Who is Optional – A Question of Consumer Value

[DoctorPepper]

Did you know that when you buy a new car, they no longer give you a spare tire? Instead they have a motorized air pump and fix it flat goo. Then you can pay extra for the spare tire. True statement.

That's funny because my new truck definitely came with a spare tire. It didn't come with an air pump or any goo though and I didn't pay anything extra for the tire, in fact every vehicle I looked at had a spare tire included. You can't see the tires anymore however, for trucks they're hidden under the box and for cars they're in a hidden compartment under the trunk (at least the ones I was looking at).

[Dyvid]

That's funny because my new truck definitely came with a spare tire. It didn't come with an air pump or any goo though and I didn't pay anything extra for the tire, in fact every vehicle I looked at had a spare tire included. You can't see the tires anymore however, for trucks they're hidden under the box and for cars they're in a hidden compartment under the trunk (at least the ones I was looking at).

Well that's funny because when I bought my new car and ask the dealer what this fee was, he flat out said they don't give spare tire for free anymore but goo. It was only when I stood up and started to walk out they sucked it up and "tossed" in the tire for no additional fee.

[NyarukoW]

To SE no one is optional, the question of who is optional is both incorrect and irrelevant. Actually SE was not even asking who would optionally elect to put money where their mouth is, but rather players were asking to pay for pixels. To SE it is not optional to ignore these players and leave that money on the table. Do players begrudge other players that have the CE edition with the baby behemoth and coerul mount? I am sure some players do, but is that justified?

[Xairos]

(post from another Cash Shop Thread since they are all the same conversation)
I want to interject a thought into this thread and pose a question to anyone who will read. To those of you saying that the way you (personal "you") win at this game is to collect mounts and minions and as such SE is selling "Win" on the cash shop and thus this game is Pay to win, I ask you:At any point in this game did you battle, level up, collect gear and weapons? Because if you boil this game's concept down, The language that this game uses for "Power" is gear stats and weapon stats and character level. So unless you logged in and sat in the starter zone saying "I dont want to fight, I just want to collect", you have and are playing this game and participating in the "Win" condition of this game.

It is fallacious and dishonest to claim that the new "Win" condition of this game is to collect minions and mounts and pass that off on the forums as a perceived form of "Power". This is akin to agreeing to play a game of "Tag" and then refusing to chase. Akin to agreeing to run a race and not running the agreed-upon path.

Even if you convince yourself that your form of "Power" is collecting minions and mounts and clothing to jazz yourself up, you can not re-write the code of this game's definition of "Power". SE is not selling power. Even if they sell cards packs for Gold saucer, that wont be "Power" because even in Magic: The gathering, packs represent a chance of randomly pulling "power" whereas buying specific cards is straight buying "power" and even hearthstone doesnt sell specific cards.

Slippery slope is one fallacy, true. But the main fallacy here is one of dishonesty. You can't agree to play the game, in the terms of how the game was coded to be played and then declare that the "win" condition is something otherwise. Just like I can not play this game, with the intent of leveling BLM to become a street magician in order to make gil. The game is not coded in such a way to let me do that. Furthermore it was not advertised as a game in which i could do such a thing.

One last thing, even if your mission is to catch em all as far as minions and mounts are concerned, you have to, you must, be aware of the fact that this is an MMO, and thus any thing you attempt to 100% will be daunting, exhausting, and quite possibly cost you Real life money. Achievements and Collections are the chief among real money requirements. This comes in the form of buying pre-orders, collector's editions, virtual tickets (blizzard), art books, soundtracks... etc

[seida]

I'm curious as to what the "it's only optional, it's not pay to win!" supporters would think of booster packs/strong cards for triple triad being sold in the cash shop.

Hey, it's only a mini-game, right? It's optional. But that would also very much be pay to win.

Now the thought of the Gold Saucer makes me nervous. How are they going to find ways to charge us for all the OPTIONAL stuff that is coming?

[Jacost]

With Triple Triad apparently having it's own app which ties in to FFXIV, I get the feeling that it'll actually be a completely seperate game that happens to have FFXIV as one of it's platforms. That would be... disappointing.

[Vespar]

I think its funny people are made at SE bringing in paid optional items/services in the first place. Did everyone just forget that Square Enix is a business? And therefore they can sell whatever products they choose, whenever they choose and if you as a consumer don't need, want, or like the product then dont buy it.

[Shougun]

(post from another Cash Shop Thread since they are all the same conversation)
I want to interject a thought into this thread and pose a question to anyone who will read. To those of you saying that the way you (personal "you") win at this game is to collect mounts and minions and as such SE is selling "Win" on the cash shop and thus this game is Pay to win, I ask you:At any point in this game did you battle, level up, collect gear and weapons? Because if you boil this game's concept down, The language that this game uses for "Power" is gear stats and weapon stats and character level. So unless you logged in and sat in the starter zone saying "I dont want to fight, I just want to collect", you have and are playing this game and participating in the "Win" condition of this game.

It is fallacious and dishonest to claim that the new "Win" condition of this game is to collect minions and mounts and pass that off on the forums as a perceived form of "Power". This is akin to agreeing to play a game of "Tag" and then refusing to chase. Akin to agreeing to run a race and not running the agreed-upon path.

Even if you convince yourself that your form of "Power" is collecting minions and mounts and clothing to jazz yourself up, you can not re-write the code of this game's definition of "Power". SE is not selling power. Even if they sell cards packs for Gold saucer, that wont be "Power" because even in Magic: The gathering, packs represent a chance of randomly pulling "power" whereas buying specific cards is straight buying "power" and even hearthstone doesnt sell specific cards.

Slippery slope is one fallacy, true. But the main fallacy here is one of dishonesty. You can't agree to play the game, in the terms of how the game was coded to be played and then declare that the "win" condition is something otherwise. Just like I can not play this game, with the intent of leveling BLM to become a street magician in order to make gil. The game is not coded in such a way to let me do that. Furthermore it was not advertised as a game in which i could do such a thing.

One last thing, even if your mission is to catch em all as far as minions and mounts are concerned, you have to, you must, be aware of the fact that this is an MMO, and thus any thing you attempt to 100% will be daunting, exhausting, and quite possibly cost you Real life money. Achievements and Collections are the chief among real money requirements. This comes in the form of buying pre-orders, collector's editions, virtual tickets (blizzard), art books, soundtracks... etc

Since win relates to having success and success can be pulled from opinion, p2w can absolutely relate to obtaining mounts - at least in basic usage, commonly accepted usage can differ and may differ as a function of time. As pointed out in this thread, devs may mean one meaning that has tighter rules, but then that would be a special rule which is easily subject to public whim (for acceptance) and can an ignored term due to newfangled inaccuracy.

There is no dishonesty in having the right to your own opinion. "Well you can't play this unless you have my opinion" lol good luck with that then XD.

The game started without a cash shop, so original terms of condition for each person can be different. If you join WoW now and then say the terms were never presented to you then sure you can say they were blind bats (does not remove their ability to be disappointed but it does remove their ability to claim change). Also it seems you are trying to argue the option of "one or the other, only", which you would know is a fallacy as well.. Players can choose to win in multiple ways, winning say in Dishonored can be through no combat or a lot, in minecraft it can be vanity and or survival, also winning here in all accounts is temporal when you consider end goals are always moving away. Never the last dungeon, the last monsters. Never the last mount. So I don't think you are being fair acting as if you like winning in battle you can't win in collecting mounts (if you get 1 more job, you get 1 more mount, heck you literally win a mount by leveling white mage, I think the difference by using the basic word win is mute).

Again as someone argued a general idea that is accepted for pay to win "devs only think about battle content", which can be a fair assessment of their (dev/general) mind set. But unfortunately it is also right to the players to say that term is unacceptable as they don't accept the twist on it (accepting opinions can change too). In which case perhaps devs need to come up with a new term. We do not to do pay2battle or something lol. It was a poor term in the beginning anyways and I think it is fair to contest its meaning and as language has proven things change.. as helpful and annoying as that may be.

Edit: For clarity -> poor term meaning that it is easily ply-able, argument on not to ply it is hard when it lends itself to that rather easily (and not all "plying" is not malevolent but rather natural reading without guidance of a predefined accepted term).

[ShanaShirayuki]

Let me post a quote from another thread that sums up how silly people complaining are:

Newsflash, SE doesn't care about you. They are making these decisions because the amount of people who are willing to pay for this kind of thing outclasses their projections of those who might leave or unsub due to this type of decision. If the Cash Shop wasn't profitable they never would've created it, much less expand its services.

This game appeals to the lowest common denominator. A vocal minority of players upset about this decision will pale in comparison to the droves who will eat this **** up from the palm of SE's hand along with those who will be upset about it but remained subbed.

tl;dr There's a majority of players that are for a cash shop that greatly outweigh the opinions of those who are complaining. SE will listen to the former, not the latter.

[Nutz]

To me the issue isn't that I'll never have all the minions unless I buy these for real money! I was never going to have all the minions anyway, my MIN retainer seems dead set on that as it is. I do, however, like to collect mounts and minions, so seeing what is, at least currently, a few on the Mog Station for real money, is a bit annoying but not really a big deal. It does make me wonder though how many minions/ mounts that might have made it into the game through any number of acquisition means are just going to be posted on the Mog Station for $5 in the future. Even if they say that won't happen, how does that work? They have a separate team for the paid minions than the in game ones? On top of that the team making the paid minions aren't allowed to use any of the ideas the team for in game minions are thinking of?


All it really comes down to is players don't want an item that they really want (for whatever reason) to have an additional price tag associated with it. Nobody wants to see previews of new gear/ mounts/ minions and have to cross their fingers and hope that the ones that they like are included in their subscription instead of an additional cost.