Acceptable Cash Shop Items: Suggestions!

[Ikeda]

snip

1. What happened with TERA is they started as P2P with no cash shop, had a decent amount of subscriptions that not very slowly started leaking away, decided to add a vanity cash shop (while it was still P2P) to try to "make up" for the lost subscriptions, the remaining players felt ripped off by the cash shop and saw the addition of a cash shop as a sign of failure and impending switch to F2P and promptly left, TERA temporarily shuts down and switches to a F2P model. Back when TERA first added the cash shop, En Masse tried to say there was no plans for the game to go F2P and yet it went F2P only a few months later.

2. You do not work for these companies, you have NOTHING to gain from the addition of a cash shop other than less money in your wallet should you decide to waste any on a cash shop. So I've got to ask why are you even suggesting one? So far SE has added nothing more than an equivalent to the server transfer services, character recreation, and something similar to how you could pay extra for mules in FFXI, all of these being services that have existed in P2P mmos long before cash shops were even thought up and yet for some reason you think that their addition is a sign of "things to come" that make a cash shop inevitable.

3. When people have witnessed first hand that the addition of cash shops cause a loss of subscriptions in a P2P mmo (and have even been part of those lost subscriptions themselves) then yes they have more than enough reason to believe that a cash shop will inevitably lead to the game shutting down or going F2P.

[Rose_Vilehart]

*snip*

that and unlike tera this game has a steady good sub base

[Karnyboy]

....

You and everyone else seeming to make these claims are speculative at best. Just because the inclusion of a cash shop into a game doesn't necessarily mean anything to its "failure" (or eventual death). There's many MMO's out there nobody has mentioned that a CS literally saved it from dying. These are shops implementing things correctly (DDO, Tera, LoTR to name a few)

A cash shop should never be a replacement for a subscription to enjoy the game, nor should it be a means to advance your character. A steady income via subscriptions is still a viable stance to have with MMO gaming since servers and various other developing costs are a factor. However that being said, the inclusion of a CS should be flavor, not requirement. There's people out there that WANT to spend more money, maybe YOU don't, but there's others who have this spare money to spend, let them spend it as they see fit in a cash shop with items, etc that don't alter the outcome of a successful in game life. Who are you to say what they can and cannot do with their money? I believe things like retainers, Fantasia, weapon skins, armor skins, etc are suitable things that don't take away from actual game play.

This is how a CS should be done, and the ones that don't follow suit are the ones that do suffer/get cancelled.

Just remember that the MMO market has steadily increased since 1995, it IS saturated now, only a few games stand out and the reasons they fail are typically because of the stagnation in the market. You tell me how many games since WoW's peak success have just looked like WoW? We want innovation but even the innovative games get cancelled. So what do we want? As an avid MMO gamer that answer is not so cut/paste. Really think about what you are typing when you take such a strong stance against item shops.

[Ikeda]

that and unlike tera this game has a steady good sub base

While I'm sure FFXIV has enough subscriptions to be profitable I have to question just how good its sub base is when SE is already resorting to PR speak like "over 2 million registered users" to advertise the game.

[HakuroDK]

As long as the items don't unlock game content like dungeons or quest chains, and they don't grant gear with stats (except for stuff like the Bomb Earrings which grant a flavor-esque +2 Fire Resist that's pretty much negligible in the grand scheme of things), then I'm fine with a cash shop.

Vanity gear sets? Sure! Items like Fantasia that edit things that cannot necessarily be edited, but generally don't affect general gameplay (i.e. Namingway Cards for character/FC/Chocobo/Retainer, Holy Symbols of Twelve to change Patron Deity, etc)? Why not? Special housing items that look pretty? I can't see a reason why it would be a bad thing.

Hell, when I was still playing DCUO, there were even a few QOL items in the cash shop, like a one-use Summonable Repair/Mail/Bank NPC, and I don't see anything wrong with those either, because everyone has access to those same things if they go into towns.

[Ikeda]

snip

1. Every single one of those mmos you mentioned didn't survive as a P2P game. The addition of a cash shop was nothing more than a last ditch effort to make a profit when they were bleeding subscriptions to a point to where they didn't have enough subscriptions to stay profitable and it inevitably lead to them going F2P. In the sense of a P2P game yes they were a failure. If a P2P game fails to retain enough subscriptions to stay profitable then it obviously has been a failure as a game of that particular business model hence the reason they always switch to F2P.

2. While I understand that people have extra money they want to spend on vanity items or mounts or whatever other crap. In a game like FFXIV that is already adding more than enough vanity items and mounts in every single update and event for no additional charge included with the subscription fee and has even added a new feature to the game that has essentially turned every single piece of equipment in the game into a vanity item, I see absolutely zero need for an additional cash shop to provide more of these when there's already so many being added to the game without a cash shop. It makes them look less like "people with extra money to spend that just want vanity items" and more like "people with extra money to spend that want to feel special by having access to exclusive vanity items that other people either refuse to buy out of principle or can't afford to buy themselves".

[Skull_Angel]

snip

1. I see no claims of such (TERA loosing mass subs because a cash shop was added). I do however see statements from En Masse saying they considered going F2P before TERA's launch, but decided not to because the game had not been designed for such. The cash shop was created with the explicit intention of going F2P and players left after realizing this.

2. You're right, I don't work for these companies and don't pretend to. I do understand how companies work though. I have asked questions about additional services, but bo far I seem to be running circles around the same question.

I'll also add to the statement of "something similar to how you could pay extra for mules in FFXI" by stating that for a very small amount more you can have access to extra character slots instead, but you can not send items directly to your other characters and need to use a proxy, making additional retainers more appealing. This may not effect most people, but for omni-crafters it's (extra inventory) something that is highly considered .

3. I want to say the majority hsn't witnessed first hand what the inclusion of cash shops do to a game's community, only heard claims of what happens without having all the information. In cases where it impacts the community negatively, P2W elements were added and the "unfair" advantages given to those that payed caused others that refused to fall behind and leave. In few very cases only aesthetic elements were added and a small portion of the community rage quit because of idealism (from direct observation I knew people that did this in WoW, but returned shortly despite their feelings).

[Felis]

The Mog Station was created with the explicit idea of micro transactions in mind. The developers could have left the payment service as it was with account.square-enix.com, but they decided to create a whole new site dedicated to transactions for FFXIV. This tells us that extra services through micro transactions were highly considered at one point and the expansion of which is more than likely to become a reality at some point.

They didn't create a new payment side for transaction, but because the old payment side was too confusing for many people. It was one of the many 1.0 critics that needed to change for ARR.

[Karnyboy]

....

They didn't survive as a P2P game because they were more of the same in a saturated market. As a business owner they went to CS to remain in business, it wasn't am attempt to gouge players. It was a way to have people involved keep their jobs. A CS in a P2P game can foster itself through the funds received to keep meaningless non-essential content on the way side without affecting the overall quality you pay for. I personally don't want my sub fee going into a $2.00 skin that makes my character look like a school girl and nothing more. Save that stuff for people that want that...in a cash shop so they can waste their money on that stuff.

[Ikeda]

snip

You don't see those claims because you weren't in the TERA forums at the time it was happening to witness it first hand like I was. En Masse didn't say a thing about going F2P when they added the cash shop. They simply added it and left it at that. Inevitably a s*** storm of threads popped up calling En Masse out on double dipping their customers and a few people asked if the cash shop was a sign of the game going F2P in the future. En Masse replied that there was no plans to go F2P. Many players in those threads said they would quit because they wouldn't tolerate a double dipping cash shop and promptly did quit (myself included). Apparently it was enough to force the game to change its payment model because it went F2P only a few months later.

snip

So let me get this straight. The game is already adding vanity items for free but you don't think they should be included in the sub fee (because reasons) despite the fact you can simply ignore them entirely and go on with your life. Instead you think anyone that wants vanity items should be forced to pay extra despite the fact that SE has already shown they're willing to give them for free. Do you not see how freaking selfish this makes you look?

Also FFXIV already is "more of the same" in a over-saturated market. It would take a blind fool to not see that they essentially ripped a affliction warlock straight out of WoW, reskinned it, and called it a summoner among many other things in this game. Do you seriously think FFXIV wouldn't join that long list of P2P games having to switch to F2P if it added a cash shop? Star Wars has a bigger even more rabid fanbase than Final Fantasy does and yet that didn't save it from its inevitable failure.