In-game content behind paywalls/ Exclusivity on limited time events/mounts/etc

[Alleo]

I am not a fan of those ingame items that are stuck behind real life products. If these products are great than they will be bought even without any ingame items thus those should not be that huge of an incentive. (I got the carbuncle plushies because they are awesome, the ingame codes were just an extra) Maybe they could at least put those items into the cash shop..those that have the real products will get it for "free" and the rest can still buy it..but I also never understood their strange limit on those codes either..if you start late and buy something from the store right now you wont even get the ingame items if its old enough..because seemingly a digital item will expire..and since they are not in the cash shop there is now way to get them.

Maybe some will feel better because they seemingly had enough real life money to spend and can now show of their limited, exclusive ingame item but I doubt that a lot would really care if others got their chance at it too. And since they dont have to create it again, each sold item in the cash shop will just increase their money..

[SturmChurro]

I agree with the majority of this. I didn't have an issue with missing 1 emote I been playing since 1.0 and the first time I am bringing it up after countless times of this being done. I haven't bought a single thing for the store. I have been gifted a few things from friends but never will I pay for an item from the mog station. I do want to 100% the game but I don't think its about self-control at least for me, some maybe. It's just something I enjoy and since I been playing from the initial release of 1.0 I don't think it's an unreasonable achievement as many several people in the world at pretty damn close to it. I just figured I have two things that I can do. I can voice my opinion on it and hope they will listen if it the community agrees. If not then all I can do is walk away. Which I prefer not to do because I enjoy it but as the list of mog station collectables rises over 100+ items it might be that time.

I admit to being part of the problem, but I only buy outfits that I like, or like a piece of, off of the mogstation. Though, I have one mount I got on sale. Trying to convince the playerbase would be the only way to keep the list of mogstation items down, and I just don't see that happening. There will always be players who buy everything. We just gotta be glad they aren't as predatory as other game developers. For example all this news I've been seeing about Valorant and their "$292" skin. People will still pay the price for this item. These developers can price items for whatever they want, lock things in the cash shop, or do timed "exclusive" deals - which makes sense with figures (phsyical goods), but NOT digital goods (false sense of urgency). As long as there is even a tiny fraction of the playerbase buying these products - it will never end, and I don't expect a company to stop it either, they are here to make money after all.

We can all sit here and discuss the morality of a company over predatory practices, but until the playerbase collectively agrees to stop buying this trash, it's just never going to end. Unfortunately, I doubt your thread will have any impact, but I suppose saying something is better than nothing, even if it falls on deaf ears.

[Malakii]

Except it's not. There's no trickery or deception here. It's not P2W, no one is forcing you to buy anything. You may not like the cash shop but that dosen't make it evil. If you have so little self control that you feel the need to buy out the entire store just for completion, that's on you, not the game.

Well, I feel this topic is getting a little off-topic, this is not about self-control for me personally. This is about if people are okay with locking items behind paywalls and locking items out behind specific time frames or regional affiliations. New players coming in and seeing the falcon, a legacy Chocobo, a faehound, seeing the zantetsuken emote go off and being like wow that is the coolest mount/emote ever, how did you get that. Well, you had to do this or that but now you can't get it anymore or you have to buy the game + expacs + paysub + buy a $180 statue and then you can have it. That's a little disheartening and bad game design IMO. This is about FFXIV staying a game worth paying a sub for instead of just capital gain.

[MsQi]

Except it's not. There's no trickery or deception here. It's not P2W, no one is forcing you to buy anything. You may not like the cash shop but that dosen't make it evil. If you have so little self control that you feel the need to buy out the entire store just for completion, that's on you, not the game.

Predatory does not imply deception. However I think predatory is somewhat extreme.

[SenorPatty]

I don't consider those emotes a paywall lock because I place no personal value on them. Like in real life, there are many promotional items that are added onto an item as a bonus if you buy them. To me, those are extras. I get that there are people out there who feel different about that. In either case, it's not a company problen, it's an us problem.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Well, I feel this topic is getting a little off-topic, this is not about self-control for me personally. This is about if people are okay with locking items behind paywalls and locking items out behind specific time frames or regional affiliations. New players coming in and seeing the falcon, a legacy Chocobo, a faehound, seeing the zantetsuken emote go off and being like wow that is the coolest mount/emote ever, how did you get that. Well, you had to do this or that but now you can't get it anymore or you have to buy the game + expacs + paysub + buy a $180 statue and then you can have it. That's a little disheartening and bad game design IMO. This is about FFXIV staying a game worth paying a sub for instead of just capital gain.

Well, we can't get pvp titles ever, firmament stuff possibly.


There's pvp minions, mounts, gear, furniture that are difficult/impossible to obtain.




There's already exclusive stuff in game. Who cares.

[ItMe]

This IMO is very predatory and obvious that the customer does not come first even in a subscription-based model, it's all about dat BA$$$$.

Giving players the option to buy extraneous things is FAR from predatory.
Especially with what Ubisoft and EA and all those knuckleheads are doing, having a humble little cash shop just for fun little things seems like the wrong thing to get angry about.

[DarkMasamune]

I don't mind the Mog Station at all to be honest. It just seems normal to me that an MMO has a cash shop. I understand that it can be frustrating but imo, it's no big deal.

Sure they could bring back seasonal items instead of locking them behind a paywall, that I agree with, but I don't mind the exclusive items.

[Malakii]

Well, we can't get pvp titles ever, firmament stuff possibly.


There's pvp minions, mounts, gear, furniture that are difficult/impossible to obtain.




There's already exclusive stuff in-game. Who cares.

Sure, that is an approach to take and sure there is exclusive stuff, but just like the firmament titles its just a title, and the season is done, but people are upset about it. I am with them but I am also with this. They can fix every one of these personal issues I have by just including them in the next season event/PVP season (give more collars to the winners to buy mounts from the past)/adding a way to get the items on the mog station in-game through long-paths or w/e. I care because the reason they don't is the hope that someone will buy it instead of just putting the digital asset into the game so they. They didn't have a problem putting the falcon in the game which was acquired by spending real-life money on their promotional deal. On the point with exclusive the titles for ultimate, the morbol, the titles associated with it, these are exclusive that can be acquired in-game with time and dedication, and that fine IMO cause you can achieve them if you want to. While on the other hand, different promotional mounts based on region or because a country has stricter policies on content in the game so they are exclusive mount to that region makes zero sense. Create an asset lock in behind some artificial wall and have it denied to a majority of your players due to greed or timing or location is ridiculous IMO.

[Malakii]

Go play BDO or Breakpoint before you try to slam this game for it's weak cashshop. There's nothing in there that you need to buy to do anything. Literally is the weakest cashshop in all of gaming. Tera, breakpoint, BDO, ESO and any EA game is far worst then anything here. I don't see the issue you're having.

Just because something is the lesser of two evils doesn't mean it is okay. I am not paying a sub for those games and most of those games you mentioned don't have a subscription model where players are providing them with steady cash flow. FFXIV does and even yoshi-p him self talk about it. https://venturebeat.com/2013/06/17/f...lay-exclusive/. These other games you mentioned have cashflow only from sell digital items. I am sure it much worse.