Quote Originally Posted by Boblawblah View Post
You're presenting a false dilemma. We have no hard evidence that the cash shop items would simply never have been created had the cash shop not existed. We don't know how much of the cash shop income is directly returned to the development of the game or simply adds to the profits of the game. It's like saying that a billionaire CEO wouldn't give a Christmas bonus to his employees if he had a reduced salary.

Also, it's not disingenuous to have an opinion on something regardless of how it compares to other similar products. If everyone is doing something predatory, that doesn't make it not predatory.
I think it's safe to say a lot of the items wouldn't exist without the cash shop.

I agree with this. However, I don't think FFXIV's cash shop is really predatory yet, people can argue the pricing, but that's not really predatory, in my opinion. Predatory would be if they were doing "limited time" sales, items on rotation, premium battlepass, lootboxes, pay for convenience, etc..