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

[AmyRae]

Until you went once again with the shoehorned debate jargon, now I'm even more disappointed - unless you have an example of these alleged ad hominems.



They're based on his hopes for the game, not what the game absolutely is or will be. You can't just state things like "Version 2.0 will make the PS3 version a success with critical acclaim" as if it is fact. They're working on fixing currently-known issues. It's not a guarantee that suddenly everyone will love it.



Because one site had a poll in which, mind you, no one said they absolutely would not pay? It said they were "against" the payment. Again, at the very least, you should be requesting an official poll to really show SE what price would yield the most revenue for them instead of just saying they should drop their price because one poll said it would make people happy.

And once again, if you think that SE should base their fee on what would yield the most revenue, why do you think it's so reasonable to charge full price once 2.0 comes out? What if continuing to have a lower price would keep that many more people after 2.0 is released? At least be consistent if that's your real reasoning.

You're just nitpicking the semantics now. I'm not going to rewrite my case to satisfy what you wish to read between the lines. I don't care to play that game.

Do you have a case to make for paying full price or not?

[AamesxDavid]

I'm not going to rewrite my case to satisfy what you wish to read between the lines.

Your case is that a lower fee will increase revenue due to the higher number of subscribers. There, no reading between the lines necessary. The only problem with your case is the flimsy evidence for it. A poll on a fan site which indicated that maybe people would quit and "most were not against paying half". I fear for any company you ever run if that's enough for you to rework your business model.

Do you have a case to make for paying full price or not?

Hmm, great question.. I suppose things like "you should have been paying for the past year" and "you knew the price going in and purchased the game anyway" and "there's no real evidence that it would benefit SE to do otherwise" wouldn't really work here. But, since you are so concerned with SE's bottom line, and you find polls to be so paramount to assessing how it would be affected, here you go:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ng-in-November

Now, we should have an interview with Yoshi P, and say "A recent poll on the official forums showed that over three times more players will stay once the fee is introduced than will leave" or, to put it another way, "less than 25% of players said they would quit".

That poll has real, verifiable numbers on the absolute question at hand, and it's on the official site. Apparently, Lodestone forum goers are way more hardcore than your infamous BG players.

[AmyRae]

Your case is that a lower fee will increase revenue due to the higher number of subscribers. There, no reading between the lines necessary. The only problem with your case is the flimsy evidence for it. A poll on a fan site which indicated that maybe people would quit and "most were not against paying half". I fear for any company you ever run if that's enough for you to rework your business model.



Hmm, great question.. I suppose things like "you should have been paying for the past year" and "you knew the price going in and purchased the game anyway" and "there's no real evidence that it would benefit SE to do otherwise" wouldn't really work here. But, since you are so concerned with SE's bottom line, and you find polls to be so paramount to assessing how it would be affected, here you go:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...ng-in-November

Now, we should have an interview with Yoshi P, and say "A recent poll on the official forums showed that over three times more players will stay once the fee is introduced than will leave" or, to put it another way, "less than 25% of players said they would quit".

That poll has real, verifiable numbers on the absolute question at hand, and it's on the official site. Apparently, Lodestone forum goers are way more hardcore than your infamous BG players.

Having a poll about who's going to stay in this forum is like running a poll at Wrigley Field on game day and asking people if they support the Cubs. I imagine those numbers might look different if you asked all of Chicago in general, or all of the U.S. for that matter.

And that's part of the point I'm making. Not every FFXIV player is a regular forum-goer. I'd hazard a guess that many, if not most, don't even bother with it. Or am I to assume that FFXIV has less than a thousand players total judging from the number of the poll's respondents (the game has some serious problems if that's true).

If this game is meant to appeal to wide swath of players who aren't constantly F5ing the forums, then why not keep them with a price they can live with paying? The principles of Price Elasticity suggest there ought to be level that would actually improve the income SE gets from subscriptions as well as improve the amount of players that stick it out. This isn't just something we made up. There are some real potential benefits from this for all sides.

Just to say, "Pay the full price, and damn the consequences, there couldn't possibly be a better way to do this," is short-sighted.

[Alerith]

Just to say, "Pay the full price, and damn the consequences, there couldn't possibly be a better way to do this," is short-sighted.

Your alternative suffers from the exact same thing. You can't guarantee the subscriptions needed to make a lower price more profitable just like nobody can guarantee that paying full price is better over a discount.

As a business, SE is going to go with the option that THEY think will pull in more money between those two options.

[Rentahamster]

Your alternative suffers from the exact same thing. You can't guarantee the subscriptions needed to make a lower price more profitable just like nobody can guarantee that paying full price is better over a discount.

Nobody is guaranteeing anything. 100% certainty of results was never a part of the OP. I merely presented several points and came to a conclusion based upon my analysis of the available info. No one's making the argument that lowering the price is guaranteeing a larger profit. I'm making the argument that it is a plausible possibility.

As a business, SE is going to go with the option that THEY think will pull in more money between those two options.

They have every right to do whatever business decision they want to do, of course. We, as fans and (soon to be paying) customers have every right to submit our feedback and let them know what we think about it.

[AmyRae]

Your alternative suffers from the exact same thing. You can't guarantee the subscriptions needed to make a lower price more profitable just like nobody can guarantee that paying full price is better over a discount.

As a business, SE is going to go with the option that THEY think will pull in more money between those two options.

That $12.99 price was based on a successful, quality launch of FFXIV which never materialized. I think that will rematerialize with the release of 2.0. But the current version is not 2.0. It's significantly inferior to it. An inferior product, if it's to be sold, should come with a discount; consumers generally obey this principle and have for centuries.

To plow ahead without taking that into account would likely undercut the amount of revenue SE could be making if only they had considered adjusting the price. And besides, it's better to err on the side of keeping more players who will support the game in the long term than letting an even greater chunk of the player base go off to find other games to play by charging too much.

[Alerith]

That $12.99 price was based on a successful, quality launch of FFXIV which never materialized. I think that will rematerialize with the release of 2.0. But the current version is not 2.0. It's significantly inferior to it. An inferior product, if it's to be sold, should come with a discount; consumers generally obey this principle and have for centuries.

To plow ahead without taking that into account would likely undercut the amount of revenue SE could be making if only they had considered adjusting the price. And besides, it's better to err on the side of keeping more players who will support the game in the long term than letting an even greater chunk of the player base go off to find other games to play by charging too much.

This is a matter of opinion because there are many who feel that the 1.20 patch is what will make it a launch worthy title, where it should have been a year ago.

Whether or not you agree is irrelevant because it is up to each individual to make that choice and decide to pay or not, just like whether anyone disagrees with you is irrelevant because you've made that choice for yourself.

[AmyRae]

Yet you find the BG poll so convincing. Make up your mind, do they matter or don't they? Or do they only matter when they support your position?

BG is a hardcore FFXI site, not traditionally a FFXIV site.

In fact you'll find a lot of FFXI players who could be more supportive of FFXIV for a long time to come if only it were operating at a competitive level. These are people you want to convince to stick around, not throw up their hands and potentially walk away for good.

As modders whose mods are widely used and respected within the FFXI community, BG understands the underlying mechanics of an MMO better than most. And it's their opinion that FFXIV isn't good enough to pay full price yet. That holds significant weight and should be ringing alarm bells.

So while 300+ of the most sold-out of FFXIV players posting on the official forums might say yes to full price versus the few who give a crap enough to log into the site just to say no to something like that might make you feel good... I don't think it's indicative of the community at large.

Not really - it's what's happening a year from now anyway, and even you support that. And you still have yet to address the fact that it's inconsistent to be in support of SE charging full price and abandoning your hallowed price elasticity when 2.0 comes out.

It's not inconsistent to accept that $12.99/month is a fair price to pay for a fully operational FFXIV. That's the price anyone who bought the box a year ago was willing to pay when the game originally launched. So of course we'll accept that price when 2.0 launches.

This is a matter of opinion because there are many who feel that the 1.20 patch is what will make it a launch worthy title, where it should have been a year ago.

Whether or not you agree is irrelevant because it is up to each individual to make that choice and decide to pay or not, just like whether anyone disagrees with you is irrelevant because you've made that choice for yourself.

Of course it's up to every individual to decide. But when several individuals have the same opinion, you start to have a consensus. Polls in the FFXI community seem to indicate that a price drop would be necessary for them to continue giving FFXIV a chance. That would convince many more to stay, enough perhaps to raise more revenue, than just by blindly charging full price for a game that doesn't seem capable of being worth that until 2.0 comes out.

The mistake would be to wait until you start charging too much to realize maybe it should be lower. Once people leave FFXIV, it will be a lot harder to get them back.

[Azurus]

Having a poll about who's going to stay in this forum is like running a poll at Wrigley Field on game day and asking people if they support the Cubs. I imagine those numbers might look different if you asked all of Chicago in general, or all of the U.S. for that matter.

And that's part of the point I'm making. Not every FFXIV player is a regular forum-goer. I'd hazard a guess that many, if not most, don't even bother with it. Or am I to assume that FFXIV has less than a thousand players total judging from the number of the poll's respondents (the game has some serious problems if that's true).

If this game is meant to appeal to wide swath of players who aren't constantly F5ing the forums, then why not keep them with a price they can live with paying? The principles of Price Elasticity suggest there ought to be level that would actually improve the income SE gets from subscriptions as well as improve the amount of players that stick it out. This isn't just something we made up. There are some real potential benefits from this for all sides.

Just to say, "Pay the full price, and damn the consequences, there couldn't possibly be a better way to do this," is short-sighted.

^^^ this. and the post you used for the poll isnt even the biggest one, the one with the most votes had the numbers work out more to 33% would leave being that the numbers were roughly 2/3 to 1/3, but that is w/e. I'm sick of people trying to pull any unbiased numbers out of these forums. If i were to use these forums in a statistics project for my senior seminar i'd be failed for choosing such a poor sample.

Like Starlord said, sot only do 95% of the playerbase not use the forums, the %5 that do are polarized so far in on direction or the other it is absurd to use anything they say as fact. 3% are rabbid fanbois and 2% are debbie downers...theres like a +/- 1% of people that even bother looking at things objectively and from both angles. These forums may have been one of the worst additions to this game the more and more i read them.