The FFXIV Cash Shop is greedy

[SamRF]

All shops are greedy by design.

As far as world of warcraft goes, it has a bigger community and makes more money, so the existing community doesn't get poked for money as often. That's just the logistics and reality of how this kind of game is monetized.

As long as the item shop is mostly cosmetic I don't really have a problem with it.

FFXIV could have attracted more players by not expanding their Cash Shop as much as they did, potentially making more money long term.

I believe seeing the Mog Station Cash Shop and how big it is will be a big turnoff for many WoW players who may consider playing FFXIV.

[Eldevern]

Meanwhile in Black Desert Online... Cash shop prices and the variety of "For Convenience" sales are on the rise, they made over 1 billion dollars in profit back in 2019 xD.

Sexy glamours... XD

[Goji1639]

FFXIV could have attracted more players by not expanding their Cash Shop as much as they did, potentially making more money long term.

I believe seeing the Mog Station Cash Shop and how big it is will be a big turnoff for many WoW players who may consider playing FFXIV.

I don't think it would make that big of a difference. World of Warcraft was first and it will likely be the powerhouse paid MMO for as long as it's still around. Nothing else in this specific space is going to dethrone it or compete with it financially.

FFXIV is simply the less successful option, and since it makes less money the community gets less for more. Them trying to match World of Warcrafts monetization strategy would end up hurting the game, because World of Warcraft has structured it's monetization around a much larger community.

That's not to say it's impossible for FFXIV to overextend and drive people away, but comparing this game to WoW isn't fair. I personally don't find this games cash shop to be problematic.

[Skivvy]

Meanwhile in Black Desert Online... Cash shop prices and the variety of "For Convenience" sales are on the rise, they made over 1 billion dollars in profit back in 2019 xD.

I'm not exactly sure which way you're leaning with this point, but personally I don't mind cash shops being in F2P/B2P games that much. Kind of a necessary thing as they'd get no income otherwise.

Now...that's not to say all of those cash shops are created equal, and some of those games definitely do skew in-game RNG in bad and obvious ways to help push people towards the shop - that can be irritating. And I know how much everyone loves loot boxes. I've learned to just not buy those. X: But not all go that route.

But speaking of BDO, swimming was one of my great annoyances as far as in-game tweaks + cash shop perks go. Swimming normally in that game is awful. It's slow and clunky, and made me really dislike being in the water. Buuut, you can buy a fish costume that bumps up your speed, and it makes swimming feel totally normal and not obnoxious as all can be. THAT annoyed the crap out of me. lol. Swimming is something so incredibly basic, and to make it that unpleasant, unless you buy a costume, rubbed me the wrong way. :P I'm a simple person, I just want to be able to swim!

[Canada_bangs]

Gamers are greedy. I kindof want to walk up to these store haters and ask if I can get them to make me stuff for free and no work. Because thats what they are asking SE to do. Your sub money only pays for you to play the game.. it does not pay for anything made for the mogstation. If you want it too then prepare to pay double for your sub. Are you willing to pay 35 to 40 bucks to just play the game?

[Skivvy]

Gamers are greedy. I kindof want to walk up to these store haters and ask if I can get them to make me stuff for free and no work. Because thats what they are asking SE to do. Your sub money only pays for you to play the game.. it does not pay for anything made for the mogstation. If you want it too then prepare to pay double for your sub. Are you willing to pay 35 to 40 bucks to just play the game?

As a whole, this viewpoint is really odd to me. Not just talking about with XIV or even just MMOs. But baaaack in my day (yes, I'm older), I remember a time where games didn't come with DLC or microtransactions. The industry has obviously changed, and they've learned that they can get away with charging people extra for additional content that they leave out of their games. On the company's side, that makes perfect sense to me. Charge your customers what you can get away with, make that money. But what does confuse me a bit is how strongly some consumers will actually defend having microtransactions in games as if they're a wonderful thing.

[SamRF]

I don't think it would make that big of a difference. World of Warcraft was first and it will likely be the powerhouse paid MMO for as long as it's still around. Nothing else in this specific space is going to dethrone it or compete with it financially.

FFXIV is simply the less successful option, and since it makes less money the community gets less for more. Them trying to match World of Warcrafts monetization strategy would end up hurting the game, because World of Warcraft has structured it's monetization around a much larger community.

That's not to say it's impossible for FFXIV to overextend and drive people away, but comparing this game to WoW isn't fair. I personally don't find this games cash shop to be problematic.

I don't think you necessarily need to have WoW amount of subscribers to make a WoW quality game. I'm pretty sure WoW is making much less money right now compared to when it was in its prime (2008) yet it doesn't seem like the game is decreasing in quality.

I think there's a limit to how many (quality) developers you can throw at a game and how much budget it will require cause it seems to me you can get in a too many cooks in the kitchen situation and become a mess organization wise.

Just look at ESO, I'm not sure on the exact numbers but it seems to me that ESO required much larger budget than WoW, considering for example how literally every single (side) quest is voice acted, yet they still probably make (or have made) much less money than WoW. (Correct me if I'm wrong, this is purely an assumption).

Not all profit goes into increasing the game's quality since there's a limit to how much you can realistically increase it. It's also clear Blizzard and SE use money from their MMOs to fund other projects (as they should, only makes sense) and it's true you can argue that for SE, FFXIV may need a certain amount of profit to justify its live updates, and perhaps that amount isn't enough for them with subscription alone right now.

However I still believe that more profit could have ensued long term if they had decided to limit the Cash Shop and attract more players.

[yukiiyuki]

Someone comparing WoW to XIV, drop the team of apologists.
Also, few weeks ago when someone asked if we can get new or some kind of rerun of old event, got answer that it's really difficult to do and devs don't have time for any new rewards, just a few days ago they dropped new costume to the cash shop. In near future mog will be comparable to the f2p mmos cash shop in terms of quantity of items you can buy there.

[Theodric]

My biggest beef with the Mog Station is that it doesn't offer much for those of us who play male characters. I don't have an issue spending money on optional items or services - but I noticed that the likes of GW2 and ESO do a much better job at offering outfits designed with male characters in mind. It's a bit odd that FFXIV is lagging behind on that front.

[TheRealQuah]

Nice cherry picking. Why don't you try to compare it to other games too and see how it comes out? Whilst I agree it's a bit scummy to put old event items in mogstation to sell (they should offer all event items the next time the event runs), there are a lot of games that are fat worse. Look at Destiny 2, all DLC this year is limited and gets removed after 3 months, and armor drops are still from 3 years ago, whilst the cash shop seems to add new items almost weekly.

Also all of the unique mounts etc.. sold in mogstation are designed and implemented by a third party and not SqEx. If they weren't selling them for real money in the shop, then they wouldn't be commissioned in the first place.