I'll pay anything for this Chocobo Barding

[bswpayton]

what exactly is the whole issue with a cash shop im not following jsut curious if someone could explain

[Masekase_Hurricane]

what exactly is the whole issue with a cash shop im not following jsut curious if someone could explain

Players don't have issue with cash shop. People have issues when someone asks for an item to be added on cash shop instead of in game. Either that or they say please add this to game or cash shop and I will pay X. Which is just the same, throw money at SE and they will go for the money option.

[Jandor]

what exactly is the whole issue with a cash shop im not following jsut curious if someone could explain

We get charged for the base game.
We get charged for the expansions.
We get charged every month to access the game.
All those things already make the game very profitable.

Asking for more money after that just seems nakedly greedy.

[Lambdafish]

snip

The cash shop did actually help us. I don't have a source for what I'm about to tell you, but this is something that Yoshi P told us: The EU datacenter was made possible thanks to the additional funds made by the cash shop. It is still stingy practice for SE to give the dev team such a small budget, but the funds gained from that allowed us to get these great features.

On top of this (purely my own speculation), the cash shop funds showed SE how viable XIV is financially, which is necessary after 1.0 was a financial disaster, and as such, stormblood got triple the budget of Heavensward because SE had confidence that it would make a good return (in part thanks to the cash shop).

I'm not advocating the cash shop, and I am definately not advocating people asking for things to be added to the cash shop (because that definately damages the game), but saying that it is entirely for greed and we get nothing from the funds is plain misinformation.

[Jandor]

The cash shop did actually help us. I don't have a source for what I'm about to tell you, but I this is something that Yoshi P told us: The EU datacenter was made possible thanks to the additional funds made by the cash shop. It is still stingy practice for SE to give the dev team such a small budget, but the funds gained from that allowed us to get these great features.

The EU datacentre wasn't made possible by the additional funds, it was always possible.
I can accept that maybe SE denied the dev teams request for an EU datacentre until they had extra cash shop money, but saying the extra funds are what made it possible is plain misinformation. This game has always made enough to justify servers located in one of the wealthiest regions of the planet, but they could get away with not doing so, so they didn't. Greed basically.

On top of this (purely my own speculation), the cash shop funds showed SE how viable XIV is financially, which is necessary after 1.0 was a financial disaster, and as such, stormblood got triple the budget of Heavensward because SE had confidence that it would make a good return (in part thanks to the cash shop).

FFXIV 2.0 onward has always been financially viable. Turning the company from loss making to profit making pretty much on its own showed them that.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news...-Profit-Margin Square Enix's Final Fantasy XIV Saves Its Profit Margin
http://uk.ign.com/articles/2014/02/0...-14-as-saviour Square Enix Financials Cast Final Fantasy 14 as Saviour
http://www.hardcoregamer.com/2014/02...ancials/73217/ Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn Saves Square Enix Financials

"Where previously it had expected a loss of ¥2 billion, it's now looking forward to a profit of ¥4.7 billion ($47.6 million)"

"Compared with the period last year, whilst sales remained flat at 102.5bn yen this year compared to 102.8 bn yen last year, net income shifted drastically from a loss of 5.7bn yen in 2012 to a profit of 5.2bn yen in 2013. Operating income also moved from a loss of 4.9bn yen to a profit of 7.8bn yen."

And the expansion pack. (Harder to find info, company keeps making money isn't an exciting headline.)
http://massivelyop.com/2016/02/04/sq...l-fantasy-xiv/ Square-Enix’s 2015 sales and profits were up, thanks in part to Final Fantasy XIV

“The company attributed its success to multiple franchises and console launches. MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV is named twice as a strong performer."

[Lambdafish]

snip

Congrats, you found out that the game is successful, and is making lots of money. The cash shop isn't actually affecting anything, only generating part of the profit that you listed (how much of it, we don't know). The knock on effect is SE likes XIV even more, and wants to invest more into it (which was my point), which is why your point about us getting nothing good from the cash shop is wrong.

Also "The EU datacentre wasn't made possible by the additional funds, it was always possible." is wrong. We didn't get an EU datacenter initially because they did not have the resources to implement it. The devs explained what the funds go towards in the opening keynotes of EUfanfest 2014, and unless the devs are flat out lying then this means that the cash shop has indeed helped bring us more content and infrastructure improvements. (Source https://youtu.be/nQ4ywkIbSFk?t=691)

Anyway, I don't want this to turn into a pro/con mogstation debate because I'm against the cash shop too, I'm just saying that there are pros to its existence that should not be ignored.

[Jandor]

Congrats, you found out that the game is successful, and is making lots of money. The cash shop isn't actually affecting anything, only generating part of the profit that you listed (how much of it, we don't know). The knock on effect is SE likes XIV even more, and wants to invest more into it (which was my point), which is why your point about us getting nothing good from the cash shop is wrong.

I don't care what exact percentage of the profit is generated by the cash shop, it's irrelevant. Most of those links are from before it was implemented. It was raking in enough cash to turn around the fortunes of the company before it was implemented.

& cash shops always affect things. Sleipnir would be a drop from Odin if the cash shop didn't exist, I am 100% confident of that.

Also "The EU datacentre wasn't made possible by the additional funds, it was always possible." is wrong. We didn't get an EU datacenter initially because they did not have the resources to implement it. The devs explained what the funds go towards in the opening keynotes of EUfanfest 2014, and unless the devs are flat out lying then this means that the cash shop has indeed helped bring us more content and infrastructure improvements. (Source https://youtu.be/nQ4ywkIbSFk?t=691)

They're not flat out lying, but they're twisting the truth a bit. They say the profits can be put back into items, vanity, housing, etc. which is true except the game was hugely profitable before optional items, those profits could have been used for the exact same things. Absolutely no reason why that money couldn't have been put back into the game other than that every penny invested back in the game is a penny those in charge don't get to have right now.

E: I don't want to accuse the dev team of being assholes btw, but if the people counting the money said "say *this* or we'll have to think about getting someone who will" to me...

[Alberel]

Congrats, you found out that the game is successful, and is making lots of money. The cash shop isn't actually affecting anything, only generating part of the profit that you listed (how much of it, we don't know). The knock on effect is SE likes XIV even more, and wants to invest more into it (which was my point), which is why your point about us getting nothing good from the cash shop is wrong.

Also "The EU datacentre wasn't made possible by the additional funds, it was always possible." is wrong. We didn't get an EU datacenter initially because they did not have the resources to implement it. The devs explained what the funds go towards in the opening keynotes of EUfanfest 2014, and unless the devs are flat out lying then this means that the cash shop has indeed helped bring us more content and infrastructure improvements. (Source https://youtu.be/nQ4ywkIbSFk?t=691)

Anyway, I don't want this to turn into a pro/con mogstation debate because I'm against the cash shop too, I'm just saying that there are pros to its existence that should not be ignored.

I'd like to make a distinction between the actual company 'SquareEnix' and Yoshi's team that is developing FFXIV.

Yoshi's team did not have the resources to give us an EU datacentre, but SE, the company, most certainly did. The cash shop did not directly fund the EU datacentre because all money the game makes does not go to Yoshi's team; it goes to the company as a whole. What actually happened was the execs forced Yoshi to implement a cash shop before they would give his team extra funding. In other words, Yoshi wasn't lying, but it was still ultimately just the greed from the money men at SE that required the cash shop in exchange for the EU datacentre.

[Zigabar]

What actually happened was the execs forced Yoshi to implement a cash shop before they would give his team extra funding. In other words, Yoshi wasn't lying, but it was still ultimately just the greed from the money men at SE that required the cash shop in exchange for the EU datacentre.

Source?

On topic, I'd like the barding, but I advocate to have it put directly into the game first.

[Lambdafish]

I'd like to make a distinction between the actual company 'SquareEnix' and Yoshi's team that is developing FFXIV.

To everyone screaming source, Alberel is right, this is how big publishers work (source: 4 years of study on games industry practice, plus background reading). The problem is that we can't look at SE the publisher and say "OMG so greedy" because they are so far in the background that our forum voices don't reach, also... is it a surprise to anyone these days that publishers care more about the cash flow than the quality of the product? But anyway... What happens whenever people whine about the cash shop is that yoshi Ps team gets the brunt of the backlash, when they are in fact the ones trying to make good of it.

I'll clarify my original points to expand on this distinction:

- The budget given to yoshi Ps team was not enough to implement the EU datacenter (because evidently the accountants at SE HQ said that the budget given was viable enough to create the product and justify a return, whether or not it allowed everything within the games scope, which is fair enough, that's how business works)
- The cash shop is implemented because SE does that (see deus ex: mankind evolved), again, nothing that us tiny xiv forum dwellers can do about that.
- Yoshi P assures the community that the funds will go back into the game, which at the time was a necessary move for his team to meet the scope that they wanted.

If you look at it this way, the cash shop is a resource that Yoshi Ps team use to allow them to create the game that they truly want to deliver to us. By berating that here undermines the lengths that they go to give us the best experience that they are allowed to, and apparently have done with the EU datacenter and server improvements.

Having said all that, this becomes a less viable positive with the increased budget in 4.0, but we have no idea what will happen in the future, it's just something to think about moving forward.


Edit - I'll say it again just in case: despite what I say above, I am wholly against the cash shop.