How about, instead of looking at the future and speculating that the devs will ask "can we monetize this?" for future content, look at the present at the content they did not monetize. They could have monetized the false moustache item. They didn't. They could have monetized the FFXI-inspired armors. They didn't. They could have monetized the Black/White/Gold/Silver special dyes. They didn't.

The thing with a cash shop is that the game developers tread on a very fine line. Their investors would want them to put a lot of items up on the cash shop so that the revenue funnels into their pockets. Conversely, if too many items are put up, they lose subscribers. They have to put up just enough so the investors don't pull out, but not so much as to cause subs to be lost.

Right now, putting up old holiday gear is a good incentive for people to login and get all of the current holiday stuff with the knowledge that it'll all be on the cash shop next year. The Eternal Bonding premium packages were good as the whole process of an eternal bonding is supposed to have this permanence. No one would pay $20/$40 for a service unless they intended for the results of the service to last for at least a few years. But they did not monetize all Eternal Bondings. There is still a standard package which gets you the bonding without having to pay a cent beyond your sub. You don't get a two-person chocobo, customization options for the eternal bonding, or the "special gifts" that the premium services get, but it could have been gated content.

Now many people will say "That's not good enough" or "You're being an apologist". And maybe you're right. But honestly? There is not a single thing I have seen on the cash shop that gives any player an unfair gameplay advantage as it pertains to anything besides aesthetics. There is only one thing in the entirety of the game that I can think of that gives players any kind of a genuine advantage that can be attained by giving extra money to SE beyond one's subscription, and that is extra retainers. They double retainer inventory space and allow for the use of double the number of ventures. But that isn't tied to, and in fact predates, the cash shop. The two-person chocobo is as much as an advantage as a "/mount /wait 3 /follow <t>" macro, so that doesn't even count.

The only way I will join the anti-cash shop side is if an item is released that either A.) Causes content to be gated, or B.) Grants an unfair advantage in the fields of gameplay, which pertains exclusively to combat, crafting, and gathering. If SE releases a bunch of chests in-game that can only be unlocked with a key from the cash shop? I'll go anti-cash shop. If SE releases any kind of content that absolutely cannot be touched without a special cash shop item (such as a key to the door to a dungeon/trial), I'll go anti-cash shop. If SE releases a special tomestone that can be used to purchase any item with comparable stats to any endgame item, I'll go anti-cash shop.

But until then, this whole cash shop topic is nothing but toxic people on both sides. On the one side, you have people who feel that paying for a subscription means everything released should be acquired, and the very notion of a cash shop wants them to burn SE's offices to the ground in a furious rage. Whether that's true or not, I honestly can't tell because how toxic people are in that camp might as well have that opinion with the kind of attitude they have towards it.

The other side are filled with people perfectly content with spending money on extraneous things and take on an elitist attitude of calling people from the other camp entitled or whiny. The level of toxicity on this side is about the same, and it is very disappointing that I have to align myself with people who are toxic due to sharing a common belief.


tl;dr: They will monetize enough to please investors, but not so much as to discourage the majority of the playerbase. No one side should fool themselves into thinking they're the majority as the majority doesn't actually give a crap either way.