Thinking this game is a bad investment

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Quite frankly, players like yourself are precisely why others perpetually demanded house reclamation. Why should people who actively want to maintain their subscriptions monthly be forced out of housing so you can essentially have your cake and eat it too? Housing is intended as an incentive, not for those only playing periodically. If said players do acquire a house, then consider the equivalent of a vanity purchase. You are paying to maintain a benefit other players were not fortunate - or quick - enough to receive. In other words, OP. Deal with it.

[inimicus]

Math is not your forte friend. 2 months ago FFXIV had over 3 million active, and not sure if it's still there or not. But let's cut it at 3 million active. At 3 million active, even if the game cost $1 a sub, they would still be making millions, but we know subs cost anywhere from $13 to $15, and then add the cost of $2 for each extra retainer. And on top of that you have to add the cost of CS items. SE is making around $45,000,000 to $50,000,000 a month on this game, give or take, and that's not including CS items since those are not monthly costs. Of course you have to take away costs that SE has to pay for various things, but you would still be left with well over $30,000,000.

*Sigh* More unfounded numbers.

Two things:
1. Comparing server capacity between two MMOs without official numbers is probably fruitless. We don't know what hardware they run on, and we don't know what they do. We have no idea how much money they each cost.
Of course, if they ever both said those specifications, then we'd be able to do something, but I don't believe that is the case here.
2. Subnumbers aren't a thing. We know nothing about subnumbers apart from very (mostly optimistic) estimates by people. What they announce was registered, once-paying or still-paying, accounts.
That is, as far as I know. Please correct me if we know otherwise.

Personally, I'd be suprised if FFXIV had more than ~300k subscribers at this time, roughly extrapolated from Alex NM clear numbers at the Eorzea Census 2015:
I'd wager that there are about ~200k. That's just me guessing though, so I won't make up my mind about these topics and their profit with that.

We know jackshit about how much money they make off FF14, last I checked. Neither their income, nor their actual profits.

[Belhi]

People bring up Rift a lot but Rift is a different Engine to FF14. In Rift they pretty much took their own creation engine, gave it a nice interface and allowed players to use it in an enclosed space. That worked because that was the way Rift was built. I don't think FF14 was built the same way. Its a different game with different server architecture. The Rift dimension style housing is quite likely impossible to reasonably do well with FF14's engine.

[Mycow8me]

*Sigh* More unfounded numbers.



We know jackshit about how much money they make off FF14, last I checked. Neither their income, nor their actual profits.

Actually we do know their income and profits. They are easily found via PDF files online. Only a financial critic would care enough to actually break it all down from year to year though...

Like this guy I guess: http://www.gamespot.com/articles/squ...e/1100-6427263

Edit: if you wanted to know exactly how much FFXIV is making the company, that's another story. But we all know this game is what nearly bankrupted the company and once it started to take off, it also saved the company. It's obvious that this game is it's highest portion of revenue after the shift.

[inimicus]

Actually we do know their income and profits. They are easily found via PDF files online. Only a financial critic would care enough to actually break it all down from year to year though...

Like this guy I guess: http://www.gamespot.com/articles/squ...e/1100-6427263

Edit: if you wanted to know exactly how much FFXIV is making the company, that's another story. But we all know this game is what nearly bankrupted the company and once it started to take off, it also saved the company. It's obvious that this game is it's highest portion of revenue after the shift.

What's more, Square Enix said MMOs Final Fantasy XIV and Dragon Quest X "have been making favorable progress," though no other details were divulged.

Where's the breakdown concerning FF14? I don't see it.

EDIT: Ah, sorry, didn't see the edit since I didn't refresh.

Edit: if you wanted to know exactly how much FFXIV is making the company, that's another story.

Read what you quoted.

But we all know this game is what nearly bankrupted the company and once it started to take off, it also saved the company. It's obvious that this game is it's highest portion of revenue after the shift.

We don't. That was two years ago, and HW did not have the apparent Buzz that 2.0 had, as far as I could see. But again, without clear numbers, we know nothing. If we have clear numbers, I'd be happy to see them.

[KingOfAbyss]

Investment? It's a goddamn video game. You play it to have fun. If you aren't having fun, stop playing.

After a quick glance at your Lodestone, you have tons and tons of content still open to you and you're saying there's no long term goals?

+1

Those that pay their subs, old or new, are the future of this game.

Everyone has their likes and hates about this game.

Housing is but one of the stuff this game offers.

If you can't beat them (lack of houses available for your own personal usage), join them (an FC that owns a House) until they'll figure out how to increase the Armoire size, I wouldn't bet on more lands lol

I would have vouched for your point like the other threads about housing so that SE will do something about it in 5.0, but to put it at such a value that puts everything else in the game to shame, Nope.

/Thread closed?

[Dree-Elle]

I don't care about having a neighborhood.

You don't, but the devs- & some players- do.

In Rift, people bother to personalize their instance.

Do we not?

Want your instance to be seen? Advertise it.

We have enough FC & RMT spam already.

Please do some research...

Rift has 1 target group- PC players. This game has 3 (PS3, PS4, PC). It has to cater to the lowest common denominator (PS3). Will ending support change the housing setup? No. FFXIV doesn't use the same dev tools or engine. They'd have to take the game down while they rebuild the code just so people can have Rift's housing. Then you'd still have players whose PCs = or < PS3 specs. This isn't Rift. It isn't Aion, ArcheAge, WildStar, WoW, SWTOR, LOTRO, PSO2, Free Realms, or even FFXI. The devs know they erred; they're taking a first step towards alleviation while staying true to their vision. Rome wasn't built in a day, neither are virtual worlds.

[Voldemort]

Actually the basis of subscription-based gaming is investing. In that over time, the more money you put into it via sub payment, the more content the developers will put out for you to enjoy.

Whether it's a proportional amount, that's a different story:

- An Entry payment of $13/month = $156/year, or the equivalent of two and a half brand new $60 games from Gamestop. This content drought alone from the release of HW to November's 3.1 update costs you at the minimum of $65.
- So purely from an investment point of view, is this content drought really worth the equivalent of a brand new $60 game? That right there is the basis for people unsubbing.


As for the OP's dilemma, the housing situation has it's pros and cons. For the people who are willing to ride out the minimum $156/year, yes they are being rewarded with more housing opening up for their own use.
That is the only Pro...
For everyone else who doesn't sub month to month and waits for big chunks of content to run through (like doing all of 2.2-2.55), they're out of luck, and probably killed the entire housing portion of the game for them.

And worst of all, this does nothing to actually open up sufficient housing for everyone.
For more fun math, lets assume every single player had enough gil to afford a house, but they lost the house after their month of use. So a 100% reclamation system:

Population of Hyperion (estimated): 30,000 players
Number of Plots available per server (estimated): 1500

30,000/1500 = there are 20 players for every one plot available in Hyperion. Divide that per 12 months, and you will be waiting 1.6 years for every player on Hyperion to have accessed housing content. And that is assuming every single plot owner has their house relinquished every month. Meaning you probably will never touch a house, even with a 100% reclamation system, which obviously will never be that high percentage due to players actively subbing.
A more pessimistic estimate would be more of a 20% reclamation, which leads to every player on Hyperion having accessed whatever they want to do with housing (coloring chocobos, gardening, race chocobo raising, airships, etc) after 8.3 years.... after which you've paid almost $1,300 in subs

Yeah, quite the investment.

Had they done housing as 100% FC-based, then housing would have no problems. There would be enough housing for every player, since every FC could afford one. But I'm sure players would rather play Neverreap a million times and their Zetas and Dreadwyrms stripped of their character than to lose their personal housing now.

[Iagainsti]

Let me just make one thing clear here. I don't care about having a neighbourhood. Having strange people roam my yard annoys me and makes me lock the house. I wish I had an MB as a wallmount so I wouldn't have to go deal with people around me. But to each their own, this is just my opinion. I want my house to have peace because for me, playing an MMO does not mean I need to socialize every minute I am online.

In Rift,many people actually bothered to personalize their Instance. Me and my OH have visited several instances and none looked alike. There was even a social system to the

Anyone else see it? XD #walkingcontradiction

[Lambdafish]

Had they done housing as 100% FC-based, then housing would have no problems. There would be enough housing for every player, since every FC could afford one. But I'm sure players would rather play Neverreap a million times and their Zetas and Dreadwyrms stripped of their character than to lose their personal housing now.

This! right the way back when personal housing was introduced it felt tacked on and rushed, I'm frustrated with SE pandering to the community without actually thinking of the consequences. personal housing should have been entirely instanced based, with neighbourhoods exclusive to FCs, even with the reclaim system, nobody would bat an eyelid. SE please do some feasibility analysis and testing (that common practise that game devs do) before developing and releasing content, there have been too many forum explosions and "scandals" lately.