And the last bastion of non-Mog Station items gets put on Mog Station

[Remedi]

I think from my perspective, it's likely that the reasons behind a lot of the iffy implementations have been financial ones. That's where I come from, at least, though it's hard for us to know for sure.

I mean, one great example is the oft-repeated comments about 'server limitations' that are used to justify half-assed systems from the Housing limits to the lack of a Glamour Log. Server limitations or system limitations are inherently a financial problem: they can be fixed, but it's expensive. The fact that SE dodges these sorts of conversations and continues producing game systems that are inferior in many ways to the competition implies they're just being cheap about it. Now, maybe these problems are just far too expensive to fix. I don't know, they might be. But I don't think the problem can be boiled down to only a misapplication of funds; I think it's a problem with both that and the money going toward the game in the first place. Therefore, both need fixing.

The guy whose links I posted actually addresses the servers and housing problems. It's better if you peruse his cronology I don't feel confortable to use his works. Frankly I believed that it was a financial problem most of the time too, then I read some of the interwiews again and you can actually see that some thought process are not really good, which imho is shown with some questionable implementations in the game

[Vhailor]

The guy whose links I posted actually addresses the servers and housing problems. It's better if you peruse his cronology I don't feel confortable to use his works. Frankly I believed that it was a financial problem most of the time too, then I read some of the interwiews again and you can actually see that some thought process are not really good, which imho is shown with some questionable implementations in the game

It's an interesting analysis, to be sure. I still maintain there's likely some financial limitations at play, though. Two things particularly jump out at me, that I didn't see solid answers for.

(1) In regards to systems like Housing or Glamours, there's an expectation - fair or unfair - that the systems work at least as well as those in competing (or preceding!) titles. So while it may have been poor design decisions that lead to such a resource-intensive Housing system, or such a complex Glamour system, SE is to some extent on the hook to fix those mistakes, including shouldering the associated costs. After all, it's a bad look when even FFXI arguably handles Glamours more smoothly than XIV does, and certainly was able to provide a house for every player. That might mean expanding the team to 400 for awhile, with 100 exclusively focused on this sort of technical debt - an effort above and beyond competing MMOs - but that's the price one pays when handling a badly botched implementation. Given that we haven't seen the team balloon to those levels, I suspect it means that at some level, there's no desire to spend the money to quickly and effectively remedy the self-inflicted wounds.

(2) The turnover levels seem awfully high for finances to not play a role (or at least, finances could serve as a possible fix). It seems like SE turns over half its staff every couple of years! I'd be very interested to see turnover numbers for other leading MMOs. I didn't see that mentioned in any of the articles, though there's enough there I could easily have missed it. Do you recall seeing anything along those lines? If these turnover numbers are significantly worse than other long-running MMOs, that could easily explain some of the issues we've seen in XIV's development.

[Remedi]

Sadly I don't know anything specific about say Wow turnover rate, the only thing I know is that the legion dev team had many from the D3 team crossing over for that expansion and besides this I didn't heard much of the team changing before MOP, after that the teams inside Wow and to an extent Blizzard started having a much quicker tuenover rate.
I might try and ask the guy if he knows something more

[Hamada]

I don't have any issue with people taking issue with the price. I only take issue with the tone and the presumption. Just because I can't afford something doesn't mean that it should be cheaper, and I never hear that kind of language outside of video games. My point wasn't that you're not allowed to criticize the price, it's that you're trying to decide what the price should be. Do you take the same issue with the pricing of Bayer vs. generic aspirin?

The thing about all the example arguments you made is that all of them are decided by the market regardless of the feedback. (Well, aside from buying it under protest, but honestly I think the purchase is more honest than the feedback there.) If enough people resent the cash store enough not to buy an item, or enough people can't afford it, Square Enix will make less money off of it. If they overcharge, they suffer for it (likewise if they undercharge). To my mind, the "correct" price is whatever maximizes their revenue, and I've seen no convincing arguments why that price for these orchestrion rolls isn't $5. I mean, I seriously doubt it is $5, but I don't have access to any more data than you do. Despite the constant protestations on the forums, the Mog Station has gotten more products at a higher price as time has gone on. To me that makes it pretty clear that people are buying.
I propose that the correct price is whatever price leads to the greatest revenue (i.e., sales * price) for Square Enix. Do you agree, and if not, by what methodology would you determine the correct price?

Why are you assuming people debating the price, all can't afford it? There is a fine line of the point of view if something is worth the cost, and we compare that to costs of other products for a guideline. Here it is a no brainer to see why people feel like SE is trying to rip people off when it is 2 and some change for a MP3, but 5 dollars for a digital version of it in a game you really can't use outside the game for one character. Going with Vhailor's question, one has to question where is all this money going, because it is not going toward fixing the game, and fixing the problems 1.0 is bringing to this game.

Like I was trying to explain before (when someone tried to claim I was giving out a stawman) people re going to have back of their mind of seeing just costs from all the problems currently. Be it seeing EA news or what Vhailor explained with medical costs, people are going to be looking critically about unfair prices on things and possibility of greed. When you see a company overcharge for "optional content" and not have vast quality improvements of the game, despite the huge income, expect people to be upset and draw the conclusion the company in question is just trying to milk people for money, over trying to be a business, something most industries can't get away with. It confuses me to no end how people observe backlashes on other industries, see action taken on them, but put the same situation in gaming industry, people defend it.
my friend got a phone bill lowered for her dad, refrigerator/ freezer lowered due to being semi lemon and going out in first year, driving a bargain for a replace when deemed unrepairable, haggled isp internet costs, and did so again when a different isp attempted to charge her mom for 6 months of back pay (they failed to charge her properly for 6 months) and got them down to 3 months. Getting more money then first offer for a car trade in on multiple times, likewise talking them down in price for a new car. To think people do not discuss prices of things shows how much you know about the world outside of gaming. The gaming industry is the ONLY one that gets away with treating customers like dirt, now why is that? This arrogance of being untouchable is going to drive a 1980 game crash again if things keep moving in this manner.

Arnt these songs already available in game? You're just paying for a fancy version of something already available... it's like a paid upgrade...

As I said before

It does not matter if it is optional, being optional does not grant immunity to criticism.

[Talraen]

Lots of stuff

The bottom line is, Square Enix is selling these items for the price that they think the market will bear. Let me ask you a hypothetical. Suppose that, priced at $5, 10,000 people would buy a specific orchestrion roll ($50,000 revenue). Also suppose that, if they priced it at $2, twice as many people (20,000) would purchase it ($40,000 revenue). If that were the case, would you consider the $5 price point "greedy"? Why or why not? I'm interested in creating a coherent standard for what constitutes fair pricing.

[Hamada]

The bottom line is, Square Enix is selling these items for the price that they think the market will bear. Let me ask you a hypothetical. Suppose that, priced at $5, 10,000 people would buy a specific orchestrion roll ($50,000 revenue). Also suppose that, if they priced it at $2, twice as many people (20,000) would purchase it ($40,000 revenue). If that were the case, would you consider the $5 price point "greedy"? Why or why not? I'm interested in creating a coherent standard for what constitutes fair pricing.

You are just assuming that to suit your narrative, but fine ill play along. I dislike you ignored my other points but I can play with this I suppose. The biggest problem with your statement is that assumes an isolated environment. On its own, yes your assessment is valid. However it completely ignores the impact of the MP3 cost. That alone will impact the sales at 5 dollars. Why pay 5 dollars for an item that is resisted in game when I can DL on MP3 and get to hear it wherever and whenever I want, including while in my house? Because of that it is more like getting 2000 sales at 5 dollars or 30000 sales at 2 dollars (even higher if they make it account wide which they should) Outside factors impact a lot, and the same reason how my friend was able talk down all those different industries down in price. They do not want you going somewhere else or have word of mouth do not buy from x company because they do x,y,z. (Also the fact they know they can be easily reported to government bodies to further backlash) Now thinking about it, i suspect gaming industry feels more immune due to monopoly. I can't go to a different company to service FFXIV play for example. In the end of the day I am confused why every other industry it is easy to talk to companies with pricing and get customer service while gaming industry thinks they are the exception on how everyone else acts, just because laws are lagging behind with such concepts. This only shows gaming industry are unable to self regulate and try to push the greed line as much as possible. How they act now may turn high profits, but they are shooting themselves in the foot as far as their future outlook

[Emstidor]

You are just assuming that to suit your narrative, but fine ill play along. I dislike you ignored my other points but I can play with this I suppose. The biggest problem with your statement is that assumes an isolated environment. On its own, yes your assessment is valid. However it completely ignores the impact of the MP3 cost. That alone will impact the sales at 5 dollars. Why pay 5 dollars for an item that is resisted in game when I can DL on MP3 and get to hear it wherever and whenever I want, including while in my house? Because of that it is more like getting 2000 sales at 5 dollars or 30000 sales at 2 dollars (even higher if they make it account wide which they should) Outside factors impact a lot, and the same reason how my friend was able talk down all those different industries down in price. They do not want you going somewhere else or have word of mouth do not buy from x company because they do x,y,z. (Also the fact they know they can be easily reported to government bodies to further backlash) Now thinking about it, i suspect gaming industry feels more immune due to monopoly. I can't go to a different company to service FFXIV play for example. In the end of the day I am confused why every other industry it is easy to talk to companies with pricing and get customer service while gaming industry thinks they are the exception on how everyone else acts, just because laws are lagging behind with such concepts. This only shows gaming industry are unable to self regulate and try to push the greed line as much as possible. How they act now may turn high profits, but they are shooting themselves in the foot as far as their future outlook

The MP3s aren't going anywhere man, so I fail to see how they're relevant to the scenario? It's a vanity item in a video game, why would I be upset if it doesn't have the portability or accessibility of a different form of digital media?

If you want to hear the song in-game and play it in your virtual house, you can't do that with a digital mp3, so it's weird that people argue one shouldn't exist because the other one does.

[Alleo]

The MP3s aren't going anywhere man, so I fail to see how they're relevant to the scenario? It's a vanity item in a video game, why would I be upset if it doesn't have the portability or accessibility of a different form of digital media?

(Hamadas whole point was about the pricing not that it exist.)

Its simple: It just shows how much SE truly cares for the customers..for me this means that they want our money and nothing more thus why they priced it at nearly double the amount.

I mean if you are fine with having to pay double for less uses then go for it, others might not like that price and will post about it. I mean would it hurt you if it only costs half the amount?

If they somehow need to sell this on the mog station, then do it reasonable otherwise this will just create feelings of being a cash cow for SE for some.

[Theodric]

The pricing for the orchestrion rolls isn't even that high. It's very much in line with the pricing as other optional, luxury products.

Let's not beat around the bush - a lot of the same people complaining about this spend a considerable amount of their time in other threads complaining about other issues. It suggests that they don't enjoy the game and if they do they're not willing to compromise by simply acknowledging that not everything is done in a way that appeals to them, specifically. Micro-transactions are an (unfortunate) part of many games these days. They have been for a while. What people need to mitigate is any micro-transaction that gives a paid advantage. Not those that are purely cosmetic.

There's a target audience for the cosmetic micro-transactions. After any new mount or glamour goes up on the Mog Station it doesn't take very long to spot a number of people using them. The game - and real world - hasn't ended as a consequence.

[Lauront]

This is all optional content. Maybe they're using the FFXIV branding to funnel money into other projects. The game's quality is not suffering and as long as they increase the quality for the next expansion, I'm not hugely bothered by the fact that they sell entirely OPTIONAL content on the website.