Fanfest 2016 - Not worth the price

[Gramul]

They are under no obligation to stream the event at all. [...]

Perhaps not, but it's not very smart to keep news about your game or franchise hidden away where only the most affluent can hear it. That defeats the point.

It costs SE a lot of money to run those fan fests they need to charge something to make up for all the money they spend flying out all their staff creating an event renting out the hotel ect.

I find that difficult to believe that as so very many other companies and conventions can do it without such a side charge. And let's not forget the overall size and scope of Square. They're a multi-billion dollar company with revenue from all over. I find it very hard to believe they need to charge people for this. They're doing it because they can. They're hardly helpless.

[Greedalox]

This thread has clearly devolved into thinly veiled shots at each other xD

[Gramul]

Look at Blizzard who is a larger company then SE they charge $40 for their convention stream. There are very few companies that hold conventions for their games, but most of them do charge money to watch it. $30 for the FFXIV fanfest stream seems like a good price to me.

Well firstly, Blizzard's revenue is half that of Square's, and secondly, Blizzard is infamous for nickel and dimeing over everything it can.

I flatly refuse to believe the whole "poor company" argument for any company as large as them.

[Airget]

Lore Panel, special Q/A panel, piano concert, pvp panel, Development panel, costume contest and The Primals concert. Those are all the things you can't see unless you watched them through illegal means. Truth is ya, if you were getting the stream for the expansion news only, you wasted your money because word of mouth would pass fast for that. However, if you got the ticket for all the above, then you got your moneys worth.

[Zumi]

Lore Panel, special Q/A panel, piano concert, pvp panel, Development panel, costume contest and The Primals concert. Those are all the things you can't see unless you watched them through illegal means. Truth is ya, if you were getting the stream for the expansion news only, you wasted your money because word of mouth would pass fast for that. However, if you got the ticket for all the above, then you got your moneys worth.

I got to say the costume contest, dev panel and Primals were great.

[Iromi]

I think it would have been more beneficial if they made it free. A lot more people would know more info about the expansion and perhaps be interested. I guess they are going to do that more and more as the expansion gets closer anyway tho...

Personally, I thought the stream was okay, but kinda a let down. No big announcements or anything that made me get super excited..just obvious stuff haha ^^

[ToniRomo]

I don't regret buying it, but I will probably avoid buying it next time. The concerts were neat. I feel they should have revealed a bit more. Most of the keynote was stuff we already knew. We know there will be new jobs, dungeons, raids and maybe a new race. Toss us one of those instead of saying "we need to save this for Tokyo".

[myahele]

I thought each fanfest cost roughly $1 million?

[ErikMynhier]

I feel I'm not making myself clear.

No you are being clear, I simply disagree with you, respectfully. The money that went into the event and the stream itself was no small amount. Such events and streams of them are expensive, and I doubt we would see them if SE didn't think they could make a profit. And since we all agree that there were enough people who paid to see it, then logically, if there are enough to warrant such a stream, then for the people who did not find it wasted, the price was not a deal breaker.

I refer to my PPV sporting event example. I'm not saying you are straight wrong, supply and demand after all is what it is, I just feel the fact there are enough willing to get it means there is demand and willingness to pay. As a for profit company SE would be stupid to leave the money on the table. One day they will over reach, but as long as those of us who pay want to pay, thats capitalism. It is what it is.

[Celef]

The thing that bother me with a 30$ stream (price of course but if people wish to pay, so be it) is that you could actually watch it for free at the same time on some plateforms where people were broadcasting it live :/
So you pay for it, knowing that tones of people will get acces to it for free, not very "nice" to me from $E :/