Lord Of Verminion (Collecting Minions)

[zosia]

Obviously there is a market there for these minions. I made this thread to implore SE to allow us to buy the minions separately and support the game in more ways than just the physical merchandise. Hopefully they'll take our feedback into consideration and consider it in the future ^^

yeah, there is a market for it, but it's not so black and white I think. You have many people who will pay $40 for a plushie + minion code. I don't know if you have seen the carbuncle plushie, but they are really small, they are like a $15 stuffed toy. Just to give you an idea, the carbuncle's head is slightly larger than a golf ball.

SE is getting people to over pay for some of this merchandise by making it seem like your getting an amazing deal with the included limited edition minion. If they start to move these minions to the cash shop, it's going to be harder to over charge people for some of this merch. I don't have any of the data on this stuff, but I bet you sales on the OST and minion plushies would drop some if they show the pattern of eventually adding those minions to the mog station.

EDIT: I do remember a place you can find some stats on the cash shop minions.

http://www.xiv-minions.com/statistics.php

A lot of the store minions have around the same % of ownership as the OST, artbook, and plush minions. The market seems very small for both cash shop and merch minions. Seems like a small market for both imho.

[Archaell]

The question is if the sales on Mogstation could be able to make up for the lower sales of physical stuff. Pixels are way cheaper to produce, especially when they are already done, so it could even out theoretically.

[Colorful]

snip

But the plushies are in very, very limited demand. Selling 1000 plush will get you a fair share of profits, but selling 10,000+ minions for $10 each will get you far more seeing as it's 100% profit after the initial (probably very minuscule) investment has been paid off. They could then sell both at the same time, I personally know plenty of people who'd buy it just for the plush.

[Vespar]

yeah, there is a market for it, but it's not so black and white I think. You have many people who will pay $40 for a plushie + minion code. I don't know if you have seen the carbuncle plushie, but they are really small, they are like a $15 stuffed toy. Just to give you an idea, the carbuncle's head is slightly larger than a golf ball.

I actually own the current Artbooks (The e-shop one and the one from HW collectors edition), I bought all the 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 collectors editions, the 2 Plush carbies, the Kuplo Kopp plush, the delivery mog plush, all the OST's for XIV and I even bought some of the Japanese only equipment and furniture catalogs (which I really wish SE would sell on the other E-shops too). I also own many other final fantasy themed plushes (Cactaur, tonberry, theaterythym choco plush) and various items from FFXI's long and glorious run. I've been to Artnia and the Eorzea cafe (several times) and I'm so close to finishing off a set of primal themed drink coasters (just missing Bismark) but none of this was meant to impress you but rather let you know that despite having the money AND OPPORTUNITY to buy or do these things, many other players don't get that opportunity. I love this game. I want others to be able to enjoy it too. If they cant get the physical items or visit the cafes/shops, then atleast they should be able to enjoy the digital ones.

Also, the carbie plushes may be small but I still love it! I always wanted a carbie plushie and now I have two :O
The minion was an awesome inclusion but not the only reason why I bought it. The same goes for most of the merchandise I bought.
While Im lucky to have these things I wish my friends who cant get the merchandise could atleast have the digital stuff :<

[zosia]

I actually own the current Artbooks (The e-shop one and the one from HW collectors edition), I bought all the 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 collectorseditions, the 2 Plush carbies, the Kuplo Kopp plush, the delivery mog plush, all the OST's for XIV and I even bought some of the Japanese only equipment and furniture catalogs (which I really wish SE would sell on the other E-shops too). I also own many other final fantasy themed plushes (Cactaur, tonberry, theaterythym choco plush) and various items from FFXI's long and glorious run. I've been to Artnia and the Eorzea cafe (several times) but none of this was meant to impress you but rather let you know that despite having the money AND OPPORTUNITY to buy or do these things, many other players dont get the opportunity. I love this game. I want others to be able to enjoy it too. If they cant get the physical items, then atleast be able to enjoy the digital ones.

I don't want to spite people either, I just think making an argument that this would begood for SE financially is not as cut and dry as more cash shop minions = net gains in money." Perhaps in the short term, but in the long term, I am sure they will sell a little less physical merch with minion codes. For every plush sold with a minion, they probably make 3-4x more from selling that combo than selling the minion in the cash shop for $5 each.

Like I said before, they should put the minions back into the reruns of the OSTs and remove the exp date. I think it was dumb they were retired. If people can pay a sub, I am sure they can save a little money every month to buy the OST or artbook off of the SE store, ebay, import from japan, etc etc.

But the plushies are in very, very limited demand. Selling 1000 plush will get you a fair share of profits, but selling 10,000+ minions for $10 each will get you far more seeing as it's 100% profit after the initial (probably very minuscule) investment has been paid off. They could then sell both at the same time, I personally know plenty of people who'd buy it just for the plush.

Yes, but the net profit from the plushie-minion combo is larger than the $5 that is charged on the SE store per minion. If you look on the SE store page, a much larger moogle plush is $15 cheaper than the smaller delivery moogle plush. After taking the size/price difference into consideration, that delivery moogle minion is selling for $15-20.

The stats on the minion page show that store minions are at best, equal in percent ownership, but the merch minions have higher ownership %s with wind up bahamut being the most owned out of all cash shop and merch minions.

So, at the end of the day, they are selling similar numbers of both store and merch minions. They can sell minions with the merch and charge much more for both or they can dampen their merch sales to sell the minions on the cash shop.

[Jynx]

With the release of Lord of Verminion, I was thinking it would be a nice gesture to add the minions that are only available from the CD's, artbook's and plushies for purchase on the mog station.

Not a fan of this suggestion.

With the release of Lord of Verminion, I was thinking it would be a nice gesture to add the minions that are only available from the CD's, artbook's and plushies for purchase in the Gold Saucer.

Fan of this suggestion.

[Zofis]

The thing is though that there's *always* an opportunity to get these items (barring expired serial codes, of course), people just aren't looking hard enough. The items aren't exclusive to the Square Enix store(s) and can be inexpensively imported from various retailers, often times for less money than SE would charge themselves.

[Vespar]

snip

I understand that logic and while its nice to have minions paired with merchandise to make it more appealing, the fact of the matter is that it takes more time and effort to create and produce merchandise than it does to create and put up a digital item on the shop. The plushes have been on waiting lists for weeks to months on the E-stores and many players cant even buy from there even if they were in stock. So players who want to buy it are often forced to buy from resellers who charge more or buy from ebay scalpers where its not guaranteed that the digital item code is unused. But a digital item never goes out of stock (unless the producer decides to remove it) So theoretically even at $5 per minion they stand to make more money from its sale over time. With plushes and physical merchandise, if there are only 1000 copies, thats a finite amount the producer will make no matter what. You also have to take into account that a digital item can reach a much larger market in a short period of time, so it can be sold at a smaller price but make far more revenue purely because it reaches the hands of more consumers.

Also, dont put too much stock in that minion website. I dont think its entirely accurate because when the Apkallu minion first released, me and another player I know were among the first to obtain it, yet for weeks it never showed anyone on our server as owning it.

[zosia]

I understand that logic and while its nice to have minions paired with merchandise to make it more appealing, the fact of the matter is that it takes more time and effort to create and produce merchandise than it does to create and put up a digital item on the shop. The plushes have been on waiting lists for weeks to months on the E-stores and many players cant even buy from there even if they were in stock. So players who want to buy it are often forced to buy from resellers who charge more or ebay scalpers. But a digital item never goes out of stock (unless the producer decides to remove it) So theoretically even at $5 per minion they stand to make more money from its sale over time. With plushes and physical merchandise, if there are only 1000 copies, thats a finite amount the producer will make no matter what.

I imported both plushies for $5 more than what the SE store would have charged me. Just have to shop ebay for the "buy it now for $100 with free shipping" listings or import from a Japanese toy site. Again, there is not an unlimited amount of buyers for the cash shop pets. The stats show on the minion site that they are owned by less users than the merch pets. So, it's not like there would be this giant tide of players rushing to buy these minions. There is not a single exclusive cash shop minion owned by more than 3.6% of the population.

[Vespar]

Snip

I still dont trust that minion website you are referring to. Its numbers may not be accurate, but that is not the point of this thread anyways. I'm not trying to argue the sales side of things. The whole point of my original post was to give SE feedback on ways other players might be given the chance to fully enjoy upcoming content that would otherwise be denied them. I am merely imploring SE give folks other "fair" ways to buy these digital items that they can not get through SE's official channels due to them being out of stock or out of print. Since the digital codes for the minions included with merchandise did cost people money then it stands to reason that the digital codes should still cost others some kind of money too if they were to be sold digitally. Therefore it is fitting they be sold on the cash shop instead of being in game rewards.

Edit: This is why I dont trust that website --> http://i.imgur.com/b4mmj1X.png
It is not accurate and pretty much states such.
Source website: http://www.xiv-minions.com/statistics.php