I'll pay anything for this Chocobo Barding

[Bourne_Endeavor]

You explained why it's good for SE, but not really why it's good for me or any other customer.
I know they can run the game perfectly well without the cash shop, they did it before.

We're not here for Squares benefit, they're here for ours.

Unfortunately, that is just how business works. Game costs have risen exponentially over the years. Companies aren't just going to eat those losses. Thus, it falls back to the consumer. If they didn't introduce DLC or cash shops, the price of games would go from $60 to $100+ (Capcom even hinted they've wanted to do that for years but fear the backlash). The way I see it, at least we have a choice to opt out of paying additional costs while those who do want vanity items can spend their money as they please. Could they run the game without a cash shop? Sure, but they'd be stupid to do so when people will pay for vanity. People need to accept DLC and cash shops aren't going away. Every single publisher does it nowadays and no amount of complaining will change that. If people want to spend their money on stuff like Sleipnir, leave them be. Granted, I wouldn't touch what the OP wants for that price.

The one positive though, is the more profit FFXIV reels in, the more incentive Square has to funnel money back into it. Stormblood likely wouldn't have triple the budget if no one bought cash shop items. So if you haven't. You get to reap those benefits without having paid any extra for them.

[Felis]

Stormblood likely wouldn't have triple the budget if no one bought cash shop items.

CS money went into EU datacentre, inventory expansion and FF XV

[Bourne_Endeavor]

CS money went into EU datacentre, inventory expansion and FF XV

And when are we getting that expansion?

They've earned plenty more since the EU datacenter. Regardless, my point was if FFXIV weren't reeling in the money it does-- cash shop and all. Square doesn't have any incentive to upscale the budget. And we have no idea how much went towards FFXV.

[Shiki_Lockhart]

That's resemble the legacy chocobo so I doubt you will get it.

[Kling-Klang]

Is this a joke?

[Niqote]

Is this a joke?

I'm 67.4% sure this is a joke

[ReplicaX]

That's resemble the legacy chocobo so I doubt you will get it.

It is the Legacy Chocobo skin, so yes likely won't happen.

[SessionZero]

Less fancy barding for my birb would be nice, yeah, but let's let them add it as a craftable item or a GC reward before we go throwing real money at them. Especially for something like this.

[Kosmos992k]

Are whales really that bad for the game? Serious question.

No, so long as the items that the whales are buying are simply fluff. If it's just premium fluff, then the whales can continue cross subsidizing the game for as long as they have the $$ and it will be good for everyone. Additionally, so long as the whales revenue stream is a fraction of the subscription (including retainers) revenue, the existence of the shop and whales should not be a problem either.

[Kosmos992k]

You explained why it's good for SE, but not really why it's good for me or any other customer. We're not here for Squares benefit, they're here for ours.

I know they can run the game perfectly well without the cash shop, they did it before.

You're wrong, and SE recently demonstrated why, the much larger budget for StormBlood vs Heavensward is a good illustration that FFXIV in total is a solid revenue stream for SE, and they can afford to put the money back into the game. More $$ for premium fluff in the shop equals more $$ for development and servers. I'm not seeing anything but a benefit to the players and SE here.