More and more microtransactions

[Liam_Harper]

But in the live letter they mentioned they were hiring to make the team bigger to have more content. So maybe the micro transactions are to pay for their salaries?

You just can't do that in business though.

If you have an reasonably good product with a few quality issues at a slightly expensive price, but you have ambitions to improve it, you can't jack the price up further and expect your customers to shoulder the bills for expanding your own business. Even worse without even expaining your plans to them. That's suicide.

If Enix want to expand, that's great. But they can't milk us for the bill, they need to deliver on the improvements themselves and then we can decide if it's worth paying premiums for.

[Squintina]

You just can't do that in business though.

If you have an reasonably good product with a few quality issues at a slightly expensive price, but you have ambitions to improve it, you can't jack the price up further and expect your customers to shoulder the bills for expanding your own business. Even worse without even expaining your plans to them. That's suicide.

If Enix want to expand, that's great. But they can't milk us for the bill, they need to deliver on the improvements themselves and then we can decide if it's worth paying premiums for.

I regret writing that post because even though I stated I was being facetious (maybe I should have used a simpler term: I was JOKING), people are taking it seriously.

[Shouko]

Not that I find it acceptable but this is how modern gaming is shaping up, you almost can't buy 1 game without there being a DLC, day 1 patch, in the case of consoles P2P multiplayer. Asian MMOs are notorious for cash shops and I'm fairly sure that it started with their mobile markets.

As to why we keep getting them? Because people keep buying them, I already stated this in another thread along similar lines. Cash shops are there because people asked for them, missed out on last years event? Too bad, but if you go to out newly established cash shop you can get those past event items. This is how they start, or you want a fancy mount, horse armor (chocobo barding in our case) that cash shop, obviously the price of the wedding is free, it's just the mount/dyeable outfit that your really paying for. They keep adding to it because they know damn well people will keep buying the stuff, people complain about the microtransactions in MMOs but unless people stop buying the stuff on their or keep defending the practice in general, they will keep adding to it.

[Mikki]

I'm going to say something a bit facetious (I'm JOKING) so no one take it too seriously ok.

But in the live letter they mentioned they were hiring to make the team bigger to have more content. So maybe the micro transactions are to pay for their salaries?

Plot twist: They are hiring people to make more cash grab items/systems.

[Squintina]

Plot twist: They are hiring people to make more cash grab items/systems.

lol

...

maybe hahahaha

[SokiYagami]

Plot twist: They are hiring people to make more cash grab items/systems.

I wish I can find this funny... I really do. T-T

[Vahlnir]

Plot twist: They are hiring people to make more cash grab items/systems.

[SokiYagami]

Good meme. XD

[Hestzhyen]

Plot twist: They are hiring people to make more cash grab items/systems.

That's all I've seen so far honestly. XIV makes more money than ever, so they try to increase profit margins even more by cutting content delivery and all the effort of work/hire goes into Mog Shop stuff, and now this awful micro-transaction laden app... meanwhile we get less content than ever in the game and the one new thing we did get is a bare-bones mob grinder with no ingenuity or originality behind it.

What's my sub paying for? More optional content that isn't covered by my sub? Atrocious instances that have nothing to do but stand around or whittle down monster HP until I fall asleep? The same trial and dungeon formula we've seen since ARR, only now with less dungeons? Well, I stopped paying for a reason... I hope a lot of other people have too so SE gets the message.

[Aylis]

Am I the only one who abandoned f2p games to pay for a sub because sub games didn't have microtransactions?

It's all optional, but again why is none of that optional money that is probably generating as much income as our sub improving the game? Is the future of the game even more microtransactions while content remains the same?

Quite the opposite really for me. I've largely abandoned sub based games for FTP games with optional subs. Much for the reasons you just mentioned. At least I know the FTP games I play are open and honest in their intents when it comes to micro transactions and nothing seems shady or arises questions about the games and company behind them.

Such as this right now. So to get the "full" FFXIV experience It's $10 a month sub, plus It's 8 retainers now for $2 each? and now the app is another $5 a month? So roughly $31 a month not including costs for expansions and cash shop items. That's what I call shady practices. Especially since they wave their arms and dance around using the term "we can't" but then seem to suddenly "can" when it comes to tacking on more to the monthly fee. How soon before the monthly fee is $50 a month? $100 a month? When fans of Tabula Rasa begged the developers to keep the game online and they were told that to do so meant them paying a $35 a month fee to play the game. We saw how fast that idea was canned when support dropped and the game shut down. SE is really pushing those waters here too now.

I had a feeling this was going to happen the day they started renting out retainer space. This game has a very large problem when it comes to item bloat. It's known the less then Triple A FTP games use this very same tactic to get players to buy more inventory space. Create item bloat so players would either have to keep running back to vendors and bankers every 5 minutes. Or just buy more space. Or in this case "rent" space. Something that always bothered me. Every FTP game I bought space in was forever mine. The idea of renting space always left a bad taste in my mouth.