Eternal Bond - Standard Plan and Gold Plan

[Folsom]

The problem with assuming that cash shop = funds more content of the game is that...

We don't really know how SE allocates any of the money it gets from FFXIV. It could be that 100% of the cash shop money goes back to the game, or it could be that none of it does. They could put 100% of the cash shop money back into the game but compensate by taking more of the sub fee money for other projects. The argument that cash shop is good because more money for the game isn't necessarily a good argument because we are just customers without the right info.

And no game company really offers this info; the only question customers can answer is whether they're willing to pay what the company is charging. To imply that what SE is doing is "disgusting" or "double-dipping" or whatever is an opinion that also can't be made with the info; people are just more liberal in their insults than they are in considering what else might be going on. (Apparently, people think "I don't want to pay that much" sounds much worse when they say "BECAUSE IT'S DISGUUUUUUUSTIIIIIIING", or hide behind it, anyway.)

Absolutely, if they are charging too much, or people don't think the content is worth it, they shouldn't pay. To speculate about how horrible of a company they are because of reasons they can't possibly be privy to, as some others are, is pointless.

IF they truly need more funds to be able to create new content in the game, I would personally be more ok with sub fee increase over a cash shop. Alternatively as there seems to be many people that just want to straight up support SE, maybe they could add an option to add more money on top of your sub fee just to support them/the game. I don't have a lot of income at the moment, but if I was given the option of cash shops vs. optionally upping my own sub fee to support more content going directly to the game for ALL players, I would up my sub fee to keep out that cash shop. Maybe I'm crazy though. :P

The problem here, of course, is that a sub fee increase would price some people out of the market. Optional content does not. An increase in sub fees from, say, $15 to $17 a month, is probably a lot more likely to turn people away than not being able to have a pet, a mount, or whatever, because they have to pay for a general increase if the sub fee goes up, whereas they don't if it doesn't.

We absolutely don't know if they are adding staff to design things for the game for content from the cash shop; if we did, we could make a more informed decision. However, it's very doubtful that SE (or any other company) will offer specifics about their company to appease customers like that. It's just not the way current corporations work.