Cash shop confirmed

[Vhailor]

By the way, you have yet to explain how they don't need the money. You keep claiming that they don't yet the annual report for the fiscal year of 2013 claims otherwise.

Two things here.

Firstly, given that the expansion is just around the corner, the timing seems odd. If they need cash so badly, certainly implementing this a year later would have made more sense; announcing its presence at a Fan Festival designed to promote Heavensward seems an odd choice. They had to know this announcement was going to get a massive backlash from a significant chunk of the player base. It's going to cost them some expansion sales in the process, whereas an announcement a year from now would not have had that issue.

Secondly, exploiting your new flagship MMO when it's been out for barely a year (in 2.0 form) is not a good long-term plan for improving the company's bottom line. It's akin to raising your company's stock price by laying people off; eventually, you can't do it anymore, and it also has the side effect of limiting your options down the road.

In short, if SE needs cash so badly, then they need to improve their game design. It is the one and only thing that will provide them with sustainable long-term growth. The cash shop won't make up for lackluster development, and if development returns to a AAA level, then the cash shop would be unnecessary in the first place. So your argument here has some serious flaws in it.

[Codek]

Firstly, given that the expansion is just around the corner, the timing seems odd. If they need cash so badly, certainly implementing this a year later would have made more sense; announcing its presence at a Fan Festival designed to promote Heavensward seems an odd choice. They had to know this announcement was going to get a massive backlash from a significant chunk of the player base. It's going to cost them some expansion sales in the process, whereas an announcement a year from now would not have had that issue.

They were probably forced to push this out before the expansion as they have it in mind with some of the new features coming down the road (here's looking at you Gold Sauce and Air Ships...).
At least now they have 6+ months to convince everyone to cover their eyes and ears before the expansion is released.

[Vhailor]

They were probably forced to push this out before the expansion as they have it in mind with some of the new features coming down the road (here's looking at you Gold Sauce and Air Ships...).
At least now they have 6+ months to convince everyone to cover their eyes and ears before the expansion is released.

This could very well be the case - a good point, sir.

[Dwill]

snip

Actually, the timing is perfect for now because people that do not like it can vent their discontent for the time being and when new actual information comes out on the expansion, people will be all over it. I seriously doubt that people will quit en masse just over this. People threaten to quit all the time over the pettiest things in MMO, it's nothing new to the genre.


They aren't actually exploiting it. Exploiting it would be putting items and stuff needed to actually play the game to its fullest in there, which is obviously not the case with this vanity stuff. The only thing they are doing is providing an optional service for people that are willing to pay for it.

The game design so far, while it has its flaws, has been easily competing against the best MMO out there and with other key features in the future coming out AND the expansion, the game will keep on growing just fine.

I hope they add some unique items to the cash shop and then I hope to see the community ridicule any person seen with these unique items so that buying anything from it becomes a negative stigma in the community.

Easiest way to make this stuff go away after it is implemented is not use it or encourage its use.

Yes, harassing and ridiculing people who don't share the same point of view as you is such an awesome way to raise a point in a mature and adult-like manner