Why don't they just sell gil in the mog station?

First off, I've never played WoW or any other pay-to-play subscription game so maybe there is a good reason. Second, I don't need gil in the game, it's just a game and scratching for resources is part of the fun. I'm in no hurry.

But, what is wrong with allowing players to buy gil in the mog station?

I don't see how it can hurt the game economy. It would put more gil in the auction houses. I can see how someone would be concerned that cash players might have an advantage but as far as I can tell there is no losing in this game.

If you die, you don't lose exp or items or anything so..heck I don't mind dying, respawning and getting back into battle - death is meaningless. Similar with racing to level 50 - if you are in a hurry so what? Everyone who wants to will get there eventually. Slow or fast, progress is guaranteed.

Anyone who knows more about these online gaming economies have a good reason?

Because it's a subscription based game, and adding a real money store would be laughable. Even crappy F2P MMOs try to offer cosmetic things, rather than things that offer an advantage in actual play.

Pay-To-Win has been around long enough and completely destroyed games enough for serious developpers to realise that it's a horrible strategy. Allowing people to purchase gil (or in-game items directly or whatever) with real world cash will create an absolutely massive gap betwen those who can throw extra money at the game (and thus can have all those luxurious super items) and those who can't - they can basically forget about genuinely being able to afford anything ever.

Seriously. The economies in play-to-win games aren't even remotely close to "oh just work hard enough and you'll get there someday". Especially in a subscription model where people are already paying just to play, this drives away your customer base super fast.

That would be the dumbest thing ever.

When you introduce real world money into a subscription game, you throw off the value of in game currency.

Little Timmy has his parents permission to buy 1,000,000 gil with his birthday money.

Little Johnny doesn't.

Little Timmy goes to the Auction House and buys all the (Pick Item) and grinds 100 finished product while leveling a a craft. He floods the market and obliterates prices.

Little Johnny farms for 3 days to get enough items to make 100 finished products. He goes to the market, there is no market for his items he's spend 3 days gathering mats for.

Why would little Johnny want to continue playing?

Anytime you design a game to favor the player with the bigger wallet over the player that lives on a tighter budget, the experience for the less fortunate can quickly become tedious & miserable trying to fund even the basic necessities to even play the game.

It would need to be done in a less obvious fashion. More example, selling key items that perma reduce teleportation costs or mounts that are 150-200% faster. i.e. the player saves gil/time over the course of normal activities. That said its P2P I would want such items at the end of quest lines...

GW2 had the ability to indirectly buy gold for their game, by buying gems then converting it to gold. RMT still appeared and offered to sell gold for less than what it would cost you to buy the gems then exchange it over for the same value of gold.

So if your idea to allow gil to be bought off the mogstation to reduce RMT it won't work very well at all. If you thought of it for additional reasons then as someone else has stated it will put off people from playing.

Bringing pay to win to a P2P game? Ha.

If they did this, I could ding 50 and buy all the gear and materia that I needed making end game pointless.

Lol so much hate for cash shops here. I don't blame anyone though, I get it, I have seen what they can do to a game.

Thing is, id just like to see a game pull off cash shops without making the game buy to win. ALL vanity stuff, special armor, pets, mounts, inventory expansions, all stuff that offers NO HELP in the game itself, but is there for those who want cool gear and what not..

I'd love to see ONE MMO pull that all off right. While not alienating those who choose not to spend extra..

Maybe someday..

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Azazela

Because it's a subscription based game, and adding a real money store would be laughable. Even crappy F2P MMOs try to offer cosmetic things, rather than things that offer an advantage in actual play.

---

Uh..yeah few P2P games does that, one people put on the pedestal as the reason MMORPGs exist (even though it's not.)

If you allow people to buy gil, people will buy gil. It will inflate the market, and individuals who don't buy currency will eventually be unable to afford anything without a longer and more tedious grind that will continue to grow for as long as people inject more and more gil into circulation.

Edit: As far as Cash Shops go, personally I'd prefer vanity items to be implemented as game content. There is no need to throw money at something pointless, integrate it into the crafting/FATE system and give your players more to strive for.

Maybe it's just me. I don't see anything to "win" in this game. How do you get an advantage if you can't win?

You pay to experience the story.
People keep saying "win" but you didn't win anything. I haven't lost anything.
My story is completely independent of yours. What you do/buy, has no bearing on my game whatsoever.

I mostly play strategy games. I don't even like shooters where you just redo a level if you die. I'm used to someone wins and someone loses, game over.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not interested buying gil. But I really would like to NOT be annoyed by gil sellers.
It is the most god-awful piece of crap I have ever experienced. I have over 130 people blacklisted.
WTF. Is that what the p2p experience is all about?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fenwick

If you allow people to buy gil, people will buy gil. It will inflate the market, and individuals who don't buy currency will eventually be unable to afford anything without a longer and more tedious grind that will continue to grow for as long as people inject more and more gil into circulation.

As far as Cash Shops go, personally I'd prefer vanity items to be implemented as game content. There is no need to throw money at something pointless, integrate it into the crafting/FATE system.

---

A good answer. You may be right on this one, I have no experience with these type games.

A: This creates an unfair advantage for many players and creates a major disincentive for the majority of the user base.

B: A heavy increase of gil pouring into the economy is inflation and will result in higher prices across the board. This creates yet another major disincentive. The players who pay more money to win could indirectly hurt other players. Imagine if a 3%~ people in real life were allowed to counterfeit as much real money as they wanted. The economy would quickly enter into Zimbabwe style hyper inflation.

Go take your highschool economy class.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by BlackShroudMercs

Lol so much hate for cash shops here. I don't blame anyone though, I get it, I have seen what they can do to a game.

Thing is, id just like to see a game pull off cash shops without making the game buy to win. ALL vanity stuff, special armor, pets, mounts, inventory expansions, all stuff that offers NO HELP in the game itself, but is there for those who want cool gear and what not..

I'd love to see ONE MMO pull that all off right. While not alienating those who choose not to spend extra..

Maybe someday..

---

Guild wars (first one, not 2nd)

That would cause lots of trouble, but what about being able to buy from the store an item that is tradable ingame and is equivalent to a game time card? I think Eve Online offers something similar to that. That way people could in some sense "buy gils" but without creating inflation (the market would adapt to the supply of this kind of items). I bet there's people that would love to buy gold but don't because it isn't allowed, and many others like me would love to be able to pay the subscription with gils :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 1889

That would cause lots of trouble, but what about being able to buy from the store an item that is tradable ingame and is equivalent to a game time card? I think Eve Online offers something similar to that. That way people could in some sense "buy gils" but without creating inflation (the market would adapt to the supply of this kind of items). I bet there's people that would love to buy gold but don't because it isn't allowed, and many others like me would love to be able to pay the subscription with gils :D

---

Yeah PLEX, now you bought several PLEX and you died, you lost the PLEX. It will works on Sandbox type game like Eve Online, but I don't think it would work on MMORPG, http://i.imgur.com/EhTv0.gif

Eve Online is a decade strong! huzza!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Theref

Yeah PLEX, now you bought several PLEX and you died, you lost the PLEX. It will works on Sandbox type game like Eve Online, but I don't think it would work on MMORPG, http://i.imgur.com/EhTv0.gif

---

this makes no sense to me... you know pretty much the ONLY plex that ever get blown up are RMT right? Anyone with a brain using plex for subscription or selling them legitly does nto move the damn things around lol

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 1889

That would cause lots of trouble, but what about being able to buy from the store an item that is tradable ingame and is equivalent to a game time card? I think Eve Online offers something similar to that. That way people could in some sense "buy gils" but without creating inflation (the market would adapt to the supply of this kind of items). I bet there's people that would love to buy gold but don't because it isn't allowed, and many others like me would love to be able to pay the subscription with gils :D

---

Yeah, and what EVE's system does is creates competition for external RMT, which is why you don't really see any in EVE. Far too many people are opposed to the system, many because they think people can literally play for free, which is false.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zipdar

I don't see how it can hurt the game economy.

---

Even if SE offered gil to be purchasable via their Mog Station would severely hurt the game's economy across most, if not all, of the worlds. What would happen as a result of being able to purchase gil from the Mog Station is that some individuals would drastically jack up prices of goods purchased on the market boards.

For this hypothetical, let's say that a stack of animal skins normally sells for 100 gil on the market. With gil purchasable directly from SE will result in individuals posting up those same animal skins at, say, 10,000 gil per single animal skin. Their reasoning would be "Well, go buy gil."

This severe inflation would cause more harm, especially to those whose budgets are considerably stricter. It also would not stop RMT services. All they would do is simply offer their services at cheaper cost than buying from the Mog Station.

The gilsellers would undercut SE anyways.

Because it completely trivializes the choices you make and consequently reduces the whole appeal of crafting since crafting so strongly connected to the economy. It is a major "dumbing down" of the economy-related gameplay in a game.

Basically, given your suggestion, the most time-efficient choice for becoming rich in FFXIV would always be: spend your real life money to buy ingame gil.

Once upon a time, RMT was hated precisely because of those reasons. The devs were for that reason very much against any form of RMT. But at some point, people forgot why RMT was so bad and started to only dislike "illegal RMT", which is a very laughable concept. Why prevent people from trading their goods for real money, when the company offers a similar system? The only answer is: people don't really care and the companies prefer having monopoly on the RMT business; GW2 is an excellent example.

I will never ever tolerate RMT.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alish

Anytime you design a game to favor the player with the bigger wallet over the player that lives on a tighter budget, the experience for the less fortunate can quickly become tedious & miserable trying to fund even the basic necessities to even play the game.

---

You know what is worse? Like I've mentioned before: it destroys the appeal of an ingame economy for those of us who have the means to actually spend a lot on "legal RMT". I absoluted hated GW2 for that reason.

I do not want the most time-efficient choice to be: "spend your real money" in any game.
-----------------------------

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by BlackShroudMercs

Lol so much hate for cash shops here. I don't blame anyone though, I get it, I have seen what they can do to a game.

Thing is, id just like to see a game pull off cash shops without making the game buy to win. ALL vanity stuff, special armor, pets, mounts, inventory expansions, all stuff that offers NO HELP in the game itself, but is there for those who want cool gear and what not..

I'd love to see ONE MMO pull that all off right. While not alienating those who choose not to spend extra..

Maybe someday..

---

Sorry, but I could only tolerate a vanity item mall, if vanity was not a focus at all of the game. However, in such a beautiful game as FFXIV, vanity matters. In games such as League of Legend and Path of Exile, vanity is not even near being a focus.

The main reason for not selling Gil would be inflation. Prices of everything would skyrocket due to more Gil being introduced into the economy by those that have the money to buy Gil. MMO economies are not as easy to manage as some people here like to think and if you think that by selling Gil legally in the Mogstation will solve RMT issues then you couldn't be further from the truth. RMT's would just undercut the official service and it would be even easier for them to make the Gil to pay players due to more of it being available.

There would be more negative connotations than positives, if such an imitative was introduced (as others have pointed out).

More than likely, the markets would eventually crash. Anyone who played FFXI around Christmas '04 would remember what happened there.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HurtigeKarl

Sorry, but I could only tolerate a vanity item mall, if vanity was not a focus at all of the game. However, in such a beautiful game as FFXIV, vanity matters. In games such as League of Legend and Path of Exile, vanity is not even near being a focus.

---

Didn't you know? Skins increase your skill level 10 fold, they are a must in league.

dear OP,

why play?

Diablo 3
nuff said

They could also sell irrelevant tradable items, like pets or mounts. The more options, the better. But don't sell people money printing machines! We have enough with real life central banks scamming us.

What I find irritating is this assumption that it's fine for 'vanity' items to be in a game's cash shop. What about those of us who, like me, consider the aesthetic to be another, equally important facet of the game? For people like me it's arguably as damaging to the experience as selling progression aids. And that's setting aside the fact that to set cash shop vanity items apart from what can be gotten in-game and thus give them appeal to those with heavy pockets, the developers tend to make them gaudy, unpleasant, and generally aesthetic-compromising.

If the game were built with F2P structure in mind, it would at least be tolerable (although in that case I suspect the rest of the game would lose its appeal, so far as I'm concerned). But in a subscription-based game? Why should I have to pay additional real money for the things I enjoy while the people prefer to endlessly spam the same instance over and over get their favoured focus as part of the package?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fensfield

What I find irritating is this assumption that it's fine for 'vanity' items to be in a game's cash shop. What about those of us who, like me, consider the aesthetic to be another, equally important facet of the game? For people like me it's arguably as damaging to the experience as selling progression aids. And that's setting aside the fact that to set cash shop vanity items apart from what can be gotten in-game and thus give them appeal to those with heavy pockets, the developers tend to make them gaudy, unpleasant, and generally aesthetic-compromising.

---

You can also get it ingame if it's tradable...

For those refering to EVE, PLEX that is purchase with cash and traded on the in-game market only causes ISK to trade hands from player to player. As far as I know, the only ISK created andintroduced into the economy is the ISK farmed by carebears and others through mining, mission running, etc. etc... I will agreee tho, that RMT really isnt much of an issue there and that you would be stupid to move plex through space. I do love seeing the killmails for those that attempt to move high end goods like PLEX in shuttles through major hub gates where people are waiting to ship scan you and insta pop your ship =P

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LawlSTi

For those refering to EVE, PLEX that is purchase with cash and traded on the in-game market only causes ISK to trade hands from player to player. As far as I know, the only ISK created andintroduced into the economy is the ISK farmed by carebears and others through mining, mission running, etc. etc...

---

That's why it would cause no inflation. In practice it would be like buying gils, but by simply getting them from people willing to buy those game cards (like me, I think I would pay 1 million per month).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Azazela

Because it's a subscription based game, and adding a real money store would be laughable. Even crappy F2P MMOs try to offer cosmetic things, rather than things that offer an advantage in actual play.

---

When is the last time you played a f2p game? This is simply not the case.

Also, many p2p games have a CS now. While I don't agree with it, it doesn't mean it's not the case.

the game will become (P2W)Pay to Win , (L2P)Lazy to Play or (P2BL)Pay to be Lazy

The worst thing that will happen is that if they do that and i know it will do it .. its happen in 1.0 but is just people got and got richer by farming .. money got easy to get by craft

People will buy from mog station and get richer and richer. the richer wont care about those who cant use that cos no money at home and have other thing more important to pay.
So those rich people will increase AH items value so poor people will have hard time to buy them
and new people will go nut when starting unless they buy from mog station

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ephany

If they did this, I could ding 50 and buy all the gear and materia that I needed making end game pointless.

---

But you can do that at the moment. Fair enough you may be playing Russian Roulette with your account by going to gil sellers but the option is there. There must be plenty people going down this route creating a demand for gil otherwise we wouldn't have all the spammers in pretty much every hub on every server.