Lightning Returns Again (Thank you Square)

[Ayuhra]

FFXIV's cash shop is fine in my opinion. It's unobtrusive, some things on it were obtainable for free if you were there at the time and that's fair. If the company is underfunded and gets extra funding from the cash shop that money goes into the game first to make the game more self sustaining. It helps keep servers running. Windfall doesn't land in the pockets of the dev team to give them new cars, that's not how these things usually work in this kind of situation.

I can't help but wonder if the WoW cash shop has soured everyone towards cash shops in MMOs in general. THAT cash shop is indeed exploitative and most cool things like pets and mounts showcased by Blizzard go there instead of into the game (that the recent moose mount was an in game reward blew people's minds). There is a button so you can use the cash shop IN GAME and not have to log out or minimize. Mounts that were clearly supposed to be faction rewards in Warlords went there instead. You can buy a boost to the level cap to avoid leveling. I have little doubt that Activision played a role there. Activision is money-grabbing and not at all underfunded, they might be one of the most lucrative producers in the industry. Bobby "IP Killer" Kotick is always boasting about the money Activision makes and has said he doesn't even like games. Not everyone who has a company that uses a cash shop is Bobby Kotick.

One of my favorite cash shops is the one for Elder Scrolls Online but that one is built around the idea of the optional sub fee.