Yoshida did not make this game pay-to-win. The players did. *NOT a cash shop thread*

[Bishop81]

...

I'm sorry. But you don't really get to decide what is and isn't winning nor do the designers of the game.

Remember the players are the ones paying and the only reason they pay is because,

The most important concept in this paper is that it's not just how you sell your product, but what part of your product you sell. A great part of the attraction of virtual worlds is that participants see them as a Grand Meritocracy, as opposed to the real world, which can often seem arbitrary and unfair. As Jane McGonigal points out, there is no unemployment in virtual space. Everyone has opportunities. Absolute care must be taken in the design of your virtual world to maintain this perception -- whether you consider it real or illusion is irrelevant.

Selling the game objectives in your world makes your game unfair and just reminds your customers of the inequities of the world they are trying to escape from. They literally won't buy this. Sell them opportunity, in the form of content, and they will buy up that opportunity with an enthusiasm that will shock you.

- http://gamasutra.com/view/feature/17...on_.php?page=4

If part of a game that the player is interested in becomes "unfair" ... well, you won't keep that player for long.

At this rate, all FFXIV will end up keeping are hardcore raiders who only care about,

help you clear end game content and help you beat certain monsters

who ironically are not that hard up for vanity items that the cash shop is selling. The cash shop is to some extend a self-extinguishing venture as it drives away players that are most interested in the goods it's selling, in the long run.

FFXIV has a wide range of activities and attracts a wide variety of players with different goals and interest. If Yoshida wants to destroy this diversity and be "purely" a raiding game very much like it's main competitor WoW (seriously, there is nothing else to WoW, it's "raid or die" if you don't like PVP), for the sake of short-term gain ... well, this is disappointing - not to mention competitively disadvantageous in the long run; I don't see how going head to head with WoW, fighting on its terms, is a good idea.