Stop Making Should-Be Achievement Gear.."Optional Gear"

[Alleo]

They tripled FF14's budget for SB. For that to happen, the development teams had sufficient financial data to convince the corporate side of things that the investment was worth it. We are getting a lot system wise. I seriously doubt FF14's sub numbers have increased to the point that would justify it otherwise. Upgrades and moves like that aren't cheap and they are on top of the usual development costs.

This is the reality. If we want more for FF14, the games earnings have to be high enough to justify it. That means either A) a lot more players, B) a higher sub fee or C) additional revenue streams.

But doesnt that mean that the game itself is not running that well if it needs cash shop on top of the sub to get a bigger budget or to get new servers? I mean isnt that kinda scary? What if people will stop buying things from the cash shop? Will we never ever get an server upgrade again? Will we get less content in the expansion after SB if the cash shop is worse than now? A subscription MMO needing the cash shop to survive would imo mean that they dont have enough sub numbers..which would mean that it would be not profitable if they will stop putting things in the cash shop..more and more things in the cash shop could also at the same time mean that sub numbers will drop -> need more items in the cash shop to make up for this.

SE is a really big company and FF14 1.0 really went bad thus I can imagine that SE itself did not want to give the devs a really nice budget to work with..just in case that ARR and HW would be a failure too. I just believe that they finally are believing that this game will do good and are reinvesting the money into it. I also cant see how a budget can be tripled just by cash shop. That would be one hell of sold items.

I really don't think you should be comparing Wildstar to FFXIV here. FFXIV has proven itself to be much more successful. Why would you want a successful MMO to emulate a comparatively unsuccessful one?

So somehow a MMO that is less successful than FF14 still manages their needed cash shop customer friendlier than FF14? Doesnt that just show that maybe just maybe FF14 does not need a cash shop or at least not one with such prices and could still function quite well?

[Talraen]

But doesnt that mean that the game itself is not running that well if it needs cash shop on top of the sub to get a bigger budget or to get new servers? I mean isnt that kinda scary? What if people will stop buying things from the cash shop? Will we never ever get an server upgrade again? Will we get less content in the expansion after SB if the cash shop is worse than now? A subscription MMO needing the cash shop to survive would imo mean that they dont have enough sub numbers..which would mean that it would be not profitable if they will stop putting things in the cash shop..more and more things in the cash shop could also at the same time mean that sub numbers will drop -> need more items in the cash shop to make up for this.

SE is a really big company and FF14 1.0 really went bad thus I can imagine that SE itself did not want to give the devs a really nice budget to work with..just in case that ARR and HW would be a failure too. I just believe that they finally are believing that this game will do good and are reinvesting the money into it. I also cant see how a budget can be tripled just by cash shop. That would be one hell of sold items.

Look at it this way: if FFXIV "needs" the cash shop to survive, what that means is that the cash shop is keeping subscription prices down. It also means that if the cash shop were to fail in the way you describe, they would either tighten the budget on the game, or raise sub prices. In which case the cash shop is saving money for anyone who doesn't buy anything from it.

I think we all focus way too much on exactly what money comes from where and goes to where. The bottom line is, if FFXIV makes more money (however they do it), they are likely to spend more money on it, and vice-versa.

So somehow a MMO that is less successful than FF14 still manages their needed cash shop customer friendlier than FF14? Doesnt that just show that maybe just maybe FF14 does not need a cash shop or at least not one with such prices and could still function quite well?

No. It doesn't necessary mean anything, but it somewhat implies that FFXIV's model makes them more money than Wildstar's does. While I don't think it's entirely fair to draw that conclusion, I have no idea how one would draw the opposite conclusion. Can you explain?

[Alleo]

No. It doesn't necessary mean anything, but it somewhat implies that FFXIV's model makes them more money than Wildstar's does. While I don't think it's entirely fair to draw that conclusion, I have no idea how one would draw the opposite conclusion. Can you explain?

Well Wildstars is not that successful as FF14 thus they have less people playing it. But at the same time they are able to have no sub, you can earn the currency to buy things from their cash shop and yet somehow they can still survive and create new content. (I dont play the game so I cant say how good or bad the content is but that is subjective anyway)

So what I am saying is: Somehow people say that FF14 needs the cash shop to survive because the costs are so high (which we dont know) and are otherwise not able to buy these things like the EU and NA servers, yet we have to pay a sub, buy each new expansion at a high price and on top of that the cash shop is priced quite high too. If wildstar somehow manages to survive on their model with less people playing their game, shouldnt FF14 do so too with their subscription model alone?

For me they dont truly need the cash shop to produce content for the game but are using it to make even more money. I know that they are a company and that the main goal is to earn more money...but as a customer its kinda getting more and more greedy, especially since the prices are quite high too imo. I am just kinda surprised how many people look at this with eyes of a business, like being part of SE and not as a customer.

In the end its true that none of us knows why they do the things they do and if its necessary or just for milking. I just find it interesting that other MMOs with less numbers can still survive with a way much nicer cash shop. If we were F2P I would not complain about it because I know that the company needs the money from the items to manage the game. I just find it a little sad that we somehow now ended with a F2P cash shop while having to pay sub + buy the games.

Maybe people will not quit now (which we dont know since not everyone goes to the forum when they plan to leave the game and say why) but I just fear what the future will bring. And if SE will cross the line for too many people..well it will be too late to change it. Its probably already hard to get new players in a marked that has so many other games as a competition and on top of that has a subscription model (which was something that kept me from playing Wow as an example). And if they put more and more things into the cash shop with such prices they might just scare away interested players that are already not sure if they want to start it thanks to the sub. At the same time some cash shop and other decisions might chase away some of your veteran players. This could lead to a very bad situation. This might be doomsday talk for some and I really hope that it will never happen.

[Also I dont hate anyone that are buying from it. I mean I own some of the items too. But the development of the shop over the last few months is really not that comfortable for me thats why I am discussing this so intensely. Because in the end, only those that still at least care a bit about the game will take their time to write in the forum.]

[Talraen]

Well Wildstars is not that successful as FF14 thus they have less people playing it. But at the same time they are able to have no sub, you can earn the currency to buy things from their cash shop and yet somehow they can still survive and create new content. (I dont play the game so I cant say how good or bad the content is but that is subjective anyway)

So what I am saying is: Somehow people say that FF14 needs the cash shop to survive because the costs are so high (which we dont know) and are otherwise not able to buy these things like the EU and NA servers, yet we have to pay a sub, buy each new expansion at a high price and on top of that the cash shop is priced quite high too. If wildstar somehow manages to survive on their model with less people playing their game, shouldnt FF14 do so too with their subscription model alone?

I'm confused. Wildstar is free-to-play, which means it's entirely supported by cash shop purchases and premium subscription plans. How does that imply that FFXIV could work on a subscription without a cash shop? That's exactly the opposite model.

[DaikiKiyoshi]

So somehow a MMO that is less successful than FF14 still manages their needed cash shop customer friendlier than FF14? Doesnt that just show that maybe just maybe FF14 does not need a cash shop or at least not one with such prices and could still function quite well?

I think the fact that Wildstar has a more consumer friendly cash shop model becomes irrelevant in the face of their lack of success in comparison to FFXIV. FFXIV's model has been proven to work, there's just a few people who get unhappy because they don't like it for a multitude of reasons. But even people who don't like it still support it and buy the stuff.


As far as Wildstars cash shop being more consumer friendly than FFXIV's showing that FFXIV doesn't even need a cash shop or doesn't need such high prices, I don't think that is a conclusion any of us are qualified to make. Unless you work for SE and know their financial status you don't know what they need and don't need in terms of revenue sources.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

But doesnt that mean that the game itself is not running that well if it needs cash shop on top of the sub to get a bigger budget or to get new servers? I mean isnt that kinda scary? What if people will stop buying things from the cash shop? Will we never ever get an server upgrade again? Will we get less content in the expansion after SB if the cash shop is worse than now? A subscription MMO needing the cash shop to survive would imo mean that they dont have enough sub numbers..which would mean that it would be not profitable if they will stop putting things in the cash shop..more and more things in the cash shop could also at the same time mean that sub numbers will drop -> need more items in the cash shop to make up for this.

SE is a really big company and FF14 1.0 really went bad thus I can imagine that SE itself did not want to give the devs a really nice budget to work with..just in case that ARR and HW would be a failure too. I just believe that they finally are believing that this game will do good and are reinvesting the money into it. I also cant see how a budget can be tripled just by cash shop. That would be one hell of sold items.

The cash shop isn't necessary, it simply allows for another profitable avenue the game can take advantage of. I suspect they utilize it as a guaranteed source of income while sub fees are allocated throughout the company as project priority dictates. This is why we hear of things like it paying for the EU datacenter.

You later mention increasing our sub by a $1 to offset abandoning the cash shop model entirely. If we only include non-event mounts (so omitting the Witch Broom), the total cost for every mount currently is $102. A single dollar addition per month wouldn't come close to making up the difference. You're looking at closer to the $5 example. This is why publishers adopted micro-transactions over raising prices. Most people are willing to accept optional purchases. I wager the backlash to suddenly being charged $18-20 would be significantly larger than any ire towards the cash shop.