It's gone too far about the mog station SE

[Kurando]

I just feel that this game deserves better for being the one that pulled SE out of the red.

Well SE took to a massive hit with the XV DLC so maybe you should help them out with that and they might just reward you with free cosmetics....

[kikix12]

(...)Korean/Chinese region items you're going to have to pay for them on the mogstation since it costs SE fees to license it.

I never heard that a company have to pay licence fees to themselves to use their own goods in various countries...And where do the money disappear to if their balance doesn't end at zero after?!

Even if they are requested by a regional publisher, everything in this game is made and owned by Square Enix or at least licensed for FFXIV as a whole. They do not need any additional license for emotes. Now, they can have issues for stuff from other games like music since those are licensed from 3rd party artists, but emotes are developed entirely in-house.

There's nothing silly about it. If people want to spend their money on luxury products, then they can spend their money on luxury products.

It is silly. If I have a tangerine worth 50 cents and go to two different people trying to sell it for 2$ to each, one of them happens to be really rich while the other have average wealth, the rich person buying it for 2$ is still acting in a silly manner because he could have four by going to a nearby shop instead. The fact that it does not harm him in any way does not change anything.

These items are not worth several dollars. They have costs to make originally, but cost of reproduction are in thousandths of fractions of a cent. Virtually zero. They also have no innate value as being digital goods. As if that wasn't enough, they are a content that is not even a fraction of the whole game, while costing a rather comparable amount. Buying them IS absolutely silly.

The Mogstation pays for our DC upgrades and more, since its glamour, I don't mind.

No. That's what our subscriptions are supposed to cover.
Let's assume that there are "only" 16,567 players actively playing (going by the census). Times 13$, that's 215,371$ every single month. That's over 2,5mln dollars every year. With 16,567 players and no additional expenses...like the retainers. I know personally several people that have multiple retainers. I know even a person that have more than one account and have all the retainers on them just for storing all the crafting/gathering stuff.

And do you really think that there are "only" 16,567 players across all the servers?! When some servers did hit their limits with several hundredths of people in the queue at times?! When Square Enix themselves mentions millions?! At just 0.5mln that's already 6,5mln of dollars a month, 78mln dollars a year.

Yeah, sorry, I don't buy it. The money they got from subscription should be more than enough to pay all the costs of operation and development and there still should be more left for whatever.

[Dyvid]

No. That's what our subscriptions are supposed to cover.
Let's assume that there are "only" 16,567 players actively playing (going by the census). Times 13$, that's 215,371$ every single month. That's over 2,5mln dollars every year. With 16,567 players and no additional expenses...like the retainers. I know personally several people that have multiple retainers. I know even a person that have more than one account and have all the retainers on them just for storing all the crafting/gathering stuff.

And do you really think that there are "only" 16,567 players across all the servers?! When some servers did hit their limits with several hundredths of people in the queue at times?! When Square Enix themselves mentions millions?! At just 0.5mln that's already 6,5mln of dollars a month, 78mln dollars a year.

Yeah, sorry, I don't buy it. The money they got from subscription should be more than enough to pay all the costs of operation and development and there still should be more left for whatever.

And how much does it cost to run and operate FFXIV? Blizzard has been quoted in saying that between 2004 thru 2008 it has cost $200M for upkeep. I'm sure the cost has gone up over the decade but that's $50M yearly.

[Theodric]

Again, it isn't 'silly' for people to purchase optional items. To imply otherwise suggests more than a little bit of jealousy. So long as people are spending their money in a legal and responsible manner, it is nobody's concern but their own as to what they choose to throw cash at. It isn't a small number of people playing this game that have a disposable income. It's also completely subjective as to what is a little or a lot of cash to different people. Not only because this game attracts people from completely different countries and economies...but also different wages.

Stop trying to guilt trip and harass people for choosing to spend their hard earned cash on something that they enjoy.

[Melichoir]

I don't have a problem with the existence of the Mogstation or the items in it. I really don't. What I have an issue with is SE's focus on the cash shop while letting the game stagnate at times. The money doesn't appear to go back into the game as much as it should. I just feel that this game deserves better for being the one that pulled SE out of the red.

They literally just gave us an event with glamour gear, a few table tops and furnishing items, designed with a basic minigame and small side story for free. For the XMas event they probably spent more time on that then they did with teh emotes, and they gave us that event for free.

And chances are, considering all things, theyve been prepping for SB2-boogaloo and most of the money the game makes is going to that or other projects at SE (cause yknow, FFXIV isnt the only game SE makes.) This doesnt even include patch 4.5 and testing for that and making sure its ready to go. I think its a bit of a stretch to say theyre spending so much time and energy focusing on mog station. You want to see a game that focuses on all that sweet sweet side content over the game itself - Look at Overwatch.

I never heard that a company have to pay licence fees to themselves to use their own goods in various countries...And where do the money disappear to if their balance doesn't end at zero after?!

Even if they are requested by a regional publisher, everything in this game is made and owned by Square Enix or at least licensed for FFXIV as a whole. They do not need any additional license for emotes. Now, they can have issues for stuff from other games like music since those are licensed from 3rd party artists, but emotes are developed entirely in-house.

It is silly. If I have a tangerine worth 50 cents and go to two different people trying to sell it for 2$ to each, one of them happens to be really rich while the other have average wealth, the rich person buying it for 2$ is still acting in a silly manner because he could have four by going to a nearby shop instead. The fact that it does not harm him in any way does not change anything.

These items are not worth several dollars. They have costs to make originally, but cost of reproduction are in thousandths of fractions of a cent. Virtually zero. They also have no innate value as being digital goods. As if that wasn't enough, they are a content that is not even a fraction of the whole game, while costing a rather comparable amount. Buying them IS absolutely silly.

No. That's what our subscriptions are supposed to cover.
Let's assume that there are "only" 16,567 players actively playing (going by the census). Times 13$, that's 215,371$ every single month. That's over 2,5mln dollars every year. With 16,567 players and no additional expenses...like the retainers. I know personally several people that have multiple retainers. I know even a person that have more than one account and have all the retainers on them just for storing all the crafting/gathering stuff.

And do you really think that there are "only" 16,567 players across all the servers?! When some servers did hit their limits with several hundredths of people in the queue at times?! When Square Enix themselves mentions millions?! At just 0.5mln that's already 6,5mln of dollars a month, 78mln dollars a year.

Square enix apparently has around 4300 employees. Assuming that theyre paying every single employee a $50,000 salary average/year, the cost of employees alone is 215 Million. Thats about 3 times what youre saying theyre making. This doesnt include overhead costs such as:

Taxes
Building Rent/Ownership
Software license/fees
Hardware Costs
Utility Costs (water, electric, gas, Internet, etc)
Bonuses to employees
Materials cost (paper, ink, toner, copier, etc)
Tariff and Trade Costs
Production costs of merchandise itself which all have subsequent costs under them
PR and advertisement costs
Server costs
Legal fees and costs

The list goes on. I think you're severely undervaluing the cost of running a company, and thinking your 16 a month fee is plenty enough for them to pump out emotes and side content along with designing expansions and everything else they do.

Btw, youre conflating a limited resource vs a reproduceable resource. You only have 1 tangerine, so you can only sell it to one customer. But digital goods are 'infinite'. You can sell the same thing to multiple customers. Thats what makes digital goods actually good for producers.

Think of youre argument in this light: If I design a sweet sweet picture that took me 40 hours to digitally paint, I can sell that painting for $5. IF only one person buys it, I literally was working at a rate of about 12.5 cents an hour. If I sell that digital painting to 1000 people though, I was working at a rate of 25 an hour. The more people who buy it, the more 'per hour' worth I get out of it. Now compare this to if I did a specific commission. It will be a one of a kind item, sold to that one person. I may charge upwards of a few hundred for something of that caliber.

What youre arguing is because a lot of people can buy it, its cost to produce is 'low'. But in reality, people have to also consider what happens if time invested results still results in not many people buying the item and how that adds up. It also pretty much says artists shouldnt be allowed to charge a cost they deem fit for a product they create because "A million people could buy this items so it shouldnt be worth this much!" Or more directly: Youre essentially saying that artists should be capped on how much money they make on creating something. Thats incredibly silly. It shouldnt matter if 10 people buy it or a million people buy it. If the artist feels that its worth a set value, they can set it as such. The same principle translates across for businesses and things like the emote.

Cause you wnat to know something. It probably costed SE a few hundred dollars to make that emote. Thats the cost of the person animating it, the cost of teh equipment, the utilities, etc etc. But theyre banking on a lot more people will buy it at the cost they set and recoup the expense plus make a profit than charging what the value to make it literally was.

[Adrestia]

Again, it isn't 'silly' for people to purchase optional items. To imply otherwise suggests more than a little bit of jealousy

Let's not invent an insinuation of jealousy here. There are many reasons why a person might choose to view spending as frivolous or "silly," and they're not all jealousy. The people you're responding to isn't saying that choosing to buy from the cash shop implies moral bankruptcy or anything else negative about the buyer. They're just saying they feel like it's silly.

Stop trying to guilt trip and harass people for choosing to spend their hard earned cash on something that they enjoy.

There was no element of harassment here whatsoever. People are giving opinions. An opinion you do not agree with is not harassment.


When it comes to questions about how much money the game makes, how much it costs, how much it ethically "should" make to keep consumers happy, etc., we can't provide those numbers here and we shouldn't have to. All we can say is that some part of the playerbase is not content with the current ratio, and would like SE to respect that and consider it in future planning. Personally, I wouldn't care how much money they were raking in via the cash shop so long as it didn't influence game design. However, publishers have proven time and again that we can't just trust them to treat cash shops as an isolated thing.

In XIV's case, people have been bringing up the achievement points vendor lately. Now, we don't know and we can't know how much content SE would put on that vendor if they weren't putting things on the cash shop. We can assume that some of the things on the cash shop wouldn't just go there "for free" because those items got greenlit due to their expected profits on the cash shop. However, would this vendor have gone through such a long and total dearth of updates if there was no cash shop?

In the back of the minds of the design team determining what content needs to get made, was there an element of "Well, we should be adding to the vendor, but since there's stuff on the cash shop it's not like people haven't gotten to see new emotes/mounts/costumes at all in awhile, so maybe they'll be able to hold out awhile longer?" We don't know. But we don't know it's not true either. All we know is there's some dissatisfaction with the pace of the updates to that vendor and other things like it.

[Voltyblast]

I mean no harm in saying this nor I want to put any guilt trip into anyone but...you asked for it: you were all defending the mogshop and saying that "it's only cosmetic" or "it's completely optional" and whatnot and so you kept buying and buying, to the point that major costumes and emotes are mogshop only now.

Sure the fix would be not to buy it but let's face it: you all will. You all want to. And you keep doing it...

But hey I'm not an hypocrite: I also did buy a few things from the shop myself when I wanted to but the keyword here is "few": I don't buy every single costume and emote that comes out like everyone do (I remember seeing at least 20 whales running around when it just came out: that's at least 400 euros/600 dollars in less than a few hours). But most of you do and they know you'll buy it so either stop buying or stop complaining, it's really that simple.

I mean sure they could also allow us to gain some sort of points like Wildstar did with their sub or SWTOR, giving you a few points to spend each month for the cash shop and allow you to get some free stuff if you wanted but let's be real, why would they put such a easy and accessible way to obtain items for free when people are more than willing to buy for such high prices?

Again I repeat for those who don't or can't read: I mean no harm or guilt-tripping in saying this, I simply wanted to give my two cents, but I really got tired of complains about the cash shop when the fault is solely in a serious case of loose pockets from the playerbase.

[JohnSpawnVFX]

Sigh people can't even spend the Christmas season without wallet shaming, and the players with "loose pockets" are the bad guys here...

[Anatha]

So many dishonest people in here, the number of truly mogstation only items is tiny compared to the stuff we get in game.

You're mad over a couple of emotes, regional exclusives we wouldn't get at all otherwise, and npc glamours? You're claiming that outweighs the countless in game rewards you get each patch and event?

That's a deplorable amount of disgenuousness and entitlement.

[InkstainedGwyn]

I mean no harm in saying this nor I want to put any guilt trip into anyone but...you asked for it: you were all defending the mogshop and saying that "it's only cosmetic" or "it's completely optional" and whatnot and so you kept buying and buying, to the point that major costumes and emotes are mogshop only now.

Sure the fix would be not to buy it but let's face it: you all will. You all want to. And you keep doing it...

But hey I'm not an hypocrite: I also did buy a few things from the shop myself when I wanted to but the keyword here is "few": I don't buy every single costume and emote that comes out like everyone do (I remember seeing at least 20 whales running around when it just came out: that's at least 400 euros/600 dollars in less than a few hours). But most of you do and they know you'll buy it so either stop buying or stop complaining, it's really that simple.

I mean sure they could also allow us to gain some sort of points like Wildstar did with their sub or SWTOR, giving you a few points to spend each month for the cash shop and allow you to get some free stuff if you wanted but let's be real, why would they put such a easy and accessible way to obtain items for free when people are more than willing to buy for such high prices?

Again I repeat for those who don't or can't read: I mean no harm or guilt-tripping in saying this, I simply wanted to give my two cents, but I really got tired of complains about the cash shop when the fault is solely in a serious case of loose pockets from the playerbase.

To be fair, I'm pretty sure there's two different groups here: the ones complaining, and the ones buying. I, for one, don't really care. I get the fact that people really want a lot more in game than is available, but I'm also used to games that don't give as much in game and make 75% of their cosmetic stuff on the store (eyes swtor). And yes, I know. "Other games do it worse doesn't mean this is okay" but to me, it's fine. I'm not limited in how often I can play, or what I can do. I don't have to buy additional leves or chances to run dungeons, I'm not stuck at 50% less xp until I buy a boost, I won't get an auto-skip UCoB if I drop $50. I can just get more fun/cute things. Gone are the days of "all cool stuff is in game" and I've accepted that, knowing that nothing is going to turn back time, it'll just close games down instead. I buy a lot of what goes onto the mog station, and I intend to continue to do so.

And that's why you can't exactly blame the folks who complain because while I'm sure some of them still spend on the mog station, it's the people who don't see a problem with the store and don't intend to stop paying just because other folks get up at arms that are keeping it running.