The virtual currency "Moogle Coins" in the FFXIV Companion app must be removed

[Rikku272]

Are you saying that such a big company like SE needs sub money, expansion money, cash shop money, merchandise money and the app money to keep the game alive? I dont have a source right now but isnt FF14 one of their biggest cash cows? Maybe less campaigns with strange other companies, less work into things like this app and other stuff and they should have enough money imo.

Honestly if they need all of this to keep the sub price stable then I kinda fear for the future of this game..

You forget that they also got an Eorzea cafe in japan & those Eorzean symphony orchestra concerts.

Oh and almost forgot those Fanfest stream when they announced stormblood and everything that comes with it, they asked 30 euro per stream seeing many people with Yuna Rikku or Lulu minion i can only imagine what they earned from that.

And those amazon events were you need to buy 20 or 30 euro of square enix games or merchandise idk to get that nimbus mount or that white fat chocobo.

All thanks too FFXIV and they still can't keep their .... in their pants.

[Jybril]

Honestly, it's this, or sub increases for everyone. I'd rather the ability to choose to pay more than be forced to, wouldn't you? The price of a sub for an mmo has been static for more than 20 years, I don't think anything else has ever remained the same price for that long.

I wouldn't do either.
This game barely even deserves the sub fee it currently has.
FFXIV: Cash Cow Reborn.
Let's not act like this game is sniffing out cash like it's on it's last leg.
Damn company has more money than all of combined lol.
With cash shop, and all the little goodies they have on side, I kinda want them
to do better with their content and quality of this game. I feel like XV is the headliner
and XIV is just there to help reel their upcoming DLC's and stuff in the background.

[Remedi]

You have Youtubers like Yongyea or Jim Sterling that don't care about calling out companies. IMO FFXIV is just not that popular and SE has not gone bananas (yet).

Yet they've done 0 about the russian/brazillian subs here, only Sidalpha had something to say. I'm sure that ppl here on the forum said that tehy sent a mail to Jim sterling too about this case, but I suppose those nobody cares about those 2 nations right?
And the not popular cards don't applies since they've covered some pretty unknowns in the past if it was useful for them.

[Theodric]

The cynic in me believes that they only addressed the controversy surrounding the sudden price increase for Russian/Brazillian players because of the negative Steam reviews that arose as a consequence.

[DreadRabbit]

Or a third option: Don't waste a ton of money on the app to begin with.

Saying FFXIV needs to recoup costs after this app is silly.

Exactly. The entire point of mobile apps is that they're cheap to produce and maintain. That's why there's hundreds of thousands of free apps with in-app purchases: they're relatively easy to make. That's exactly why SE loves them so much: they can rake in massive profit for as little investment as possible. Mobile app teams are usually just a handful of people at best.

Honestly, it's this, or sub increases for everyone. I'd rather the ability to choose to pay more than be forced to, wouldn't you? The price of a sub for an mmo has been static for more than 20 years, I don't think anything else has ever remained the same price for that long.

I'd rather the game go F2P at this point. They might as well with how many optional cash flow opportunities they give players, considering that optional purchases are a F2P game's bread and butter.

Let's do some math here.

The cheapest sub price a player can pay is $12.99 USD (both the entry sub for 1 character and the regular sub if you purchase a year in bulk). So that means every single person playing FFXIV pays a minimum of $155.88 USD a year before taxes (12.99 x 12 = 155.88).

Now, if you find that 2 retainers isn't good enough for you (and many, many players feel that way), then you need to add $24.00 USD per year ($2.00 x 12 = $24) for every retainer you decide to hire. Before this app goes live that's seven extra retainers max. So $14 USD a month and $168 USD a year. That means that your new monthly total is minimum $26.99 USD a month and $323.88 USD a year.

To obtain the full benefits of this app, you need to pay another $5.00 USD a month. So your new monthly sub fee could be anywhere from $17.99 USD a month to $31.99 USD a month. This bumps your yearly sub (remember: 5 x 12 = 60) to $215.88 USD all the way up to $383.88 USD.

Want that extra retainer that $5 mini-sub grants you permission to purchase? That's another $24 USD a year. And chances are the people that actually want that feature are already paying for the 7 retainers we currently have. So they're looking at $407.88 USD a year just to play this game. And this is all assuming you buy your game time in bulk. If you just do the straight $15 a month for the sake of flexibility for breaks away from the game, the rates are higher.

F2P games don't even pull that crap.

"But it's OPTIONAL"

Yes, to people this app isn't targeting. The people who have been wanting this companion app are the very same people who actually make use of the extra inventories and who would want/need to list more than one market board item a day. And I'm sorry, but inventory management is part of the gameplay. A pretty dang large portion of it. Gameplay is not just whacking enemies and seeing the number that pops up. Games are a sum of their entire parts.

And I'm sorry, but things being optional aren't made so to benefit us. F2P models are so lucrative because they play on customer empathy. By making purchases optional you're more likely to feel good about making them. "Wow these guys worked so hard to deliver this game for free/cheap, I don't mind giving them [amount] to show my support!"

They're also made optional to entice players. Things like lootboxes aren't made obtainable by in-game means so that you can never give them money. They're done as a free demo so that you can see how "fun and addictive" they are, and they'll do their best to convince you that the "thrill" is worth your money. The same applies here: by offering the app for free you grow attached to it, and enjoy the features. So suddenly you may want to pay that $5 for just a month to see if the few features you're not getting are worth the money. Maybe you'll even feel guilty not paying the money because "SE worked so hard to give us this app."

This is all intentional. Always has been. And frankly I think the players that do spend upwards toward $400 a year on this game have a right to tell SE that they'd really rather not be convinced to spend even more money on a single title.

[Tridus]

The cynic in me believes that they only addressed the controversy surrounding the sudden price increase for Russian/Brazillian players because of the negative Steam reviews that arose as a consequence.

Companies are very good at solving problems when those problems become a PR problem. See also: Shirogane. Servers wouldn't let them add more houses, mainstream media picked up that the community had the torches & pitchforks out, and suddenly the servers could handle 50% more houses.

[Theodric]

Companies are very good at solving problems when those problems become a PR problem. See also: Shirogane. Servers wouldn't let them add more houses, mainstream media picked up that the community had the torches & pitchforks out, and suddenly the servers could handle 50% more houses.

Sadly.

I'm still waiting for the housing shortage to be resolved. Housing is such a large part of the game nowadays and numerous other MMO's offer it to every player as needed. Yoshi-P keeps talking about wanting to support role-players and yet expanding the amount of houses would do far more on that front than any other change.

[Istaru]

You have Youtubers like Yongyea or Jim Sterling that don't care about calling out companies. IMO FFXIV is just not that popular and SE has not gone bananas (yet).

Jim did have a lot to say about SE’s Deus Ex pre-order Campaign. He did an episode on it. Same for his disdain about FF7 remake being episodic.

He doesn’t cover MMOs at all. I don’t think that means he thinks they’re fine and everything is ok. Just that MMOs aren’t his forte and he sticks to what he knows rather than just talk out of his butt.

[Seyoun]

...but as a "market board PVPer"

You had me at "market board PVPer" <3

Back when the app was just in the rumor mill I dreamed of undercutting on the road, during lunch, randomly in the middle of the night, on the toilet - I was going to unleash HELL. But the way they're implementing it places me in the same position I found myself in back when I encountered my first microtransaction system back in GW2.

I look at things in terms of value for money exchanged and what that says about how a company regards its customers. In the case of GW2, I concluded their itemization model was consumer-hostile. Then I had a hard decision since I LOVED that damned game: I could stay and just not purchase gems or I could leave.

The problem with staying was I'd still be a material accessory to the business model. Players who do buy microtransactions wouldn't stick around for empty maps, dead WvWvW, and ghost-town cities. So even as a non-paying player, I'd share responsibility of the predatory practices of the company by helping create the community needed to keep the interest of players who did buy microtransactions. I dropped GW2 because I did not want to be part of that. I signed up for the ARR beta and never looked back...except for when blue/red scripts and concealed nodes dropped back in HW. That made me rage-quit for about a month and play the F out of some Monster Hunter 3G.

I'm watching what happens with this App very closely since it looks like there's a real possibility that I'll be put back in the same situation I was in just before I quit GW2. These words, from the liveletter screencaps on page 4 of this thread, are particularlly worrying: "Additional services for use with coins will be added in the future based on user feedback"

[Vahlnir]

Companies are very good at solving problems when those problems become a PR problem. See also: Shirogane. Servers wouldn't let them add more houses, mainstream media picked up that the community had the torches & pitchforks out, and suddenly the servers could handle 50% more houses.

That's why I don't buy their excuses when they say there's limitations.