Compromise: Just Charge $5 For Now. Once 2.0 is Out, Then Charge $12

[Alerith]

But there is another problem inherent with this logic, we are assuming that SE is a competent company, what please do tell me what has given any signs that they are in the past 10 years.

they have multiple games that have sold well last and this year, they have manga, they have FFXI, they sold 6mil copies of FFXIII(tho i hated it i still bought it).

Contradicting yourself here, but I'll work past it for the moment.

SE is a competent company. Just because you don't like everything they've ever produced doesn't mean they haven't made billions on what they have made. I like VIII, X, XI, XII, not so much on XIII but it was playable.

The number crunchers don't get paid to play the game beforehand. They get paid to give the insight on how the figures project. They aren't game testers, they are paid to play, they do math. They would not have known that the game was going to flop on content.

Sure as a company SE wants money nothing wrong with that, but stop acting and pretending like if they don't charge or charge less, SE will go bankrupt.

I never, at any point or in any thread, said that SE would go bankrupt. I have said that XIV needs to start standing on it's own. Learn2read

[Starlord]

Jesus lord have Mercy... every 2 secs, this is always on the top of the Forums.. I barely see it Grayed out :/

[Mireille]

I'd pay full price. I personally think the game is 25% right now not 50%, but I like the direction things have gone in so far. XIV v2 seems like good roadmap if they can actually pull off some of the radical stuff like worldless servers without my having to have XX at the start of my name because someone else has that name on another server.

[Scherwiz]

620K Players who left the game disagree with you, and so do the other players that if FFXIV had actually delivered on its promise of being a casual friendlier game than FFXI would have given it a Shot.

Just so you know SE is a company, a company likes money, the more of it in fact the better, i think everybody would agree that they are more interested in getting those 620K that left, than becoming again owners of a niche MMO, i mean is simple mathematics, 620K > 30K any day all day.

You give me headaches I can't even describe, this selfish attitude of yours is a huge problem. I want content like WoW and LOTRO, but I refuse to accept that XI like content should be ignored. I do not know who quit this game, but I do know that a good portion of them were Final Fantasy XI players, good friends that I do want to play with again, stop trying to alienate them.

[AmyRae]

Compare it to Rift then, it wont change the results. Facts are Facts. SE made a blunder releasing the game to get a jump on cataclysm, it backfired, i bet they dint expect the backlash to be what it was a year ago, after all people like us, buy anything that just says Final Fantasy. Then they had a choice, take the game down and rebuild it(2.0) or Milk it. they chose to milk it, nothing wrong with that, again i'm not advocating that you or anybody should pay or not pay, i'm simply stating that the game currently is not on par with any game on the market, so to say is 100% or near 100% is just silly, when you compare the facts.

My answer doesn't really change if you compare it to Rift. You could compare FFXIV to UO if you want.

The fact is, FFXIV had to rework its foundation to its core and maintain two versions of itself while doing so. Those other games could just build on their success as is. FFXIV had to go back to the drawing board and change all the fundamentals around (the combat, the maps, the interface, the graphics engine, the features, the level progression, the economy, all the basics!). So of course it's not going to have the same amount of content a perfectly functioning MMO would have. It would be an impressive feat if it could.

So, no, you're not paying for a glorious amount of raid dungeons and bosses. If you're going to pay for a subscription, then you're paying to catch the storyline of how the world ends, previewing some of the 2.0 content firsthand, and maybe you'll get some nifty I-was-there items as a result (stuff you won't be able to get once 2.0 starts). And you're right to think that's not at the level of what you could get with a year's worth of content from a functioning MMO that didn't have to rewrite itself twice. I'm certainly not pretending it is.

If you value what they can offer, then stick around for it. Otherwise, don't.

[Huy]

10,000 (Playerbase) x $12 x 12 (months) = $1,440,000 (maximum profit can achieve)
10,000 (Playerbase) x $7 x 12 = $840,000 (minimum profit can achieve)

5000 (playerbase) x 12 x 2 (Dec - Feb) = $120,000 (50% drop in playerbase due to pay to play at $12/month)
6000 x 12 x 2 (Feb - April) = $144000 (Patch 1.21 regain another 1000 playerbase)
7000 x 12 x 2 (April - June) = 168000 (Patch 1.22 regain another 1000 playerbase)
8000 x 12 x 2 (June - Aug) = 192000 (Patch 1.23 regain another 1000 playerbase)
9000 x 12 x 2 (Aug - oct) = 216000 (Patch 1.24 regain another 1000 playerbase)
10000 x 12 x 2 (Oct - Dec) = 240000 (patch 1.25 regain another 1000 playerbase)

Total after 12 months @ $12 with 1000 playerbase increase / 2 months / patch, our profit are 1,080,000

[Wynn]

Let's all stop doing the math thing since none of us knows what we are talking about. Leave that to the professionals on retainer at SE.

[Tyrr]

What happens IF 2.0 is a failure? Charging full price atm may not be a good idea until 2.0 proves itself. The game that we are playing right now is not the exact game we will be playing post 2.0. I understand that SE would like to see something for what they have done so far but I feel it isn't at full price level yet. At the moment, 2.0 is just a bunch of pretty pictures. SE stands to lose alot more support by charging full sub at the moment and 2.0 fails. $5-$7 is fair for what the game is at this time. We may have played for free for a year, but SE got thousands of testers and feedback at the same time.

[Akira_Tenshi]

The problem with charging less now and more later is that people will complain when they increase the price creating more negative attention for the game and Square really don't need that when they are trying to relaunch the game.

[Bearforce]

The problem with charging less now and more later is that people will complain when they increase the price creating more negative attention for the game and Square really don't need that when they are trying to relaunch the game.

how do you know this? do you by any chance work with SE? if so how much money are you getting by posting in these forums?