It's gone too far about the mog station SE

[Taebok]

I would rather they do it as they are. This grants additional funding so that we get new seasonal events every year with new items as a reward instead of rehashing the same rewards and events. Sure they could add them to a vendor and be done with it. But at what cost? Would we then see WoW-esque holiday events wherein they remain static year after year after year after year after year with minimal changes (if any changes at all) to the rewards given or the event.

Nah, I'll pass on that.

SE earned 199 billion yen (1.787 billion US) last year. A 25% increase over the previous year.
They had a 21.3% increase in operating income, up to 33 billion yen (300 mil US).
And you think they need mog station income to fund new holiday events?
Jeeeeeez ...

[kikix12]

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 is not silly to purchase optional items, but it is silly to overpay for something that's not really necessary.
I agree that it is not my concern what others do with their money, but saying that it's no ones concern but theirs is also false. If you think otherwise, then I assume you are fine with gold-sellers, right?! You would be fine electricity where you live went up tenfold, right?! People that overpay bloat the price of similar goods. It is EXACTLY the problem that gold sellers generate. Since they pump huge amount of money that buyers can get cheaply, they create many people that throw their money around without a care in the world. As a result the item sellers will try to fish for the rich people and voila. On the other hand gold sellers that SELL items en-masse undercut the prices to the point they lose feasibility, doing the reverse of this process.
And no, electricity is not a necessity. It is a very basic, convenient...luxury. There are entire countries where most citizens don't have electricity. So come here and say that people "overpaying for luxury" don't matter...and add that "it's not my concern, even if the same thing will make electricity cost much more than it does now". You cannot apply the same logic to one but not the other. That's not how reality works.

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

I'm not. I am merely saying that overpaying is overpaying, and that is a wasteful use of money. Wasteful use of money is silly, whether you have little or much of it. But so long as they get "their fair share of value" from that?! They have no reason to care about it. The problem happens when people think that "It's actually quite pricy, but I really want it." and spend it anyway for lack of alternatives. I assure you...there's quite a fair chunk of people that think these items are pricy among those that buy them that simply do not see an alternative AND they won't be directly 'hurt' per se by spending the money.

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.

Google have 85,050 employes and their services, like their search engine, cost zero...You see the correlation?! No?! Then I'll tell you.

4300 employees includes EVERYTHING under the umbrella of Square Enix. From Final Fantasy XIV developers, through studios that work on other games all the way to employees selling pancakes or whatever in their other branches. Final Fantasy XIV sub does not have to pay even a fraction of those costs for its operation and growth.

And it is funny that you mentioned merchandise production. Since when merchandise is a charity? Why can I go to a shop with toys and find tons of stuff that have no game or cartoon tied to it, buy it, and not worry that its makers have no bread to put in their mouth?! Because that's business. If it did not earn them money they wouldn't do it. Similarly if the merchandise sold didn't give them more money than production of said merchandise did cost...they wouldn't produce it. Merchandise can pay for itself, don't funnel money from FFXIV for it...unless you'll funnel money FROM IT back into FFXIV after that.

Don't assume that Final Fantasy XIV needs to pay for the entire company operations. That's just...ignorant. If that was the case, the company would hire less than 200 employees at most, have much smaller headquarter etc.

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.

Eh...You are ignorant, and on top of that...you don't seem to pay attention when reading. Where did I say that they should charge for the cost of making it? Or for free?! You won't find that cause I didn't say that.

Few hundred dollars is not much at all for something you can reproduce infinitely at nearly no cost. Go to a shop, buy a gum for 50 cents. That gum you bought did cost more than few hundred dollars to "create" and then costs some cents to produce and get to your shop so that you can buy it. And yet...that gum still brings the makers money.
Look at this game itself. It did cost MILLIONS to make. And yet, it's sold for about 50$ (in my country). Now half of this as Stormblood/Heavensward pack is on sale.

The emotes, mounts and such stuff could cost below a dollar and STILL rake in huge profits in comparison to physical goods. And I'm willing to bet that there's an amount of price decrease that would let them earn MORE money total than they do now. You may not know it, but World of Goo earned more money on a few days of being sold "for what you want" than when it did cost its normal price for few months before that. Even though there were people that bought it for minimum price (I think it was 1 dollar?!), a lot of them.

I don't think I'm underestimating the costs of running a company. I think you are overestimating them. Games that earn far less than Final Fantasy XIV, still having many costs to them, still manage to sustain themselves. The money from Mogstation is EXTRA. It's there because Square Enix wants more money. Simple as that. It's not necessary for upkeep of the game. It's necessary so that Square Enix can dump tons of money in the higher-ups pockets...and to make tons of crap on the side to possibly rake in even more money but possibly lose money. They basically gamble a lot of it on junk rather than putting in the effort for quality products that will be sure to sustain themselves.

Then there's always the possibility of THEM overpaying for stuff too. There were many companies that flew under because their brass was just as ignorant of the "price to value" principles of the market as some of the so-called "whales" in these games have. Except they didn't have the luck of it being an irrelevant fraction of their wealth anymore.

[Kyuuen]

SE earned 199 billion yen (1.787 billion US) last year. A 25% increase over the previous year.
They had a 21.3% increase in operating income, up to 33 billion yen (300 mil US).
And you think they need mog station income to fund new holiday events?
Jeeeeeez ...

Neat. And what were their total expenses including salaries, R&D, bills, taxes, and any and all other expenses?

[Noodle_Trinidad]

Neat. And what were their total expenses including salaries, R&D, bills, taxes, and any and all other expenses?

Maybe you should look up the definition of Operating Income my friend
Operating income takes a company's gross income, which is equivalent to total revenue minus COGS, and subtracts all operating expenses. A business's operating expenses are costs incurred from normal operating activities and include items such as office supplies and utilities.

Still I will never understand this mentality players have taken up. Why are we defending the company as if we were Shareholders?

[Kyuuen]

Maybe you should look up the definition of Operating Income my friend
Operating income takes a company's gross income, which is equivalent to total revenue minus COGS, and subtracts all operating expenses. A business's operating expenses are costs incurred from normal operating activities and include items such as office supplies and utilities.

Still I will never understand this mentality players have taken up. Why are we defending the company as if we were Shareholders?

My bad then. Not a business professional nor a tax professional. =P

Then if that's after all considerations I've got nothing more to say in that regard. A business is a business. /shrug

[Kurando]

snip

SE also took a major hit (around 3.7b yen) this year with the cancelled FFXV DLC, that information still seems to be ignored. The subscriptions of XIV can be redirected absolutely anywhere within SE, the MogStation revenue is the only thing guaranteed to go back in to the game.

[kikix12]

Just because you paid fees to get into the theme park; parking fee and admission fee (box/unit price and sub fee), does not mean that there won't be other costs inside the park (the game). Typically there's costs for food and drink, mini-games, gifts/souvenirs (mog shop items).

Yes. We all paid the fee to enter the park (buy the game). And then...what?!

You know, I was to a theme park myself and I had two mutually exclusive options. Pay a chunk of money that gave me X entrances (with shorter line) to most of the attractions (subscription) OR pay only for what I actually used, but every single time, adding up to much more for the same amount of uses (microtransactions).

In case of Final Fantasy XIV we pay the entrance into the park (buying the game), the mandatory "premium" ticket (subscription)...and we're told that we'll get extras when it's our turn to sit at the attraction if we pay even more (microtransaction). Well, right now this game does not have really game-breaking microtransactions in its Mogstation...hence why I actually am here despite this abusive business practice, since the game itself is enjoyable and I am limited in what I can do by my own skills/will and not item mall. Yet, anyway. But that doesn't mean that I have to approve of the business practice itself just cause it does not visibly hinder me.

[Krojack]

SE is going for the first ever subscription based MMO and cash shop F2P type game in one. Soon ALL glamor items will only be available via cash shop. What you get with your sub will only be MSQ.

[Adrestia]

Neat. And what were their total expenses including salaries, R&D, bills, taxes, and any and all other expenses?

I mean . . . 199 billion yen minus 33 billion yen, minus taxes and other non-operating expenses. He gave you the answer. Operating income is what they made after paying all their operating costs. Now, they’re also going to have taxes to pay, interest on debt repayments, etc. that aren’t included in that. But wages, benefits, R&D, bill repayment (principal amount), etc.? That’s 166 billion yen and what’s left over is the 33bn. Take away the non-operating costs and you get what they really added to their coffers when it’s all said and done.


Whoops, beaten like a Namazu training dummy (coming soon to a Mog Station near you)

[Anselmet]

I'm fine with the concept of the mogstation. I'm fine with them releasing stuff on Christmas. I'm fine with paying 7 dollars for an emore IF they are something intricate say like the gold dance (not on the mogstation, I know) or something that has a lot of animation to it. These two dance are not that. They are very simple and should have been around 3 dollars, imo. I wish SE would do better pricing and take into consideration on what we are buying. A new outfit that has a lot of detail and consists of a full outfit? 15 dollars. Okay sure. Do that with something say the HW outfits that you had programed into the base game and literally just had to make it available on all races, had better be cheaper.

Also... not sure how I feel about these dances they are tad... fortnight-ish.