This is just appalling

[Belhi]

False. Yoshi himself said that cash shop income goes directly back into cash shop development and SE's pockets, to do with what they want. He also stated that the EU and NA server moves were the first times their team had been given access to those funds. And the NA server move was a critical fail for several reasons, even for Californians. By buying cash shop items, east coaster players inadvertently shot themselves in the foot.

Actually he also said before that the EU datacentre was funded with cash shop funds. My point is as part of the revenue FF14 generates it helps justify the expense of costly upgrades as the likelihood of a return on investment is greater. Regardless, subscriptions aren't paying for them which is the core issue.

As for east coast players I guess in that case it was a lose/lose situation since without the move the servers couldn't be upgraded.

As far as I can tell people are upset there is something they want but that their sub doesn't give them and part of that is the mistaken belief that there sub actually payed for the development of the item in question. In short, we get what we are paying for but some people are upset that others who are willing to pay more have more things they can buy. Removing the Cash shop would get those who aren't buying anything, anything extra. All it would achieve is lower the revenue SE is making and make it harder to justify major investments into the game.

That's not how a business works I'm afraid. The business functions as a whole, profit is profit regardless of the source. The income from ALL sources fund the development of these glamour pieces. You don't pay in advance for your mogstation items now do you?

Our subs pay the wages of SE, and everything else, and what's left is profit. You seem to think that SE isn't making any money from monthly subs and it simply covers running costs.

It is how many businesses work. Revenue streams are tracked by their source as well as the expenses those sources. Thus you can determine if a particular venture or item is turning a profit and help identify why. That is a big part of what accountants do when developing income reports. It helps a business plan and adapt. The cash shop determines if a potential item design will turn a profit off the cost of development. This will be forecasted and then used as a measure by the executive wether to go forward with development. This is the case with Cash shop items. They are made if their earnings pay for the cost of development in the first place. They literally pay for themselves.

Now of course SE makes a profit from subs. However the revenue from those subs and expansion sales is used to determine the budget for the development of the core game (ie. expansions, patches, events, etc) and to determine if large investments into infrastructure will end up being a good return on investment. That is what our subs pay for. While Cash shop utilises the game as a platform for sales, it's revenue is self generated because the items developed are planned for the cash shop from inception and only approved of if the company believes they will profit as a result.

Basically by your logic our game is being payed for by players of every other SE game out there which would mean we are getting more than our sub pays for. Your basis for saying the majority of SE's profits are due to our monthly subs is baseless without proof and frankly unlikely due to the substancial costs to producing and running a company, ignoring the massive cost FF14 incurred with its failed original launch and the very profitable performance of a number of their other titles.

All revenues will end up in the same basic pot but the revenue streams and their expenses are tracked individually and managed on an individual basis. That is how business's work.