Data from lucky bancho about participation in field content

[Koros]

The result would be the same in either case.

No longevity doesn't just mean fewer player hours of play derived from that content, but also more than likely fewer months subbed.

Sure, but there's probably diminishing marginal returns to adding content beyond the usual MSQ, raids, dungeons etc., because the majority of the playerbase subs to prevent housing demolition, to make sure they hit their tome caps, to ERP in nightclubs.

What is easier: copy and paste an in-game enemy asset, make it bigger, and reuse a player mount animation, then sell it for $30, or make Bozja...?

We are all bound to simple economic laws. The way for consumers to fight back is to refuse to patronage low effort per revenue activities and products, like MogStation items, which is probably hopeless, or to damage the firm's reputation. The latter probably matters more these days, but probably also hopeless since for some bizarre reason there are those who would side with firms to the detriment of their own utility. You don't even need to boycott, you just need to make their product look like a hazard to people looking in. Many firms renew and make significant concessions when their reputation is truly at stake. The smart consumer is in a perpetual antagonistic relationship with the firm, regardless of the quality of the product. Only continual pressure and antagonism can stave off the backside of the invisible hand.

You can't fight the existence of the economic technology of microtransactions head-on, that's already a lost battle, and any sane profit-maximizing firm is going to pursue it in this industry and cut costs by shaving off more expensive projects (I would not be surprised if Lunar Whale, Cruise Chaser and Shadowkeeper made them more money than Bozja ever did). What you can do is damage their reputation. Regular players can shun white knights, threaten content creators, disparage the firm on Twitter, all this and more. Reputation threatens any firm's potential for growth; new customers do read reviews and are wary of badly-reviewed products, and they stay away from products with significant controversy. If only we banded together.

And yeah, without the threat of bankruptcy, firms will be complacent, so yes consumers should be pushing hard enough that there's a real chance the company goes under water and your favorite game shuts down. Because in the long run an industry where developers live in fear of the consumer is an industry where innovations and quality flourish. Of course this will never happen since most people are too stupid and fall for corporate PR and buy into carefully manicured PR events selling a modernized commodity fetish: one where you think that you are buying more than the product, because you are also buying the "love" and "care" poured into the product, with happy developers giving happy interviews - nevermind the well-known dark side of the entire gaming industry.

[Shurrikhan]

Sure, but there's probably diminishing marginal returns to adding content beyond the usual MSQ, raids, dungeons etc., because the majority of the playerbase subs to prevent housing demolition, to make sure they hit their tome caps, to ERP in nightclubs.

I'm not sure why you're quoting me here, especailly before a response like... all this, which has little to nothing to do with what I said.

But, again, Exploratory Missions are almost certainly going to be more efficiently-spent development time (both in terms of hours played and subs therefore retained)... than even "the usual MSQ... dungeons, etc."

What is easier: copy and paste an in-game enemy asset, make it bigger, and reuse a player mount animation, then sell it for $30, or make Bozja...?

...Exploratory Missions are themselves just copy-pasted existing assets on a new zone map with at most a single new system gimmick per map.

You could remove would-be rewards from content and charge money for them on the Mogstation instead... from any content. It's not like Bozja is uniquely precluded by a desire to make money. They could next expansion just remove Savage mounts and put what would of been on the Mogstation instead. They could remove PvP gear and sell those appearances online.

The question is simply whether your players will remain subbed, and that comes down to more than just whether there are key rewards otherwise found only on the Mogstation at the end of the rainbow; the amount of player hours they can enjoy even when pursuing far less key rewards also play a factor -- where, again... content like EMs that can be enjoyed with more flexible party or community size, in more flexible ways, to more flexible goal lengths, with a more flexible range of means of distribution/acquisition for rewards (should the devs choose to include any at all) will tend to be better for retaining subs than far more rigid content forms like V/C Dungeons.