Cash shop pricing is getting a bit much...

[Sigma-Astra]

We can't know they never would have existed unless we have access to an alternative timeline in which the cash shop did not exist.

Quick, someone summon an Astrologian to use the Arrow Card, but make it backwards.

But, on a more serious note. I imagine that some might not exist if the NA/EU/JP didn't have the cash shop. The Korean/Chinese exclusives would stay there and they'd have no reason to bring them over if they were paid for by their separate cash shops that we don't have access to and by right, we'd have no business having access either. Also, things like the Eternal Bonding Ceremony may not be feasible since you can't enter a credit card number while in-game, unless they make it priced by Gil which may just increase the RMT sales so people can afford their roleplay wedding fantasies or just for the reward items/bonuses. I doubt that if the Eternal Bonding Ceremony was priced in Gil that it would be cheap like 20,000 or 100,000. It would probably be on par with housing costs since both pieces of content are optional to players and not necessarily needed outright. There would still be a free package, but Passion may be 2 or 3 mil, with Devotion being 10 mil for example.

It's almost a double-edge sword, we could have no Mogstation at all and make everything purchased via in-game through Gil (I don't want to say Achievement Points for all items because not everyone can do every single achievement in this game and everyone has varying degrees of stockpiled points), but it may increase the RMT practices as well because people will want the Gil lickety-split to buy what they want right away which could incur the wrath of even more bots.

As for the minions, emotes, mounts and other items, they could be added via achievement points or through Gil and again, if it's the Gil option, then they would just be fueling the RMT practices more possibly. It's just too hard to tell, but there are consequences for everything somehow. Even if the Mogstation didn't exist and things were done a different way, it probably still wouldn't be a perfect, flawless solution.

This is just a generalized theory though, so just food for thought.