Cash shop confirmed

[Tupsi]

I think the weirdest thing about this is people are pissed at a Business wanting to make money. Here's a popular argument:

"I should be able to obtain everything in game, I pay a sub fee."

Answer This: Where the hell is my Wind Up Bahamut? My Veteran Reward Minions and Mounts and Barding without needing to sub for a year (over $100 paid) and instead obtainable via quest? My Mog Cap? My Coeurl Mount? My Wind Up Dalamud? Where are these in-game without "using real money"?

The funny thig is? Someone will argue against that despite using that exact argument to argue against the cash shop.

[Negotiator]

I think the weirdest thing about this is people are pissed at a Business wanting to make money. Here's a popular argument:

"I should be able to obtain everything in game, I pay a sub fee."

Answer This: Where the hell is my Wind Up Bahamut? My Veteran Reward Minions and Mounts and Barding without needing to sub for a year (over $100 paid) and instead obtainable via quest? My Mog Cap? My Coeurl Mount? My Wind Up Dalamud? Where are these in-game without "using real money"?

The funny thig is? Someone will argue against that despite using that exact argument to argue against the cash shop.

I have some of those things from my sub fee. so it was essentially free. I never paid more than a sub fee.

[Tupsi]

I have some of those things from my sub fee. so it was essentially free. I never paid more than a sub fee.

You have some from pre-ordering and/or buying the Collectors Edition (1.0 or ARR)/digital upgrade. You didn't get it from your sub fee

[Jynx]

I think the weirdest thing about this is people are pissed at a Business wanting to make money.

We wouldn't pay a subscription if we cared about them making money. What I at least care about is how this will impact the creation of content outside the cash shop, let's not pretend it will magically be seperate.

Without a cash shop, people had hope for something like let's say a slepnir mount (While I honestly would rather them just focus on Chocobos). With the existence of the cash shop there is allready one case having been made by the developers themselves for watching game content be cut in favor of placing it into the cash shop.

[whoopeeragon]

Oh come on, I'm sure you know darn well what the difference is there and are just trying to find something to argue about.

You are already paying a flat monthly sub to access and play the game. You would be paying that sub fee regardless, vet reward or no. The rewards are provided at certain intervals as a "thank you" for your continued support. You are not charged extra for them. You are getting them as a bonus freebie.

It is not the same thing as paying a sub, plus having to pay extra for items (vanity or otherwise) that your on-going sub already *has* gone toward producing.

I'm neutral on the implementation of the cash shop, but you need to read carefully and not go into such a rage. Some items Tupsi stated are NOT part of the vet rewards. They are extra stuff, by purchasing related merchandise such as soundtracks and artbooks, or in the latest example, the fanfest stream. Or obtained by upgrading your edition of the game.

Tupsi makes a point that SE has already been doing this for a long time, ever since FFXI, FFXIV 1.0 in terms of MMOs. We have been always been forking over cash for additional items that are NOT paid by our subscription. Why are people arguing and so dead-set against this particular form of payments when it's essentially been done for a very long time now?

I quote you Preypacer, on this:

It is not the same thing as paying a sub, plus having to pay extra for items (vanity or otherwise) that your on-going sub already *has* gone toward producing.

But that has already happened. We've paid extra for wind-up Dalamud, wind-up Bahamut, Asuran Armguards, Onion Helm, Hermes Sandals amongst others. So I really don't see why everyone is flying into such a rage over this issue, when people were actually excited about the exact same thing SE has done before, except re-skinned.

[Giantbane]

I think the weirdest thing about this is people are pissed at a Business wanting to make money. Here's a popular argument:

"I should be able to obtain everything in game, I pay a sub fee."

Answer This: Where the hell is my Wind Up Bahamut? My Veteran Reward Minions and Mounts and Barding without needing to sub for a year (over $100 paid) and instead obtainable via quest? My Mog Cap? My Coeurl Mount? My Wind Up Dalamud? Where are these in-game without "using real money"?

The funny thig is? Someone will argue against that despite using that exact argument to argue against the cash shop.

What they're actually complaining about is that the business is indirectly raising the price of the product that's being sold. We're already paying something like $150 a year, in addition to the initial purchase of the game, is a price increase for vanity content reasonable?

The problem with a cash shop in a P2P MMO is that you don't know if they're creating special/unique items specifically for the cash shop (selling additional content) or whether they're taking content they would have added to the normal game and instead sticking it in the cash shop (same content, higher price). If it were in some way clear to tell that cash shop content was definitely "add on" items, then it's not that big a deal. But their initial offering goes against this. The premium mount that's being introduced is Slepnir, and as has been pointed out earlier, this already existed in the game for the most part. The model already exists, its use as a mount for a humanoid shaped NPC already exists, so it can't be very much work to "add" this into the game. They're, for the most part, taking in game content and slapping a new additional price tag on it.

The other problem with Slepnir is that the item is sourced directly from the existing FFXIV universe we are experiencing and is not a tangential add on. If this was a Red VIII mount or a (god forbid) cloud's bike mount, that wouldn't be such a bid deal to me. Those items exist in a separate universe and strike me more as add on content, so if it's given an add on price, then that seems more reasonable. But with integrated ties to the FFXIV universe, Slepnir feels more like this should be part of the main game and should covered by the subscription fee.

Which leads me to believe they're going to be taking items that would have been included with the sub fee and now making them cost an extra fee. The result is an indirect price increase on the content that would have otherwise been included in our sub fee.

Now I'm not going to quit over this, but when I evaluate whether or not I want to renew from month to month, the cash shop will definitely go under "cons"