Online Store is Getting Worse!

[LilyPendragon]

Unless someone is a registered investor in Square Enix, they don't have any right to that type of information beyond whatever public disclosures are required by law.

If you think a company is engaging in shady accounting practices, why are you doing business with them? Why not go find a game where you feel the company is properly investing back in their product?

You misunderstand me. I am under no delusion that Square should publish any of that information. I'm simply saying that there's no reason to believe the claim that they're re-investing mog station money directly into the game.

[Deveryn]

You misunderstand me. I am under no delusion that Square should publish any of that information. I'm simply saying that there's no reason to believe the claim that they're re-investing mog station money directly into the game.

There's no reason to believe they're not. People will have their opinions on what's being done, but the fact is the service remains pretty consistent and they're doing more and adding more.

[LilyPendragon]

There's no reason to believe they're not.

That's not how the burden of proof works. Don't get me wrong, I don't give two damns about the mog station one way or the other, but unless it can be shown to be true, the claim that they re-invest all their mog station money into the game will remain unproven. People just take it on faith that when they were told that is the case, that it is true.

[Iyrnthota]

Somehow I doubt that. If you were truly affected that badly, you wouldn't be subscribed to the game in the first place. You'd be cowering in a closet somewhere with your eyes clenched shut.

We all deal with things we don't want to throughout our lives.
I also hate exercising, but I do it anyway cause if I don't it will literally kill me.

[Mika_Zahard]

Everyone knows XIV is the cash cow. they invest the absolute minimum (shout out to intern-san) and extract the maximum. If you dont agree with this cash shop stuff, vote with your wallet and dont buy anything off there. While whales will continue to urinate their money up the wall, at least you'll know you didnt contribute to the problem. There is absolutely 0 reason for the cash shop to exist when they charge a base fee and a sub cost. Maybe they could add these items into the game to be earned instead of brought to help with player retention and droughts but I guess mr shareholder wouldnt be too happy with that.

Yeah you sum it all up. It’s a losing battle. At least we can pat our backs saying we didn’t contribute to that..

[Deveryn]

MMO Subscriptions have never gone above 15/month in about 22 years. If you think developers are really getting by just on that and the base entry / expansion costs, you're sorely mistaken.

[Stasya]

There is a very simple solution for all those, like me, who think most of the items in the Online store are far too expensive.
You don't buy them.

I think its same problem as with current wow. You buy game and pay sub yet some parts of content released in bad quality while store items in much better.

[Iyrnthota]

MMO Subscriptions have never gone above 15/month in about 22 years. If you think developers are really getting by just on that and the base entry / expansion costs, you're sorely mistaken.

Some back of the envelope calculations on my part

Assuming:

1. Squenix reporting of 24 mil accounts as of Oct 21 is both accurate and each is a distinct subscription
2. Each of these is paying a 30 day standard sub in my region at 8.99/month

Thats ~2 billion (2,000,000,000) gross annually, not including Mogstation transactions or upfront expansions payments.

I don't claim to be an expert on MMO maintenance costs, but that seems like plenty of income to me.

[Hoaxtopher]

Some back of the envelope calculations on my part

Assuming:

1. Squenix reporting of 24 mil accounts as of Oct 21 is both accurate and each is a distinct subscription

I'm pretty sure that the 24m number is the total accounts ever created for the game, not active subscriptions

[Iyrnthota]

I'm pretty sure that the 24m number is the total accounts ever created for the game, not active subscriptions

I dunno, I was doing some googling, and it looks like more recent estimates have total number of subscribers at over 30 mil.

I was going to quote them, but most seems to be pulling that figure from here:
https://mmo-population.com/r/ffxiv