It's gone too far about the mog station SE

[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.