Online Store is Getting Worse!

[JamieRose]

A merchant has the right to set the prices to whatever they want within their shop. And then adjust based on sales volume. It’s quite simple, if you can’t afford the expensive Mogstation junk, you aren’t their target customer. Personally, I haven’t bought anything because I’m definitely not their target customer…

And if none of their target bite, sure, they can reduce prices to see what maximizes their sales.

That would make sense in a standard marketplace. In this one, Squeenix is the only seller and thus they overcharge because you can't go buy it from anyone else.

[LianaThorne]

That would make sense in a standard marketplace. In this one, Squeenix is the only seller and thus they overcharge because you can't go buy it from anyone else.

Out of curiosity, what would you price the set at and why? Please refrain from subjective reasoning as well (such as, it's ugly).

[Silverbane]

That would make sense in a standard marketplace. In this one, Squeenix is the only seller and thus they overcharge because you can't go buy it from anyone else.

There's nothing special about SE in that regard: the "standard marketplace" is full of people who are the only original sellers for their product. That's the entire point of patents and copyrights, in fact.

So you can't buy optional items for a SquareEnix game from anyone but SquareEnix: that sounds pretty normal for the game industry. But do they really have a special power to overcharge? No, because you can always go play someone else's game instead.

What they have is a captive market, just like Disney does inside Walt Disney World.
So SE, like Disney, can set the price to anything they like, and you can decide not to buy it, or to not even visit the "amusement park" (as FFXIV has been described by Yoshida-san) if it really bothers you.
It's all standard marketplace behavior ... and SE is nowhere near as bad as Disney.

SE differs from Disney in that the incremental cost of MogStation items is close to zero, whereas the food (for example) at WDW actually costs money to make and serve. So SE has a pretty strong motive to start the product at a high price (because some people don't care much about $22 and love having the latest bling) and then eventually reduce it to, say, $8. Once they sold enough product at $22 to recover the development costs, every $8 sale is nearly $8 in pure profit. Again, standard marketplace behavior - that's why there are bargain bins for DVDs and books, for example. (Last time I checked, BTW, DVDs cost about $3 each to make and distribute).

Also standard is if they don't sell enough product at a high enough price to recover the substantial cost of designing an outfit and then fitting that design to all the different character models, they can lose money on it. That risk is also factored in to the initial and subsequent selling price.

[kaynide]

That would make sense in a standard marketplace. In this one, Squeenix is the only seller and thus they overcharge because you can't go buy it from anyone else.

And it’s also not necessary to own the items; we are talking the Gucci of FFXIV. It’d be different if we were talking items necessary to play. Moreover, a majority of the items simply wouldn’t exist if there wasn’t a cash shop. The devs aren’t going to go out of their way making excess frivolous items for the players out of the kindness of their hearts.