Ffxiv monthly sub isn't stretching & response to PCGAMER article

[Hallarem]

I keep hearing whale noises. Normalizing pay to win is never the solution.

It's not even pay to win, it's "Pay for a chance to win" while potentially blowing up a lot of cash.

Which is gambling, which is infinitely worse. They are using their budget right, seems they have good writers too? But let's not kid ourselves where that money comes from.
It's the abusing of people's addiction of wanting to be powerful and laud that power over others, and the devs are giving the pathway towards that with money. You don't have to do it, but you are incentivized into doing it, that is why the system exists and that is how the game is DEVELOPED.

So sure, the games might have better story, better mechanics, hell it might be better over all? But let's not kid ourselves that monetizing-wise they are as evil as games come. Preying on the weaker minded individuals in gamers or to people with a tendence for gambling.

[KurenXIV]

You say that like we aren't getting fleeced ourselves right now. Where did the subscription money go? What did the cash shop money get put into? And if you own a house, hope you enjoy paying rent to keep it.

Folks who invest time and money into MMOs instead of gacha aren't any smarter about getting caught, it's just a different kind of net that we got trawled into.

Louder for the people in the back.

It's 100% predatory behavior from SE that housing has a 45 day demolition timer. It's incredibly inconvenient to have to time your sub/unsub to (at best) get (maybe?) 6 months of the year without having to pay to maintain a house? That's approximately $80 minimum being exploited from players to maintain an artificially created limited resource which, depending on the server, they may never be able to have again.

Questioning where our monthly fee and cash shop money goes is absolutely valid at this point, because it's painfully clear its being funneled into the companies multiple failed projects year after year after year instead of back into the game.

I unsubbed because I am tired of watching our game turn to absolute garbage knowing my money will never go towards making the game better.

[BabyYoda]

Louder for the people in the back.

It's 100% predatory behavior from SE that housing has a 45 day demolition timer. It's incredibly inconvenient to have to time your sub/unsub to (at best) get (maybe?) 6 months of the year without having to pay to maintain a house? That's approximately $80 minimum being exploited from players to maintain an artificially created limited resource which, depending on the server, they may never be able to have again.

Questioning where our monthly fee and cash shop money goes is absolutely valid at this point, because it's painfully clear its being funneled into the companies multiple failed projects year after year after year instead of back into the game.

I unsubbed because I am tired of watching our game turn to absolute garbage knowing my money will never go towards making the game better.

I would spend 12% on loot boxes in any F2P game over subbing for a broken house system

[Gurgeh]

...Questioning where our monthly fee and cash shop money goes is absolutely valid at this point, because it's painfully clear its being funneled into the companies multiple failed projects year after year after year instead of back into the game...

This!
The total lack of commercial awareness and negotiating nouse of so many of these games companies is staggering. What especially annoys me is the amount risk games companies take on for rights to these stupid film franchises.
Making a good game is hard enough as it is without being limited by a non-purpose built lore/canon.
Making a good game is hard enough without having to content with an irrational fanatical fanbase that will review bomb you if you attempt perturb any one of the 1,000 disunited perspectives they all have.
Making a good game is hard enough as it is without having to make a game that has had the resourced needed to make it both brilliantly playable, and also to come up to the AAAAAAAAASSSSSS productions standards they IP owners imagine befits one of their block buster releases.
Yes Marvel and Starwars games I'm looking at you.
Making games is Incredibly hard.
Incredibly complex.
Incredibly risky.
Incredibly fickle.
If they had any sense these Games companies should be.
- "First of all you the IP owner are not going to see a cent except through royalties from 'profit' only. Just like an indy devs having to deal with investment companies: your not going to see a dime until after we do. THERE IS VALUE FOR YOU IN JUST HOW OUR GAME COULD ADVERTISE AND RAISE THE PROFILE OF YOUR FRANCHISE IP"
- "Secondly, we will consult with you but you are not going to have a say except in the story and what we do with your characters which you will sign off early on. Scripts are needed for films, and its on us to give you a script before we start making the game"
- "Either you trust us to do your IP justice, or you don't. If you don't you don't have to agree"
- "But we are not taking all the risk and pandering to your sense of entitlement around your IP and all the other disadvantages, and sinking our games chances with your production demands"
- "YOUR FRANCHISE IP JUST AINT WORTH ALL THAT MUCH AFTER FACTORING RISK. Now do you want in on the publicity and relevance your franchise will get if we pull this off?..."

[Arzalis]

Louder for the people in the back.

It's 100% predatory behavior from SE that housing has a 45 day demolition timer. It's incredibly inconvenient to have to time your sub/unsub to (at best) get (maybe?) 6 months of the year without having to pay to maintain a house? That's approximately $80 minimum being exploited from players to maintain an artificially created limited resource which, depending on the server, they may never be able to have again.

Questioning where our monthly fee and cash shop money goes is absolutely valid at this point, because it's painfully clear its being funneled into the companies multiple failed projects year after year after year instead of back into the game.

I unsubbed because I am tired of watching our game turn to absolute garbage knowing my money will never go towards making the game better.

A lot of the game is like this, and I don't know why people aren't more annoyed.

Us lacking a proper glamour system is literally intentional. Why fix something when they can sell a worse solution (retainers) to a problem they created instead? 200 hours of MSQ holding you back from playing with your friends? No worries, just buy this level skip from us; ignore that we keep making the MSQ longer and longer with no entry point, even in our "start of a new story" expansion. You miss a timed event and are interested in the gear rewards that were free? Give us money and please ignore the fact we reran these items on a vendor for free the first two years.

The game is incredibly scummy with some things. Housing is the most prevalent, but it's the tip of the iceberg.

Most of the longstanding problems with this game make sense when you realize SE financially benefits from them.

[Raven2014]

I keep hearing whale noises. Normalizing pay to win is never the solution.

It's not even pay to win, it's "Pay for a chance to win" while potentially blowing up a lot of cash.

Which is gambling, which is infinitely worse. They are using their budget right, seems they have good writers too? But let's not kid ourselves where that money comes from.
It's the abusing of people's addiction of wanting to be powerful and laud that power over others, and the devs are giving the pathway towards that with money. You don't have to do it, but you are incentivized into doing it, that is why the system exists and that is how the game is DEVELOPED.

You know what the kind of point you missing here? Is that due to your prejudice whenever we talk about these topic, people like you always jump on the wagon assuming we're advocating turning MMO into a gacha games?

The point we want to make is to show the value disposition these games offer, to show how outdated the pace, system, mechanic of FF14 is. Like ... for real, I won't cost you a penny, go trail WUthering Wave right now, give it a week to explore the game than maybe like me, you'll realize you're paying $15 a month for a game with an exploration system that's more than a decade old.

So sure, the games might have better story, better mechanics, hell it might be better over all? But let's not kid ourselves that monetizing-wise they are as evil as games come. Preying on the weaker minded individuals in gamers or to people with a tendence for gambling.

The only one kidding themselves here is you if try to pretend this is about good and evil, but I guess framing it that way give you the morality you're craving for? Go back to 10-15-20 years ago, SE was a company that by all measure as glamorous as Hoyoverse is. What change? Bad decision, that's what.


The Hoyoverse games make a lot of money ... sure. But have you question why it keeps making more and more money? Because it knows how to reinvest those money and make the game better and better.

You can argue FF14 not making a lot of money ... but we all know it makes enough money to carry SE for years at this point. The investment, the fail or under performed main line FF tittles and dozen of other crappy tittles ... Did you ever stop and think that had those money be reinvested back into FF14, the game would be so good that conversation wouldn't be happening in the first place. It may not make as much, but it's sure making enough to make itself a much better experience than the slop we're getting.


This has nothing to do with how much money being made, it's about how they're being spent. Unless you gonna pretend had those money wasted won't give us a better story, mechanic, hell better overall experience then you're lying to yourself. But I guess looking at the argument this way doesn't give you the moral superiority. The fact that you seem to incapable of accepting the fact that a lot if not most people playing F2P/Gacha games hardly spending any money and still able to have a good experience show that you care more about your prejudice than actually holding an argument.