The FFXIV Cash Shop is greedy

[DBriggs304]

What fairy world you're living in? We have gold sellers here, it exists because people use it. The people who earning gold the way they suppose — bying subs for that gold, and filthy casuals who dont want to grind — help them to get that sub with them bying gold from blizz, everyone is happy, even the company that can buy new car for Bobby Kotick.

Obviously a world where they arent using the same fairy dust on me that they are using on you. A third party gold seller is scum, yes, but when the company itself does it, it's not any better.

They saw a way to personally monopolize on what was supposed to be a no no in the mmo world but yet, were Blizzard and were doing it ourselves now...so, its okey dokey now...um, no.

That is the very definition of greed. That is the type of things Kotick does. It's about the shareholders not the gamers.

[Dawn_FF14]

Or, you could just not buy gold at all and earn it the way you're supposed which negates the issue entirely. And yet, they are still making more money with that model regardless.

And yes, "WoW bad" for that scheme. Now that IS a slimy move. One of many they have done to screw over their playerbase. You need only look to what has been going on at Blizzard the last year and a half to see that they are all about the money. Period.

In that respect, yes, "ff xiv good" cause I dont get the same money hungry and nefarious vibes to purposely get their customers here.

Gold selling is still going on in WoW, just needs to be "competitive" with the token price. And, the token model also provides more ways for "gold-seller" to offer a variety of services cross Blizzard games. That is why I'm no longer buying this marketing spin of "reducing RMT" any more. However, this $5 per transaction might have been a "smart" business move for Blizzard at the time, like free money for minimum effort. I think it caused long-term detrimental effects on the game as a whole, and shaped how that game it is today.

Nevertheless, this is not the right place to discuss how the other game did wrong. I understand people want this game to do better. My point is just that WoW is absolutely not a good example or model for the cash shop.

If history can be re-written, I wonder how many people would like to go back and change that.

[Melichoir]

What fairy world you're living in? We have gold sellers here, it exists because people use it. The people who earning gold the way they suppose — bying subs for that gold, and filthy casuals who dont want to grind — help them to get that sub with them bying gold from blizz, everyone is happy, even the company that can buy new car for Bobby Kotick.

Im not clear on how gold selling from Blizz operates and how that differes from the gold seller?

From what Ive understood, You buy a token for a sub (30 days I guess), and you can sell that token for Gold on the MB. So it's not adding gold to the economy but just redistributing existing gold supposedly.

But gold Farmers/sellers arent generating gold out of thin air. They get it by mechanics the game provides (farming mats, doing quests, selling items, etc). The primary difference is their actions are just creating more available gold in the economy at a faster rate than normal, which depresses the value of gold independently because the game 'prints' gold every time you sell an item to an NPC. But from a pure exchange PoV, blizz is taking IRL money to faciliate a gold transfer between players, where a gold seller is doing the same thing, except they used the in game systems to get that money.

Now gold sellers use botting, which is the obvious issue, but if the big morale for the longest time was "Do not use money to get gold cause it messes up the game" and blizzard starts acting as a middle man to facilitate that which was called immoral, then doesnt that make it all hypocritical?

[Centershock]

The only thing that I think is a little bit scummy is that we have to pay extra for storage. Being a crafter and gatherer takes up a lot of that storage already. In my immediate inventory space, my retainers, and my chocobo saddlebag. I already have two extra retainers and they're all almost full.

[MsQi]

WoW actually retired a bunch of things, including their transmog items. I'm not a fan of either cash shop, but creating artificial shortages of digital items I think is worse. SE does do this with preorder items, but at least it's understood from the beginning.

https://www.wowhead.com/news=289324/...u-later-bundle

The biggest problem with these cash shops is they represent aborted creativity. They could have been worked into the fabric of the world, and used as part of content. (Hint: Drops are the least creative way, but at least it's something) When purchased they just come from nowhere. IIRC In the early days of the WoW shop, when you got an item in the mail, some items would have a letter from an NPC.

[yukiiyuki]

Im not clear on how gold selling from Blizz operates and how that differes from the gold seller?

It's not that hard, instead of money go through some 3rd side, all money went back into the company, so they could use it to further develop their product.
One whale giving someone chance to play game for free, and company getting money to invest it back into WoW.
Well, if we use logic that everything you buy from shops getting back into a game, like people think Mog Station do.

[Edax]

The desire for wealth is there, and whether or not it's suitably "intense" is just speculative. Nobody opens a shop without a legitimate desire for wealth; greed is the cornerstone of capitalism.

Of course people open shops for reasons other than a desire for wealth. All you need is passion. Consumers seek the best goods for the lowest possible price and the greed of retailers and producers get in the way of that.

[Avidria]

Im not clear on how gold selling from Blizz operates and how that differes from the gold seller?

From what Ive understood, You buy a token for a sub (30 days I guess), and you can sell that token for Gold on the MB. So it's not adding gold to the economy but just redistributing existing gold supposedly.

But gold Farmers/sellers arent generating gold out of thin air. They get it by mechanics the game provides (farming mats, doing quests, selling items, etc). The primary difference is their actions are just creating more available gold in the economy at a faster rate than normal, which depresses the value of gold independently because the game 'prints' gold every time you sell an item to an NPC. But from a pure exchange PoV, blizz is taking IRL money to faciliate a gold transfer between players, where a gold seller is doing the same thing, except they used the in game systems to get that money.

Now gold sellers use botting, which is the obvious issue, but if the big morale for the longest time was "Do not use money to get gold cause it messes up the game" and blizzard starts acting as a middle man to facilitate that which was called immoral, then doesnt that make it all hypocritical?

It's weird but this is the first time I've seen or thought about excess gold messing up the game being the reason not to buy it O.o always thought the problem was third parties making money off a Blizzard product and giving people an advantage they got illegitimately... especially when a lot of those gold farmers were stealing and selling stolen gold and stolen accounts. Blizz selling gold themselves just seemed like a smart thing to do tbh.

[Melichoir]

It's not that hard, instead of money go through some 3rd side, all money went back into the company, so they could use it to further develop their product.
One whale giving someone chance to play game for free, and company getting money to invest it back into WoW.
Well, if we use logic that everything you buy from shops getting back into a game, like people think Mog Station do.

Has it been stated that purchases using this system are directly reinvested into WoW?

In regards to MogStation, I think its been mentioned a few times YoshiP has said this is the case. Im not 100% sure but it wouldnt surprise me if it were as mogstation is FFXIV specific, and SE has it's own online store. As for WoW's reinvestment, I know that some of the money they got from WoW overall was reinvested outside of the franchise on other projects a few years back. I am not aware if this has changed.

This being said, yes Im fine with money being reinvested. But it doesnt skip the issue of the initial reason why "Buying G is bad for the game." The core aspect of that argument was that Gold had a tangible effect on in game power level and ease. So if you had tons of gold, your chance at 'winning' was substantially better. And blizzard does have a track record of softly endorsing 'P2W' model on their own platforms, though to be fair it also blew up in their face (D3 Shop), but instead of gold, it was just the items themselves.

It's weird but this is the first time I've seen or thought about excess gold messing up the game being the reason not to buy it O.o always thought the problem was third parties making money off a Blizzard product and giving people an advantage they got illegitimately... especially when a lot of those gold farmers were stealing and selling stolen gold and stolen accounts. Blizz selling gold themselves just seemed like a smart thing to do tbh.

Some of the means gold farmers got money was breaking into accounts, yes, but that became harder with autheticators (a good thing). But a predominant amount of money made by gold farmers is via botting and gaming hte market board. When you can cut out the labor portion of an act, it becomes profitable to sell gold. So having bots farm mats, that people will freely buy with their gil, which they funnel into a central account that then resells that gil to other players makes sense. This is on top of quest rewards or vendor trash. FFXIV battles the vendor trash route by just making items generally worthless to vendors, where wow has (or had, its been a while for me) literal trash items that are worth 50 silver or even a few gold a pop. But gaming the market board by suppling people with cheap mats so they get the sell..well thats another story.

But gil generation is still all done via in game mechanics. Its just done at a faster rate than expected and causes inflation. WHen NPCs hand you money and they just get that money from the aether, its no different than a government printing money and handing it out.

As I said to Yuki though, Gold in WoW was a lot more closely connected to power so selling gold was a bit p2w. Frankly in FFXIV its a lot less useful in the p2w dept. Best gears are obtained via tomestones, and unless youre in the competative aspect and are buying crafted armors for prog. Gil, I suspect, is spent more on glamour and housing items than it is on power. Then again we all know Glamour is the true end game.

[Goji1639]

Of course people open shops for reasons other than a desire for wealth. All you need is passion. Consumers seek the best goods for the lowest possible price and the greed of retailers and producers get in the way of that.

If they had no desire for wealth they wouldn't attempt to profit from the shop. Greed is always part of why they do it, even if it's not the only part.