Online store prices are outrageously high!

[Melichoir]

Oddly enough, Ive made quite hte fortune on the MB, despite the undercutting bots.

It's because bots tend to focus on low effort high demand items. Sell a 1000 units of a 500 gil item and if you have a bot that is constantly monitoring the MB, you can generate a profit. For a real world example of this, look no further than how Amazon Market Place operates. It is the same concept in real life. Competing shops selling hte same item and undercutting one another by pennies if it gets them the 'buy box'. They dont turn out much profit per item (Might even be pittance, like 50 cents a sale), but if you sell 10000 of it, that small pocket change adds up.

Rather, if you want to compete on the MB, stop trying to sell casual items. If you can gather it via a crafter, youre not gnona become ultra wealthy with it right off the bat. But rarer and harder items to come by, like those from Deep Dungeons or High end Crafted Gear, or mounts among other items is where you can generate a good profit. Yuo have to be paying attention to whats out there being sold and putting out a sale price that makes someone think "Gee thats a steal compared to other vendors."

Here's an example - The pegasis mount from PotD may sell for 15 million on some servers, but if you put it up for 13 million, It's likely to get snatched up really damn quickly. Yes, you lose 2 million and you are not min maxing your sales, but such a dramatic price difference lets the common buyer whos got the cash and no patience pick it up asap cause they see that as a huge steal compared to your competitors. You get your 13 mil right then and there, while competitors run the risk of their profits slowly being chipped away at by micro undercutters. To finish this anecdote, I sold mine for a 13 mil price point when the market average was 15.5. After two weeks, the market average was 8 Mil, and many of the vendors who had it at 15 mil were still selling it, but now at 8 and 9 mil price points. I abused other peoples price point to give the impression my sale was a bargain and came out ahead.

This is business 101. The whole idea that you need to not undercut big or stop adjusting your price point is silly. Yeah its a pain when someone undercuts you. Tough. That's how it works and there's nothing you can do to stop that from happening. Use your head, and gamble smartly on how you can push your sales. Taking 13 million upfront is way better than sitting on an item for 3-4 weeks watching the price point get chipped away until the item is half what it was worth at all because you couldnt bear to part with a million gil is silly. And stop blaming bots for not making a profit on the MB. Yeah, bots are an issue, but theyre not so prevalent that there is 0 way for you to make profits. Ive done it, fellow FC members have done it, friends I play with do it. You just have to be savvy about what works and what doesnt. High demand hyper competitive items that are easy to acquire arent gonna net you millions typically, bots or not. Anyways this was a tangent cause I do hate the "Muh Bots are making me poor" spiel that gets touted. Youre not making money on the MB cause of bots. Youre not making money because youre not playing the MB and doing your Homework to find ways to make money.

[ZattanaWen]

Oddly enough, Ive made quite hte fortune on the MB, despite the undercutting bots.

It's because bots tend to focus on low effort high demand items. Sell a 1000 units of a 500 gil item and if you have a bot that is constantly monitoring the MB, you can generate a profit. For a real world example of this, look no further than how Amazon Market Place operates. It is the same concept in real life. Competing shops selling hte same item and undercutting one another by pennies if it gets them the 'buy box'. They dont turn out much profit per item (Might even be pittance, like 50 cents a sale), but if you sell 10000 of it, that small pocket change adds up.

....etc.

The bot on my server isn't selling casual or low-priced items. It's selling every bit of end-game and glam gear there is. NeoIsh, Aesthete, Moonlit, Shinryu, all of it. Even some middling gear that still sells for a fair bit. If it's craftable and historically sells for at least a couple hundred K, this bot is selling it.

You aren't wrong that there are still ways to make money on the MB, but the days of buying materials, crafting them up, and profiting on the item are over. You are now required to gather/source all your own materials to have any hope of profit.

And because at least on my server you pretty much can't sell the high-end gear I described unless you want to live by the MB and undercut every half hour like clockwork, your best bet is to sell the materials. Those will always sell. Not the base materials, the mid-level crafted materials, which everyone hates making.

If I get a Shinryu scale, I'm not crafting it up and selling the item. I'm selling the scale. Because the scale will sell quickly. The item I craft from it will not sell unless I make undercutting my full time job.

[Melichoir]

You pretty much already solved the issue - The bots are buying the crafting materials, cause you cant effectively bot these fights for hte material itself. So to abuse bots its better to sell the crafted material they cant effectively get. This applies to a bunch of other things in the game. While its a pain, running HoH for the Dodo mount is a huge way to make cash. And while the Glamour weapons are harder to sell overall due to bots, again a heavy undercut can make those move fast enough and itll generate profit despite bots. Remember, there is only so much the bots can actually do in regards to materials. If it costs them 50k to buy materials and craft the item, and you get the item from PotD as a natural drop, you could sell it for 45k and theres nothign bots can do to undercut you cause its a profit loss for them while being more or less a 100% net gain for you. Sucks you cant sell it for millions, sure, but Ill take 45k over nothing.

You cant stop bots (or other people) competing on those grounds, but you can compete and make a decent chunk of change by selling thigns bots cant get, or timing your sales. When a new tier opens up for crafting, selling old crafting mats youve stock piled can generate a ton of profit as people buy that stuff up to not have to deal with things.

But thats the point. Once upon a time yeah gathering stuff and crafting it is how youd make money. Now a days its better to be the material supplier on rarer items. But thats the nature of the beast currently. Even without bots, the likelyhood is the MB wouldve gone this direction anyways, though perhaps at a slower pace.

[JTF-Taru]

snip

That makes absolutely no sense at all and doesn't relate to my comments. You originally claimed no one can compare FFXIV DLC to any other DLC as no other DLC is FFXIV DLC so the comparison isn't like for like.

I pointed out that's nonsense as by that logic, you can't compare any 2 brands or models of anything, like phones or cars or whatever as they will always be different.

Nothing you have said here negates that. What does quitting the game have to do with that point being valid or not?

Saying people can't compare DLC from different companies as they are not exactly the same is ludicrous.

Every day, people compare things. On here, on YouTube, on TV, in magazines, on other forums, face to face etc. Saying no one can ever compare 2 things that aren't identical is illogical as if 2 things are identical, why would you compare them? You can only compare things that aren't the same and people have been doing it since the human race began. Why would this concept not apply to FFXIV DLC when it applies to anything else in existence?

You CAN compare things that aren't made by the same company and judge if one is better value than the other. This is part of life and people do it everyday in every country. Do you not accept this or are you seriously still claiming that no one is allowed to compare FFXIV DLC prices with other DLC prices as they aren't both FFXIV DLC?

[JTF-Taru]

snip

I never said they were making cash hand over fist. In fact I said the opposite. I think they are throttling sales due to their high prices.

And I never said anywhere I wanted the DLC to be free. Just not so expensive.

Why don't you answer what I say instead of trying to put words into my mouth I didn't say?

well, to be objective, which is to supply facts as opposed to just opinion...

The WoW cash shop, which is another subscription based game with a cash shop for OPTIONAL items

Mounts range from 32 to 38 CAD (doesnt matter how old there are the price has never changed)

appearance change is 19 CAD
race change is 32 CAD
pets/minions are 12.50 CAD.

That isn't being objective. That's called seeking out and cherry picking one study / example that fits the narrative you want to push, while ignoring hundreds / thousands of examples that don't fit your world-view.

Gaming is full of games that have much cheaper DLC.

If someone offered you £1,000,000 to find 50 examples of games that have cheaper DLC than FFXIV and gave you 24 hours to do it, you're telling me you'd just sit there refreshing the WoW page, wringing your hands that you're going to lose the money?

I'm pretty sure you'd find 50 games and in a lot less time than 24 hours. So just stop with this...

People know what DLC costs and FFXIV is above the norm for what you'd expect to pay.

What's even worse is that you deliberately chose one company with high prices to compare against.

You could have picked The Elder Scrolls Online for example. Its mounts (for PS4) range from $9 to $25 CAD, but (assuming you're telling the truth and WoW is $32 to $38 CAD), you spent a while searching for the dearest DLC you could find to try and push the notion that FFXIV prices are decent.

What I don't understand is why linayar isn't jumping down your throat telling you that you can't compare WoW DLC with FFXIV DLC as they aren't both FFXIV DLC and therefore aren't comparable.

If someone bet you $1000 of your own money they could find 10 games with cheaper DLC than FFXIV would you take that bet? You're confident they'd lose, right? I'm thinking you wouldn't take that bet...

And for the record, 2 companies that over-charge are still over-charging. Same with 3 companies or even 4.

There is a general problem in video games with low content and over-priced merchandise.

Too many loot boxes, too many 'Ultimate' editions, too many remasters and remakes, too many games released with half the content locked behind a paywall.

There is a growing backlash against all of this and people are getting fed up.

I get that in video game communities, especially MMO ones, there are people who would buy a used sock if it came with a picture of a chocobo on it.

But the majority of people just don't feel like that.

[Jojoya]

Gaming is full of games that have much cheaper DLC.

Sure. Now analyze those games, their associated cash shops and the companies that make the game.

It's not the size or even the quality, of the code for the DLC that is dictating the price. It's the expenses for the company's operations and the company's other sources of revenue to cover those expenses that influence pricing.

Someone who privately owns their small business can charge less than a major corporation that must repay investors.

Someone running a game company out of a basement in Kansas can charge less than the person running the game out of an office in Tokyo. Cost of living, office space, supplies, etc. is much less.

Someone who relies on word of mouth for their publicity/marketing can charge less than someone who's advertising in major media.

Someone who doesn't offer any customer support to resolve problems is going to be able to charge less than someone who does.

You really can't compare value of DLC between games unless you're comparing like games being produced by like companies.

[Ursa_Vonfiebryd]

Let's try this again. So...you are angry about the price of something that SE put extra effort into. Granted not all the stuff on Mog is specialty, as some of it is NPC gear but consider that gear has to be adjusted so it is wearable by all races and not just the NPCs it was originally created for. Then there is the actual specialty stuff that was made specifically for glamour. Not as game content but extra design, rendering, etc. Luxury items, as others have called it.

Now I get it. It's a bit pricey for virtual stuff that you never actually get to come home with along with the fact that the game comes with a sub. But people put effort into the Mog items too and their work deserves payment. It's of course up to you to decide whether it's worth your money or not but at the end of the day you get to decided what you are willing to pay for. And right now you've decided that it is not worth it. So... Your argument has been heard. Enjoy your choices?

[linayar]

You CAN compare things that aren't made by the same company and judge if one is better value than the other.

And that's my point. So what are you going to do when you find out another game's DLC is "better value." Quit this game for that other game? If not, then what has your comparison done? Nothing, it's useless.

When you compare two phones, you're choosing between which phone to buy. When you compare two DLCs from two different games, there is no choice to be made since they're from two different games. Better value in another game doesn't translate to the other game.

EXAMPLE:

Right now, WoW made appearance change free, but so what? Unless you play WoW, that won't do anything to you or your FFXIV character. You pay for fantasia if you want to change your FFXIV character. A cheaper service/DLC in another game is meaningless in dictating prices for this game unless you're willing to quit the game over those prices.

[Kes13a]

That isn't being objective. That's called seeking out and cherry picking one study / example that fits the narrative you want to push, while ignoring hundreds / thousands of examples that don't fit your world-view.

Gaming is full of games that have much cheaper DLC.

If someone offered you £1,000,000 to find 50 examples of games that have cheaper DLC than FFXIV and gave you 24 hours to do it, you're telling me you'd just sit there refreshing the WoW page, wringing your hands that you're going to lose the money?

I'm pretty sure you'd find 50 games and in a lot less time than 24 hours. So just stop with this...

People know what DLC costs and FFXIV is above the norm for what you'd expect to pay.

What's even worse is that you deliberately chose one company with high prices to compare against.

You could have picked The Elder Scrolls Online for example. Its mounts (for PS4) range from $9 to $25 CAD, but (assuming you're telling the truth and WoW is $32 to $38 CAD), you spent a while searching for the dearest DLC you could find to try and push the notion that FFXIV prices are decent.

What I don't understand is why linayar isn't jumping down your throat telling you that you can't compare WoW DLC with FFXIV DLC as they aren't both FFXIV DLC and therefore aren't comparable.

If someone bet you $1000 of your own money they could find 10 games with cheaper DLC than FFXIV would you take that bet? You're confident they'd lose, right? I'm thinking you wouldn't take that bet...

I was comparing comparable items. Both games are subscription based, so the comparison seemed better than your generic "full of games that have much cheaper DLC" without coming up with anything comparable or checkable.

As for why I choose WoW, I play it, so I went there. Elder Scrolls, is not a sub based game. it is Free to play... and their appearance change is usually 1000 Crowns, which works out to around $10. Its also a game where you likely have a few alts and not sure if teh mounts are account wide, but really, they want and need you to spend money on crowns, and people will spend far more in a F2P game than a sub is typically worth.

as for bets etc. I can easily find games with cheaper or more expensive DLC if we are just talking any game online in the industry. personally I would be stupid to take it without conditions such as type of game, is there a subscription, things you are glossing over in your comparisons.

its all very good to come up with a statement, without anything to back it up.

so, as for cherry picking... all I did was picked a similar business model, which you seem loathe to actually consider (and the store is easy access since its on the launcher on my desktop.. no internet searching or hand wringing involved)

If you want a market wide analysis, better be prepared to come at with me with more than low grade insults and vague facts.

[linayar]

What I don't understand is why linayar isn't jumping down your throat telling you that you can't compare WoW DLC with FFXIV DLC as they aren't both FFXIV DLC and therefore aren't comparable.

Because I don't read every post, especially posts by people I'm not having a discussion with. Though I sometimes skim and happen to see things, which leads me to this post.

So now the question is: Do you now understand why they're not comparable unless you're willing to quit one game over the other? Because otherwise, it's silly to say I should "jump down" other people's throat for something you're doing as well.