Honestly, let SE make as much money as they can.

[ReiszRie]

FFXI hasn't needed a cash shop for 10 years and FFXI's subscriptions are also funding FFXIV on top of its own subscriptions and possibly whichever revenue the Dragon Quest mmo and Nosgoth get them. FFXIV doesn't need a cash shop end of story. People play P2P mmos to avoid cash shops. Chances are SE would lose more revenue due to lost subscriptions and ruined reputation by adding a cash shop than anything they'd gain from whoever doesn't quit.

IMO people are against cash shop simply out of principle

FFXIV's subscriptions are what swung SE back into profitability after suffering consecutive years of losses and as more patches gets added and subscribers levels out after the initial hype phase, FFXIV might no longer be profitable enough or even profitable to justify the resources dedicated to it. This is of course a hypothesis and I personally do not actively support cash shops in the traditional P2W sense but I am open to see how it could've been implemented differently e.g cash shop vanity items only being for early access to them and that the rest of the player-base can acquire them through in-game means on a later date.

I see no wrong for SE trying to stabilize their revenues from FFXIV and I understand their imperative from a business standpoint.

[Ikeda]

IMO people are against cash shop simply out of principle

FFXIV's subscriptions are what swung SE back into profitability after suffering consecutive years of losses and as more patches gets added and subscribers levels out after the initial hype phase, FFXIV might no longer be profitable enough or even profitable to justify the resources dedicated to it. This is of course a hypothesis and I personally do not actively support cash shops in the traditional P2W sense but I am open to see how it could've been implemented differently e.g cash shop vanity items only being for early access to them and that the rest of the player-base can acquire them through in-game means on a later date.

I see no wrong for SE trying to stabilize their revenues from FFXIV and I understand their imperative from a business standpoint.

Again FFXI has gone for 10 years with no cash shop and has been SE's most profitable game. It's running on about 300k subscribers at most right now. Unless FFXIV some how manages to drop below 100k subscribers they have no business even thinking of a cash shop. Not even a vanity cash shop.

[ReiszRie]

Again FFXI has gone for 10 years with no cash shop and has been SE's most profitable game. It's running on about 300k subscribers at most right now. Unless FFXIV some how manages to drop below 100k subscribers they have no business even thinking of a cash shop. Not even a vanity cash shop.

Most profitable game is merely semantics, the amount of resources poured into FFXIV correlates to the projected growth and ROI, as such you simply can't aim to be the most profitable game in a string of poor performing games.

What I feel is simply that players are against vanity shops simply out of principle, it barely affects the value the game and it feels as though all the doom and gloom views of the future of games are merely using the slippery slope fallacy.