Cash shop confirmed

[Vhailor]

FFXIV has to grow revenues/sales/profits at a reliable rate YoY.

This is absurd; SE as a whole aims to increase their revenue and profit when measured year over year, but FFXIV as an individual product will never be held to that standard. Cash cows exist to provide steady revenue streams which are then used to invest in higher-growth (and higher-risk) areas. The MMO market is not suitable for sustained growth in profits, and companies know this. Certainly MMOs will exhibit growth within their first couple of years, but they will inevitably fall off after that, no matter what additional revenue streams SE attempts to create.

[Sheer]

This blows. Just because it's not as bad as "pay to win" doesn't mean it's not bad.

Charging $5 for a minion and $? for a Sleipnir mount that should already be in the game we pay a monthly subscription for is ridiculous. They most they should ever do is provide items with actual goods like art books and soundtracks.

You should all boycott this, but instead you'll all pay in and encourage them to move more content to individual charges.

It really comes down to vanity pets/mounts or a flat raise to subscription. I'm fine with the former.

[Alukah]

It really comes down to vanity pets/mounts or a flat raise to subscription. I'm fine with the former.

I'm fine with neither, I'm sure they can do fine with neither.

This cash shop is just a cash grab.

[Lux_Rayna]

This is absurd

Its not really. Granted it wont be held to the same growth standards as other products for obvious reasons (ie its a diff product), but it is held to some kind of growth standard. Just because its a cash cow doesn't mean it has 0 growth as a benchmark; it just means that growth, while necessary, does not trump retention. The presence of inflation in any economy makes growth a requirement. A cash cow that cannot keep pace with inflation will actually lose you money over time. That obviously defeats the purpose of the cash cow.

[DefendPopPunk]

SE has it made. They are going to charge us for items we could have had the chance to get as paying subscribers, yet not only are people accepting the practice, they're defending it. That's not a bad position to be in, since not every company's customers react that way to cash grabs.

[Vhailor]

Its not really. Granted it wont be held to the same growth standards as other products for obvious reasons (ie its a diff product), but it is held to some kind of growth standard. Just because its a cash cow doesn't mean it has 0 growth as a benchmark; it just means that growth, while necessary, does not trump retention. The presence of inflation in any economy makes growth a requirement. A cash cow that cannot keep pace with inflation will actually lose you money over time. That obviously defeats the purpose of the cash cow.

They can't possibly be held to a standard of positive growth. There is no feasible way in which FFXI has exhibited growth in profits over the past five years, nor has WoW. More to the point, your statement about inflation being applied to profit is flatly wrong. You have to look at it in the context of how much the company invested in the title for that statement to hold any water. All profit has to do in order to have a net benefit for the company is outpace the rate of inflation on the amount of money invested.

For instance, if a company spends $10/yr to support a product, which features declining profits of $100 in the first year, $90 in the second year, and $50 in the third year, then even at its worst, it's producing a 400% ROI. That's not losing the company money. The MMO model closely tracks this; a company spends an initial sizable investment, and then has a steady (relatively low) cost of investment year to year in order to maintain the title. Profits can drop, but in successful sub-based MMO models, like FFXI, the annual profits (while dropping in a YoY sense) still produce a strong ROI year over year. That's not to say it will happen indefinitely, but certainly over a 10-15 year period, titles have managed it (WoW and FFXI being examples of this).

I'm surprised to hear you're running a business while misunderstanding this principle - the mathematics of it is fairly simple.

[Fyrebrand]

SE has it made. They are going to charge us for items we could have had the chance to get as paying subscribers, yet not only are people accepting the practice, they're defending it. That's not a bad position to be in, since not every company's customers react that way to cash grabs.

Haven't you heard? "It's just business." "They gotta put food on the table, this is just a great way for fans to give them added support!" Apparently, Square Enix is both a for-profit company and a charity case.

Yet, someone who merely buys the game and pays their subscription is accused of expecting a "free ride" if they don't like the idea of a cash shop. If you are so against it, "then just ignore the cash shop and vote with your wallet." However, if we do vote with our wallets and unsubscribe from the game, that is "pathetic" and "blowing things out of proportion."

"FFXIV is not a WoW clone." "Stop suggesting features I don't like and go back to WoW." But as soon as we suggest that games with subscription fees should not be adding a cash shop: "WoW is a sub-based game, and it has a cash shop." As if that is some kind of excuse, and WoW is now the model all games should be following.

The mental gymnastics some of these people put themselves through to defend their favourite corporation is astounding.

It really comes down to vanity pets/mounts or a flat raise to subscription. I'm fine with the former.

Case in point. Where on earth did you get the idea that a subscription increase was even being considered, or was ever a possibility? Has any MMORPG ever randomly raised its subscription? And is that how you convince yourself that a cash shop is a good idea? Because you can imagine something worse?

[Roris]

Its not really. Granted it wont be held to the same growth standards as other products for obvious reasons (ie its a diff product), but it is held to some kind of growth standard. Just because its a cash cow doesn't mean it has 0 growth as a benchmark; it just means that growth, while necessary, does not trump retention. The presence of inflation in any economy makes growth a requirement. A cash cow that cannot keep pace with inflation will actually lose you money over time. That obviously defeats the purpose of the cash cow.

So again, why not openly discuss it way back before ARR's launch? Back when both the uncertainty of ARR's success and the necessity for more funds was even bigger. I'm sure a simple statement like "We'll be launching with a cash shop limited to past seasonal event items" would have still be met with a backlash, but it would have been more understandable considering 1.0's financial situation and also because there was already the antecedent of older event items not being available for purchase with gil from event NPCs, like how both the Santa suit materials and the suits themselves weren't made available again when the reindeer costumes were introduced in 1.0.

Why wait after the success of a game to double dip? The answer is obviously that they now have that extra playerbase they know they can get that extra money from. Them making money is not the issue, I'm sure no one has an issue with a company making money or else players wouldn't be subscribed to this MMO. It's them being upfront about it months before, if not before ARR's launch, not just a week away from 2.4 out of nowhere and especially after stating their views on cash shops and F2P models in multiple past interviews.

[zar]

lol @ people against cash shop yet have the deluxe edition

[Vhailor]

lol @ people against cash shop yet have the deluxe edition

Yes, because clearly my upgrade to the CE, made primarily out of gratitude to SE for successfully transforming their next-gen MMO into something I wanted to play, is the same thing as a cash shop. Totally the same thing. /sarcasm

There's no reason to try and ridicule people with valid opinions and, if you are going to do so, using something other than an irrelevant one-liner is preferable.