It seems SE sees apartments as Housing

[Jojoya]

I agree, all their marketing material for housing shows off apartments so people should just realize - wait...

That's the problem - they don't actually promote apartments.

What products are most likely to end up successful? Products promoted in marketing campaigns. We're trained from an early age to become demanding consumers for the things we see being advertised first on TV then later in social media and other places (unless our parents block our access to those things).

As long as SE is going to promote owning a house both in their out-of-game advertising and in their in-game questing, players are going to expect to own a house.

If they don't have enough faith in their apartments to feature them in any marketing, players are going to ignore them in favor of what is featured.

It's a shame because apartments are not that bad if you give them a chance. If you have multiple characters on the same world, you can always try to put their apartments into the same building to create the illusion of having a larger house. They're still not going to suit every player (especially those who will actually do intercross gardening) but a little creativity can create a nice living space.

[Eraden]

That's the problem - they don't actually promote apartments.

What products are most likely to end up successful? Products promoted in marketing campaigns. We're trained from an early age to become demanding consumers for the things we see being advertised first on TV then later in social media and other places (unless our parents block our access to those things).

As long as SE is going to promote owning a house both in their out-of-game advertising and in their in-game questing, players are going to expect to own a house.

If they don't have enough faith in their apartments to feature them in any marketing, players are going to ignore them in favor of what is featured.

It's a shame because apartments are not that bad if you give them a chance. If you have multiple characters on the same world, you can always try to put their apartments into the same building to create the illusion of having a larger house. They're still not going to suit every player (especially those who will actually do intercross gardening) but a little creativity can create a nice living space.

No, apartments really ARE bad compared to houses. Less functionality (for some of us having other players be able to interact with our apartments IS important), and MUCH less space. Those tiny little boxes restrict people from being able to access a lot of décor styles. Try putting even a single room into an apartment and suddenly you have a LOT less space on your hands. Now, apartments would not be so bad if they were made larger and were allowed access by more tenants. Until they are revamped to be something other than the single-person coffins that they are (a bit of hyperbole here but not far off the mark), people will always go for houses first and foremost.

[YukikoKurosawa]

Culturally, we're always striving to get more in the US instead of learning to be satisfied with "enough".

It's a video game. Apartments just flat out suck due to a lack of features, a lack of space, and a lack of customizability. You are effectively calling us pissed off over the housing situation in this game "entitled" for wanting actual non-garbage housing systems for those unlucky 99% of players who fail to get a house in this system.

I don't care if apartments are how Japan sees housing. This is a video game. This not real life. Housing is an ADVERTISED core feature of this game. As it stands only a tiny few percentage of the playerbase can experience actual acceptable housing and experience all the features to the fullest. Everyone else is relegated to garbage, tiny little instanced boxes that fundamentally lack not just space but critical features of housing.

It's crap. As a game feature, it's crap. And I'm sick of hearing these mental-gymnastics used to excuse it. Apartments fundamentally suck as "housing" and there's zero excuse for not allowing everyone to get full sized, full-feature houses through sufficient investment into the game.

[Amenara]

That's the problem - they don't actually promote apartments.

What products are most likely to end up successful? Products promoted in marketing campaigns. We're trained from an early age to become demanding consumers for the things we see being advertised first on TV then later in social media and other places (unless our parents block our access to those things).

As long as SE is going to promote owning a house both in their out-of-game advertising and in their in-game questing, players are going to expect to own a house.

If they don't have enough faith in their apartments to feature them in any marketing, players are going to ignore them in favor of what is featured.

It's a shame because apartments are not that bad if you give them a chance. If you have multiple characters on the same world, you can always try to put their apartments into the same building to create the illusion of having a larger house. They're still not going to suit every player (especially those who will actually do intercross gardening) but a little creativity can create a nice living space.

I agree with the sentiment and understand that you aren't calling for everyone to just accept apartments. I think if SE really believes that apartments are the solution for housing it should be more prominent in their advertising, especially since that is the only real way to enter the housing system currently. I love my apartment and am happy about the hours of time I sank into making it what I wanted. My apartment whet my appetite for housing and made me want more out of the very limited system apartments give.

I think it could be a double edged sword if they do actively start promoting apartments in that we could end up with apartments also being filled up to capacity due to more players wanting to participate in the system not knowing they exist and then be in the same spot we are now with the lack of houses. Do I think that would realistically happen? Probably not. I think the other issue is that more people will participate and realize they, like me, want more which will exacerbate the current supply issues.

That being said it could be another avenue to show SE how many people want houses and want a better system than we currently have and cause change in their mindset...Who knows?

[Valsharia]

appartments ARE housing.. they also have far better item density than the other options, yes they lack a garden of any kind.. does that change the fact its a form of housing? no. stop being picky when yourr begging for housing when its clearly available

[Amenara]

appartments ARE housing.. they also have far better item density than the other options, yes they lack a garden of any kind.. does that change the fact its a form of housing? no. stop being picky when yourr begging for housing when its clearly available

I agree with apartments being a part of the housing system, I disagree with the sentiment of "stop being picky". Apartments are objectively inferior to owning a house in the game, that is why people are complaining about house availability.

[MaeveHatesHousing]

appartments ARE housing.. they also have far better item density than the other options, yes they lack a garden of any kind.. does that change the fact its a form of housing? no. stop being picky when yourr begging for housing when its clearly available

not only does your argument not hold water, but people who own any house in game are ALSO allowed to own an apartment room.

[Avoidy]

It's funny because the picture OP posted is written to imply that players who buy this game can easily obtain both forms of housing. Phrasing like "Let's build a house alone or together with friends! You can also decorate your own room." implies that on top of building a home, you can also have an apartment.
For this to be an honest ad that tempers people's expectations to reality, the actual picture of an outdoor housing plot should be nuked and replaced with a picture of the apartment interior. Use of the word "mansion" should be removed as well, because let's be real nobody's getting one of those.

This is the rare moment where the English translation being vague and radically different from every other version actually works in its favor a little bit. You can't define a "little slice of Eorzea," so fans have less room to be upset when the house they expected to own never comes to fruition. Players in other languages however, have absolutely been misled by this ad in particular, assuming the translations I'm reading in your pic are accurate.

[Toutatis]

. Use of the word "mansion" should be removed as well, because let's be real nobody's getting one of those.

The French version doesn’t say mansion, it says “house”. “Maison” is “house”, not “mansion” though the term is generic enough to include a mansion or a small house but not an apartment. Whoever translated the advertisement from French made a mistake.

This is the rare moment where the English translation being vague and radically different from every other version actually works in its favor a little bit. You can't define a "little slice of Eorzea," so fans have less room to be upset when the house they expected to own never comes to fruition.

They still just show a house on the picture and to me the expression is directly derived from “a slice of land” which refers to a of a piece of land in Eorzea. It’s not an expression one would use to refer to an apartment.

[Jojoya]

No, apartments really ARE bad compared to houses. Less functionality (for some of us having other players be able to interact with our apartments IS important), and MUCH less space. Those tiny little boxes restrict people from being able to access a lot of décor styles. Try putting even a single room into an apartment and suddenly you have a LOT less space on your hands. Now, apartments would not be so bad if they were made larger and were allowed access by more tenants. Until they are revamped to be something other than the single-person coffins that they are (a bit of hyperbole here but not far off the mark), people will always go for houses first and foremost.

Then you're another player that has never given apartments are fair chance. I've seen apartments decorated in wonderful ways compared to houses that have a few items slapped down then been ignored.

They are not bad. They just aren't as good. It's like saying vanilla ice cream is bad because it's not a hot fudge sundae. No. The vanilla ice cream isn't bad. It's still good. It's just not as good as the hot fudge sundae. If you can't get the hot fudge sundae, the vanilla ice cream can still be satisfying.

It's crap. As a game feature, it's crap. And I'm sick of hearing these mental-gymnastics used to excuse it. Apartments fundamentally suck as "housing" and there's zero excuse for not allowing everyone to get full sized, full-feature houses through sufficient investment into the game.

I agree that that every player should be able to get a house. I've been pushing for that for years.

It is not possible at this point in the game.

If players aren't going to at least utilize what instanced housing is available when they are unable to get a ward house, then SE has no reason to improve the instanced housing system. They're going to stick to the ward system and there will always be players who are unable to get a house because there's no realistic way to expand the ward system big enough to satisfy demand.

I think it could be a double edged sword if they do actively start promoting apartments in that we could end up with apartments also being filled up to capacity due to more players wanting to participate in the system not knowing they exist and then be in the same spot we are now with the lack of houses. Do I think that would realistically happen? Probably not. I think the other issue is that more people will participate and realize they, like me, want more which will exacerbate the current supply issues.

When SE introduced apartments to the game, they clearly stated that it would be far easier for them to increase the number of apartments per building compared to the effort needed to increase the number of wards.

The only reason we haven't seen it happen yet is because Balmung has been the only world with enough housing demand to fill all their apartments.

If more worlds were facing the same situation, they would be much more likely to take action.

I agree with apartments being a part of the housing system, I disagree with the sentiment of "stop being picky". Apartments are objectively inferior to owning a house in the game, that is why people are complaining about house availability.

But their comment does point out why players need to stop saying "we need more housing" and start saying "we need more houses". We've got the housing and few of them are using it because they're holding out for a house.

#FFXIV-houses-fix-the-supply

It's funny because the picture OP posted is written to imply that players who buy this game can easily obtain both forms of housing. Phrasing like "Let's build a house alone or together with friends! You can also decorate your own room." implies that on top of building a home, you can also have an apartment.
For this to be an honest ad that tempers people's expectations to reality, the actual picture of an outdoor housing plot should be nuked and replaced with a picture of the apartment interior. Use of the word "mansion" should be removed as well, because let's be real nobody's getting one of those.

This is the rare moment where the English translation being vague and radically different from every other version actually works in its favor a little bit. You can't define a "little slice of Eorzea," so fans have less room to be upset when the house they expected to own never comes to fruition. Players in other languages however, have absolutely been misled by this ad in particular, assuming the translations I'm reading in your pic are accurate.

Any advertising comes with the drawback of supply not being sufficient for the demand created by the advertising.

The problem is they aren't doing a good job of promoting what is definitely available and instead focus on the might be available.

Technically even an apartment could be considered a "little slice of Eorzea" but it's definitely not going to raise the same response as a house.