This guy gets it Terms and Services

[MrCookTM]

@NoloeTazier

Read the OP of the thread you just replied to, the quote from the TOS answers your question perfectly fine.

My subscription pays for continued server maintenance and regular content patches. An update is a massive piece of content which effectively (in my eyes, at least) justifies itself as a new product. Paying for an expansion is no different than paying for the base game, in that regard.

The cash shop, on the other hand, is a series of small pieces of content, possibly cut from the base game, sold for an extra price which is often ridiculous.

Case and point: Heavensward is meant to double the number of zones in the game. Premium Wedding gets you... Not a lot... Now compare the price of an expansion to the price of a Premium Wedding.

I agree alot of the cash shop stuff is overly expensive. But that is an entirely different point and not what ppl in this thread were initially complaining about.

[Nalien]

The thread was initially about; "Hey people complaining about the cash shop! Read the ToS, your argument is invalid!", which is simply not true.

Yes. SE holds the right to introduce a cash shop. They also hold the right to make it so you can only be in Heavensward zones for 30 minutes a day, and put potions to extend that duration another 30 minutes for 10$ a piece on the cash shop.

This is about feedback. No where in the ToS does it say we are not allowed to provide feedback, in fact these forums exist explicitly to give us a place to leave out feedback. People are providing feedback about how they dislike the idea of a cash shop, others are apathetic and arguing for some reason. People are welcome to provide feedback saying they dislike the cash shop, even if they agreed to the possibility in the ToS. People are also welcome to provide feedback saying they like the cash shop, though I'm not seeing any. What I really don't get is the apathetic individuals in the middle who don't care about the cash shop, but do care about telling people who don't like the cash shop to shut up. They are not providing feedback, they're just telling people to shut up when if anyone should, it's themselves that should.

You can give feedback, doesn't mean that they always have to listen.

And that's up to the developers, not random consumers on the forums who don't care one way or the other. All such people are doing is muddling feedback. When a thread gets made along the lines of "I don't like the cash shop", the apathetic descend and reply "I don't care, shut up". The impression that then gives is that there are individuals who want to see the cash shop gone, and individuals who want it to remain, when in truth we have individuals who want it gone and individuals who simply don't care, but are responding to topics about something they don't care about anyway.

[KodiHivaer]

The thread was initially about; "Hey people complaining about the cash shop! Read the ToS, your argument is invalid!", which is simply not true.

Yes. SE holds the right to introduce a cash shop. They also hold the right to make it so you can only be in Heavensward zones for 30 minutes a day, and put potions to extend that duration another 30 minutes for 10$ a piece on the cash shop.

This is about feedback. No where in the ToS does it say we are not allowed to provide feedback, in fact these forums exist explicitly to give us a place to leave out feedback. People are providing feedback about how they dislike the idea of a cash shop, others are apathetic and arguing for some reason.

You can give feedback, doesn't mean that they always have to listen.

[MrCookTM]

The thread was initially about; "Hey people complaining about the cash shop! Read the ToS, your argument is invalid!", which is simply not true.

Yes. SE holds the right to introduce a cash shop. They also hold the right to make it so you can only be in Heavensward zones for 30 minutes a day, and put potions to extend that duration another 30 minutes for 10$ a piece on the cash shop.

This is about feedback. No where in the ToS does it say we are not allowed to provide feedback, in fact these forums exist explicitly to give us a place to leave out feedback. People are providing feedback about how they dislike the idea of a cash shop, others are apathetic and arguing for some reason.

I agree a 100% and it's all okay and stuff, since people giving real feedback are not the ones I'm referring to. What bugs are people claiming they have a right to get every optional minion, vanity stuff, the best wedding plan, etc. 'for free' because they're already paying a monthly fee. These people do just simply not understand what the monthly fee does: it does exactly what you said, providing server maintenance and some sort of rolling content updates, nothing more and nothing less. That is all I'm talking about.

[Roris]

This guy nailed that he likes Final Fantasy so much therefore it's his divine duty to defend it and the company and to shun everyone who doesn't like it? That's nice.

[Rhysati]

I agree a 100% and it's all okay and stuff, since people giving real feedback are not the ones I'm referring to. What bugs are people claiming they have a right to get every optional minion, vanity stuff, the best wedding plan, etc. 'for free' because they're already paying a monthly fee. These people do just simply not understand what the monthly fee does: it does exactly what you said, providing server maintenance and some sort of rolling content updates, nothing more and nothing less. That is all I'm talking about.

And nobody is arguing with you on that. Legally, you are correct. They do not HAVE to give you updates for your monthly fees. However, that is what people expect when they subscribe and pay every month. Otherwise, what is the point of it? There are a ton of free-to-play games that can be accessed at any time without me paying every month. If I want content, I can buy whatever content I'd like to have.

I have no problem with a cash shop. I have a problem with having a monthly fee AND a cash shop. Acting like they need the money from subscriptions just to upkeep servers and we need to pay for anything extra is just rubbish.

[Fawkes]

I don't disagree with the OP, but at some point in FFXIV's life they used the word "option" to refer to a character or retainer that you were paying for (they still do in some places for FFXI). So I wonder if this part of the ToS might be leftover from then and the part about options just means you have to pay for characters on top of your subscription fee.

[Nimras]

People seem to forget that Square Enix is a company that does business and charges for their services. Why/How is this so unethical? People really need to get their head out of their ass and stop thinking they deserve everything for free from SE because they play their game.

Youre talking like im getting something for free, ive spent ~200euro on this game already but somehow that wasnt square charging me for their product? is it so unreasonable to not want pay extra for little things which would have been included into the game anyways?

Im really having trouble relating to the cash shop defenders who seem to be ok with a company milking them for more cash after having already committed so much to their product. How doesnt this double dipping feel wrong to you? Really, people are entitled to their own opinions, its ok, i just dont understand you at all.

[NyarukoW]

SE has a legal department to write up all this legalese, but whether those statements are ethical or NOT are clearly open to debate. I'll admit I am no lawyer and never read thru everything single line of those TOS and if I did, I am certain I would not understand it all or figured out all the implications. I sutre 99.99% of players out there are not OCD enough to go read the TOS word for word either, we click accept so we can install, not that we really agree with all that that legalese.

Nonetheless, it should NOT take a genius to understand that SE would want to reserve the right to do add-ons, expansion, and sell additional services etc., and that should never be an issue. They are not failing at delivering a proper FFXIV ARR, and they are free to add to it and allow players to sign up and pay for enhancements.

[Nalien]

They are not failing at delivering a proper FFXIV ARR, and they are free to add to it and allow players to sign up and pay for enhancements.

Anyone who does PvP will probably disagree.

Anyone who wants their own house and still cannot due to the low demand will probably disagree.

They promised me proper EU servers at last though, so maybe that is where all the "Additional Services" money has been going all this time, because it sure as hell isn't doing anything to fix the rampant 90k issue Frontlines continues to suffer from.