When will you really address the housing availability problem?

[Rahzel]

Not to mention that there aren't that many house owners to make it a significant source of income.

Unless you're WoW, 92,160 subscribers is nothing to scoff at. Assuming all plots on all servers are taken, that's 60 plots x 8 wards x 3 residential districts x 64 servers (that's how many I counted on ARRstatus). That's roughly $1,381,478 a month (assuming all are one month recurring full subs without legacy status).

Of course, that's not accounting for Free Companies which can be owned by someone that also owns a personal house, and the fact that FC houses can be refreshed by any of its members. Still, even if we halved that amount, it's not so insignificant.

That said, it was a feature that should have been in place from the beginning, and while I'm sure keeping homeowners subscribing wasn't their primary reason for implementing it, I doubt the possibility of reclamation helping to retain subs didn't escape them either.

[Archaell]

...

I kinda assume that most of the houses are owned by free companies. But income is still income no arguing about that.

The question is how many players thinking about canceling their subs would stay subscribed just to keep their houses.

[BristolRuss]

I have to laugh that the 45 days you have to wait before any plots get freed up lands on Christmas Day. That is fantastic planning on their part. Screw spending time with your family and loved ones; gotta get up super early on Christmas Day to buy a virtual house before they sell out again XD

[Archaell]

I have to laugh that the 45 days you have to wait before any plots get freed up lands on Christmas Day. That is fantastic planning on their part. Screw spending time with your family and loved ones; gotta get up super early on Christmas Day to buy a virtual house before they sell out again XD

Only if you have enough monies

I still hope that I will be ready for the Ishgard housing, one can only hope.

[Gyson]

The question is how many players thinking about canceling their subs would stay subscribed just to keep their houses.

In other games people renew their subscriptions just to avoid periodic name wipes.

Heck, Square only guaranteed retaining your FFXI character data for up to 90 days after letting your subscription lapse. You don't think people kept resubscribing just to avoid that? Most people don't really know when they're gone for good and aren't willing to give everything away when they "leave".

[Rahzel]

I kinda assume that most of the houses are owned by free companies. But income is still income no arguing about that.

The question is how many players thinking about canceling their subs would stay subscribed just to keep their houses.

I figure (and probably inaccurately!) that somewhere between 1/4-1/3 of houses are individually owned. Just from casual observation, I'd say the majority of houses in the subdivisions (plots 31-60) on my server are owned by individuals.

Speaking as a someone who owns a house, I'd have to be 100% certain I would never return to the game ever again to at least not resub for one month and sell off my plot. And in my specific case, I probably would only sell my plot if I were certain I was never returning, because I have a really nice spot and would be devastated to lose it. This is obviously not as much of an issue on smaller servers, but I imagine it would be pretty effective on larger servers where real estate is worth exponentially more than the return on your house being reclaimed.

[Catwho]

If they stop people from buying gil, they would stop people from buying houses so quickly. I just can't believe a person with no crafting or gathering classes having enough money to buy a house is a believable thing.

A friend of mine did it with no crafts or gatherer jobs leveled. I loaned her 3.5 million gil out of my own stash so she could afford the relinquish fee and purchase cost from the server. She paid me back over the course of a month in 500K chunks by farming wyvern skins and wings when HW first came out. They were selling for 2-5K each at the time. A few hours farming to a stack of 99 would get her a "mortgage payment."

I paid for my own house outright on a server purchase - I got it from sheer dumb luck because the last member of a FC transferred to another server or deleted his character or something. Boom, house destroyed. 4 million gil raw from the server. But I had all 50 crafts at the time.

[Catwho]

In other games people renew their subscriptions just to avoid periodic name wipes.

Heck, Square only guaranteed retaining your FFXI character data for up to 90 days after letting your subscription lapse. You don't think people kept resubscribing just to avoid that? Most people don't really know when they're gone for good and aren't willing to give everything away when they "leave".

At the time large archival storage was expensive. As it became cheaper, they started offloading character data onto permanent backups, and later on they offered a character retrieval service where they'd dig up an old archived character during certain times of the year. I think they rejiggered it a few years ago to be available automatically year round, because permanent character storage got so much cheaper.

[Colorful]

snip.

Of course they're interested in retaining players, but I also believe the players leaving couldn't care less about their house to the point that they'd force themselves to pay $15 a month for a virtual house. I do find it funny how people throwing out that idea are the same ones who still play, and care for the game, of course you're going to think of it like that. The 45 day period is using data from SE, if a player has left for 45 days it's likely they either never come back, or come back much later. Tell me, which is more important, satisfying current customers by freeing up plots, or holding it for players that aren't paying because "I might come back in a year, maybe, so I'll keep hitting this renew button until I do come back, if I do"?

[Gyson]

Of course they're interested in retaining players, but I also believe the players leaving couldn't care less about their house to the point that they'd force themselves to pay $15 a month for a virtual house. I do find it funny how people throwing out that idea are the same ones who still play, and care for the game, of course you're going to think of it like that.

I've mentioned this a few times now, but whenever an MMO is doing a sweep to reclaim character names from players who haven't logged in for a significant period of time, said company sends out emails (usually more than one) warning all their old customers about the upcoming name-wipe. They go through the trouble of doing that because it works in bringing people back - it's another chance at grabbing a subscription/microtransaction fees and an opportunity to show them what's changed since their departure.

It's been said here many times, but (again) many people who leave an MMO for extended periods don't always know with 100% certainty if they'll never be coming back. If they knew they were absolutely never coming back they'd probably give away all their stuff and delete their characters - most don't do that when they "leave".

As long as that chance of returning exists in their minds, they do make at least a minimal effort to make sure there's an intact character to return to. If that means logging in for a minute every few months to keep their data safe, then, yes.. players absolutely do that. Many will rationalize the occasional subscription fee as long-term data storage. It's only when they are 100% convinced that they'll never return that they stop watching over their old digital assets - and eventually it gets to that point but for most it's not when they first "leave" the game.

One of the reasons SE is going through the trouble of sending *multiple* warning emails to departed home-owners is because they know each one of those emails digs further and further under the skin of an inactive player. "Your house is going to be deleted.. return soon!", "Your house is days away from being deleted, don't let it slip away!", "Your house is scheduled for demolition tomorrow.. log in now to save it!" - while I don't know what the actual emails will say, you can be certain they will not be simple notifications and will instead be aimed at placing a measure of fear in the inactive player.

The 45 day period is using data from SE, if a player has left for 45 days it's likely they either never come back, or come back much later. Tell me, which is more important, satisfying current customers by freeing up plots, or holding it for players that aren't paying because "I might come back in a year, maybe, so I'll keep hitting this renew button until I do come back, if I do"?

To a business, bringing lost customer revenue back is always going to be prioritized over and preferable to providing a virtual location for existing customers to play house. There should be zero doubts in your mind about that. I can tell you what those warning emails are absolutely not going to say:

"Hi! As housing space is in short supply, in 45 days we'll be reclaiming the property you used during your time with us in FFXIV, so that it may be instead available to an active player in need of a home. In order to help provide our current active customers with as many homes as possible, we encourage you to avoid entering your FFXIV house in the next 45 days until this process has completed. We appreciate your cooperation in this matter, and thank you for your understanding!"

Pretty sure they'll be aimed more at retaining the absent player and less at encouraging them to help active players get a new home. Anyone have an actual example of the emails we can look over?