gil, but there's more content, content that involves gil, like housing, and like it or not, content is made to be achieved, not bought. I can understand this happening in a f2p or b2p game, but not here, and adding a semi-free model would just bring more unbalance and unfair play to the game through the cash shop.

Don't get me wrong, i will keep playing and paying for now, and even buy if i see something fancy, i can tell you i'm not rich in game, i'm being absolutely objective on this matter, and i can assure you that those who use the "quasi free" model, or buy cash shop items with gil, will suffer the worst part.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Renik

Doesn't matter, it's still in-game currency, i understand, some want this hybrid pay model, or they want to buy cosmetics with gil because they don't have or can't spend more cash, but it still causes an unfair advantage originated outside of the game.

They may not clear coil with this extra gil, but there's more content, content that involves gil, like housing, and like it or not, content is made to be achieved, not bought. I can understand this happening in a f2p or b2p game, but not here, and adding a semi-free model would just bring more unbalance and unfair play to the game through the cash shop.

Don't get me wrong, i will keep playing and paying for now, and even buy if i see something fancy, i can tell you i'm not rich in game, i'm being absolutely objective on this matter, and i can assure you that those who use the "quasi free" model, or buy cash shop items with gil, will suffer the worst part.

---

EVE and Wildstar both use the model of allowing subscription fees to be bought and sold with in-game currency. The system really does work. If you're good at making money in-game, you won't even have to pay for your sub anymore. If you're not, you can sell a monthly sub to people when you need a bit of cash.

No currency is generated. It's not like everyone would suddenly become mansion-wielding, high-rollers the moment something like this were implemented. The rich players with absurd amounts of gil, would finally have something worthwhile to spend it on, while the poor players that are in dire need of gil would have an alternate method of making gil. No one loses here.

I think an ability to buy cash shop items with an in-game currency would be a good thing as that would effectively eliminate the vast majority of issues with a cash shop.

A monthly subscription is something that I am on the fence about. On the one hand, it would be great to be able to not have to deal with paying actual money for a subscription if I can gather up enough gil every month. But at the same time, the devs don't get paid in gil, the server maintenance can't be paid for in gil, and you can't pay owners of venues for Fanfest in gil either. That all requires real world currency that comes from the monthly subscriptions. We take away paying for monthly subs, and the game will have to resort to Pay to Win just to make ends meet, nevermind the fact that the game's development schedule ends up getting stretched from five years to ten years, causing each patch release to contain have half as much stuff and take twice as long, servers would have an increased number of malfunctions, and events like Fanfest wouldn't happen anymore.

I am of the belief of "The more money we put into FFXIV, the more amazing things it can do." They're already looking to hire more localization people and dev team members and that's good. That's fantastic, because the more members of the FFXIV dev team there are, the faster content comes out and the better that content is. Honestly, if I wasn't completely illiterate in Japanese, I'd hop at the chance to be a part of the localization team, regardless of what it paid, just for being able to work on a game that I love.

I do like the idea of in-game currency buying items on a cash shop. I think that's a great idea that will help ease up on those people who don't want content to exist that they have to pay more money for. But the game lives off of those monthly subs. It needs those monthly subs to keep being a good game. And I'm just not okay with those being buyable with in-game currency.


EDIT: After reading Raxion's post, I would be okay with something like that where it's the players that sell monthly subs rather than buying them direct from the Mogstation with gil. Because that way, the dev team is still being supported the same way.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Renik

...They may not clear coil with this extra gil, but there's more content, content that involves gil, like housing, and like it or not, content is made to be achieved, not bought. I can understand this happening in a f2p or b2p game, but not here, and adding a semi-free model would just bring more unbalance and unfair play to the game through the cash shop.

---

i feel like you are olaf the snowman singing about all the warm and im just sitting here going...
http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/23...c397353259.jpg

bro RMT already exists. games not broke. still cant get past t5. almost saved enough (myself) for a small house. would still buy normal subscriptions. would also buy mounts and the like. just stop.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tocsin

It just means that player x is paying for player y's sub, in return for gil.

---

You're saying this wont force people into spending money over cashshop in order to make money ingame? I've seen it happen in other games when they introduced this. It would also potentially kill the market for any other crafter since purchasing a sub to sell it to someone else is just a click away instead of putting in that effort to make money within the game.

I might have misunderstood your sugguestion and I really hope I am.

Such a system will only work in people do NOT get so attached to their items since gil will be clearly equivalent to real life money. And when they make older gear obsolete/vanity option, the rage will be horrendous. Just imagine how it would have been transitioning from darklight to myths, and then myths to soldiery, and now on the cusp of 2.4.

So SE knows better than going that route. And seriously as a new player are you really going to jump into that shark infested waters know as EVE online? How many new players is going to sign up to be fresh meat? SE isn't looking to exclude players so such system will be completely contrary to their goals.

Just leave real life money out of the game ffs. On every mmo with cash shops half the discussion are like this one. You go on archeage and people complaining, theorizing, all about how much money should they pay, fairness, unfairness, is just vanity. I used to chuckle at those discussions because I would just login on ffxiv, pay my sub and never had to worry about all that crap. Just play the game, that's all.

Now the crap is spreading on here too. Half the threads are about that.

I think everyone feel like NEED buy something in Cash Shop, its optional... lol.
Anyway, need remember it's just a test, was said in the live letter it will begin in 2.4 but we don't know if SE will remove it later.

Other games can do w/e they want, in fact, most do these things because they are losing players, and if they lose player the game will feel empty and more ppl will leave, so they offer a way for ppl to indirectly pay for other's accounts, and these ppl who pay more, are just paying more to have access to content that wasn't designed to be accessed that way.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Pterois

snip

---

That's absurd, looks to me like an excuse to post a silly meme. RMT is happening i agree, but it is against the rules, some buy gil without punishment, others get banned and the majority avoid it because the risks are not worth it, now offer the possibility to buy a house with real money, and the half of the players will do it, just because it is more convenient.

If you agree with this i recommend you to play archeage with a house as a goal, but without spending money on it, then come back and tell me if it seemed fair, but remember, play like if you were already paying a sub, because that's how ffxiv will be with "legal RMT."

There is an MMO precedent with this idea.

https://community.eveonline.com/supp...?articleId=495

They did this recently in EQ1 and it was fine. We used to /random off monthly subs at raids to increase our attendance, haha.

It is technically pay to win, that one guy is totally right, but it is pay to win with market restrictions. If 10 people want to pay to win (by buying 2nd tier equipment that will make them just barely passable for the end game raid) they can do it relatively easily, because they can sell their RL money for gil at a high premium because supply will be low. If 10,000 people want to pay to win, the gil they get per RL $ will decrease dramatically as supply increases.

So yes, pay to win, but the amount they pay will be chosen by their fellow players that are willing to participate in the market. It actually works pretty well, as long as you keep the best items unobtainable by gil.

This would let players become legitimized RMT... ;/

Also it would not remove outside RMT, as seen by in the MMOs that have it- it would just make the issue mostly legal.

I have to agree with the people against this, I do not like this idea since it allows players to purchase gil with RL money. To me that is an extremely unfair system since some people just simply don't make a lot of RL money. It also cheapens the game systems such as crafting/gathering since people can simply ignore them and buy their gil instead of putting in any effort to make it themselves. To me selling subscription time for in game trade-able items is pretty much pay 2 win, we pay a premium subscription for this game so please keep free 2 play and pay 2 win systems out of it.

Also, people saying this would remove RMT are simply wrong and I say so with experience. Rift and Wildstar are both examples of games that allow you to do this and both are still full of RMT and bots.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shougun

This would let players become legitimized RMT... ;/

---

If people buy gil anyway, I'd prefer they buy items from SE that they will sell to the players. This way SE gets the money, not the RMT we hate so much.

PLEX / Chronoscrolls / C.R.E.D.D. are WONDERFUL ideas, and they would be most welcome here too.

Not to mention it would discourage gil selling, and all those annoying spams would disappear.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DoctorPepper

I have to agree with the people against this, I do not like this idea since it allows players to purchase gil with RL money. To me that is an extremely unfair system since some people just simply don't make a lot of RL money. It also cheapens the game systems such as crafting/gathering since people can simply ignore them and buy their gil instead of putting in any effort to make it themselves. To me selling subscription time for in game trade-able items is pretty much pay 2 win, we pay a premium subscription for this game so please keep free 2 play and pay 2 win systems out of it.

Also, people saying this would remove RMT are simply wrong and I say so with experience. Rift and Wildstar are both examples of games that allow you to do this and both are still full of RMT and bots.

---

Today most people already look down on crafting as a gil source and prefer spiritbonding instead.
Also, the quantity of RMT Spam in Wildstar was WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY smaller after they implemented C.r.e.d.d.

Woo, post limit extended!

So, first I want to than everyone for having such constructive opinions. I expected a lot less.

I updated the OP with some of the major facts of such a thing, to keep the conversation relevant. I believe that a lot of this comes down to the question of "is tradeoff to win the same or as bad as pay to win?"

Personally, I cant see tradeoff to win as being such a bad thing. I find a bigger win to be getting out of paying 12 dollars a month in real life, rather than winning by having a couple mil worth in cool stuff. if you see it this way, this makes not paying to win a thing, which makes pay to lose in a way.

any opinions on this?

So, you're talking about the same we can do in RIFT or Tera (or a lot of other games out there).

I'll just say this:

Person in town: Need MELD
Other person in town: Sure thing! Give me 3 <sub item from cash shop>

I've left more than one game over this type of crap happening. If this is allowed the economy WILL swap from gil to cash shop (aka, from gil to real money) and the economy will go belly up because it will be based on the perceived value of the cash shop items. Be careful of what you wish for.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DoctorPepper

Also, people saying this would remove RMT are simply wrong and I say so with experience. Rift and Wildstar are both examples of games that allow you to do this and both are still full of RMT and bots.

---

hm, funny cos I've played Wildstar since launch up to now and granted yes the first month was bad on RMT but now and even far before the mega server merge for the life of me I can't remember the last time I ran into a BOT or seen an RMT spam mail, whisper or shout. What server were you on?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aussir

So, you're talking about the same we can do in RIFT or Tera (or a lot of other games out there).

I'll just say this:

Person in town: Need MELD
Other person in town: Sure thing! Give me 3 <sub item from cash shop>

I've left more than one game over this type of crap happening. If this is allowed the economy WILL swap from gil to cash shop (aka, from gil to real money) and the economy will go belly up because it will be based on the perceived value of the cash shop items. Be careful of what you wish for.

---

It depends on how the system is implemented. If there is free trade allowed with the items, then yes, this will eventually creep up in the game. However, if the items were restricted to market board sales and purchases only, then it only has a gil-value, and no trade-value.

If buying a sub with gil bought from RMT were cheaper than paying the sub with real money wouldn't this encourage RMT?

I would be worried about such a thing playing havoc with the economy since the other end of that deal is nothing but an official way of buying gil.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Moqi

If buying a sub with gil bought from RMT were cheaper than paying the sub with real money wouldn't this encourage RMT?

---

only if people are willing to say that they risk getting banned for using the non legal rmt, vs isung the legal rmt from SE. also, since the market determines the price of a 30 day sub, the RMT price would have to be low enough to encourage use by people that it would not be feasibly profitable to do so. the margins would become too thin.

I'd support this idea. I wouldn't mind the cash shop to much if it was like Eves New Eden store, i.e everything in it is tradeable in-game.

Cash shop vanity for trade has some pro's.

People with more money than Gil can just buy them.
People with more money than Gil who specifically want Gil can buy them to sell.
People with more Gil than money can acquire them in game.

SE still gets the same amount of money as every cash shop item in game still had to be bought.
Everything created in the future patches is available in game.
Less gil sellers as people don't need them anymore.
Helps gil circulate through the economy a bit more.