Is our sub fee not enought

[Kaurie]

I couldn't find the statement online after an admittedly cursory search, but I seem to recall somewhere that even Blizzard has stated that without revenue from their cash shop, they would have been forced to raise subscription fees to combat increased technology costs and inflated developer salaries. Customer response to that was overwhelmingly negative, so they took the "optional but costs more at the individual level" approach instead.

Basically, development costs for MMOs have gone up substantially in the past ten years and yet player willingness to spend more than $15 a month has remained very inelastic. For what it's worth, I'd rather pay a higher sub fee, but given the omnipresence of quick-and-dirty freemium games that don't require an initial investment to start up, it seems I'm in the minority.

I think it's important to note that game developers in the US make a bit (27% more in 2010) more than game developers in Japan. The rates in the USA have jumped from 79k to 83k from 2010 to 2014.

I think that Square would benefit well from something similar to the WoW Token - $20 USD to buy a month of game time that you can sell for in-game gil. People who have more money and want gil buy it, others who want to farm gil and less real life money buy it. Everyone's happy. Square Enix gets more money to boot.

Sources:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/1...rage_57590.php