Microtransactions are here to stay. And they are a good thing.

[Abriael]

The overblown and hyperbolic rage some expressed over microtransactions is honestly ridiculous, so it's time to explain a few simple concepts for those unable to look beyond the usual knee-jerk reaction. I'm perfectly aware that this won't make many happy, but the concepts below need to be expressed.

1) Microtransactions are becoming an industry standard for every kind of game, including pay to play MMORPGs. As a matter of fact they're nothing new for P2P MMOs.

There are only three pay to play MMOs that can be considered successful at the moment (WoW, EVE Online and FFXIV) and all three have microtransactions.

2) Pay to play developers compensate the fact that they require a monthly fee by keeping microtransactions limited to a very limited percentage of the content provided with no additional purchase. IE: the game is 100% fully featured and customers gain access to extensive updates without spending a dime over your monthly fee. This is, also, industry standard.

3) This kind of microtransactions are an *entirely positive* element for the health of a MMORPG. When a company makes more revenue, said revenue isn't just put in the bank or hidden under the mattress. It's reinvested in games, and in the case of MMORPGs, mostly in the game that generates it. Which means that the more profit Square Enix makes, the more content for us all to enjoy will be greenlighted and funded.

Companies dedicate investment to what generates them the most revenue, so the more revenue FFXIV gets, the more content and bells and whistles it'll get, and the longer it'll be supported.

Microtransactions of this kind simply give a chance to those who have more disposable income to fund feature and content for the game that *everyone* will enjoy, without depriving anyone of anything essential to the enjoyment of the game.

IE: everyone gets something out of it, not just those that can or are willing to pay for a mount or a minion.

4) The funniest thing is that some people are raging so much over some accessories to the wedding ceremony which are in no way essential to it, that they aren't even noticing that we're getting the most fully featured and extensive wedding ceremony in the history of the genre, with no additional purchase required. No other game has something of this scope for weddings. That's absolutely hilarious.

This is exactly an example of what mentioned at point 3. This kind of feature requires quite a lot of resources to be implemented, and it has quite limited influence in the success of the game and in the revenue it'll bring to Square Enix in itself. The ability to attach some absolutely optional microtransactions to it is probably what got such a work/resources intensive feature greenlighted to begin with.

Ultimately. The more Square Enix makes, the more stuff *everyone* who plays the game gets. You don't want to pay for a mount? That's great. You don't have to, and you have plenty mounts available to you. What's even better is that those who pay for that mount do you a favor as well.