I want an official response.

[Xhominid]

The Ego in this thread is ASTOUNDING.

Amused...let it go. Hell, anyone who agrees with his egotism should just freaking leave. I'm going to say this for the last time:

If you BOUGHT REAL LIFE SQUENIX MERCH FOR A MOUNT OR MINION, STOP WHINING ABOUT THE DAMN CASH SHOP! Don't give me this shit that it's "different", you bought it for the damn minion/mount, the Cash Shop gives you an easier way without needing to spend way more than you should.
And if you decided to go the route of minion and mount collecting, YOU SHOULD HAVE KNOWN THIS WAS A RISK SINCE YOU BOUGHT SQUENIX MERCH FOR THEM!!!
You have no one to blame but yourself if you want to eat at every Burger King, but you don't have the expenses to do so.
You have only yourself to blame if you are a car enthusiast and want to drive every car in the world, but can't afford the cars.
Stop acting as if you can ignore the principle here all of a sudden.

[Roris]

you have tons of free to play out, why make one of the few last mmorpg subs go down this way?

All WoW clones go down this route, no exceptions. It's by design, initial high volume sales and accounts created thanks to the hype and brand if it's an existing IP, then the inevitable dip in subscription retention rates because the original they copied still does a lot of things much better, and the clone while better in some aspects still doesn't hold a candle. The less subs, the less monthly income and the more extra resources they need to cover updates and operations.

Cash shops are the easiest and fastest way to achieve this emergency plan to obtain more resources, as long as you build one people will sadly come, the companies are counting on them to make up for the lost subs. Though they are SE so I wouldn't put it past them to seriously think they can pull a WoW and hold both a sub and a cash shop, that has never ever worked at all except for WoW, all other themepark MMOs that have tried this eventually just went F2P and even less went B2P. Considering they had the idea they could compete with WoW since the 1.0 days, and it was one of the main reasons they so badly rushed the game, it's no surprise they're doing all this.

[LineageRazor]

Sort of amused that the OP complains about referring to cash shop items as optional, and then defines "not optional" as anything someone might want to buy. It's a rather roundabout way of saying "CASH SHOP BAD NO EXCEPTIONS", as so many other threads do. Maybe they were hoping the thread would be taken more seriously if it wasn't obviously a CASH SHOP BAD thread? Admittedly, I actually read the thread, so maybe it's a worthwhile, if somewhat underhanded tactic.

I have no real opinion on it; there's nothing in the Cash Shop that I feel obligated to buy. There's stuff I'm sort of interested in, there, but it's yet to reach the point where I feel like paying real money for it. Maybe I'll feel different later. Maybe they'll someday put something there I must have. Maybe then I'll question whether a cash shop should exist at all. I dunno.

Still, the idea that there are collectors out there for whom this is mandatory content, though, is kind of weak... I readily admit that there may be folks that consider this kind of content mandatory - but REAL collectors of that kind are already resolved to spend thousands of dollars on their hobby. There are minions and mounts that are only obtainable by attending things like Fanfest, after all. To people that devoted, the pittance charged by the cash shop is a non-issue; they could buy everything currently available there, and still not put a dent in what it would cost to fly to Vegas. They would probably laugh out loud at the thought of the cash shop being a bad thing - quite the opposite, it facilitates their hobby by making some of their collection easy to get!

[Felessan]

Says a lot that the first major patch since the addition of the cash shop is about 2/3rds cash shop related

I like the exaggeration. Not mentioning a relic, eternal bond itself are several times bigger than all cash shop items. What do we have in cash shop? 2 dyes, some extra cutscenes, copy-pasted set of clothes (extra set looks exactly the same as usual one, just dyes differently), copy-pasted from "invite a friend" choco and one minion? It's a very pale in comparison to the scope of whole ceremony (and there are even quest before it).

It's supposed to entitle you to all the content the game has to offer

And paying 10$ at shop entitles you to everything in that shop /sarcasm

SE keeps locking out stuff that could and should be included in the subscription fee

This is a baseless assumption and wishful thinking. You just assume that this content are free or was already included into the scope of development.

To get this all started SE had to take normal sub money and pay a dev to make some cash shop items to begin with.

You don't understand how it works. Where money came from is not important, most probably than not it was funded separately and put on the separate budget at least initially. Furthermore it most probable that it is cash shop that sponsoring main development and not main development sponsor cash shop as cash shop has significantly higher margin and it usually easier to get bigger budget (even for main project) if you have bigger revenue stream.

with 2.000.000 subs per month (even with only legacy player at 9.99 euro) they get 19.980.000 euro (more of 24.700.000 USD) and it's only with the lowest subs actual, most people are not at this one and with the retainer subs it far more. do you really believe they use 24.7M USD per month in the game? really?

You should remember that ARR essentially sucked all SE money into rebuilding itself, many project went into frozen state (versus, anyone) or even was dumped. ARR cost a lot of money to be remade and people DO want to return their investment, so a lot from this number goes to recuperate R&D cost that was spent years ago.

[Taliph]

You should remember that ARR essentially sucked all SE money into rebuilding itself, many project went into frozen state (versus, anyone) or even was dumped. ARR cost a lot of money to be remade and people DO want to return their investment, so a lot from this number goes to recuperate R&D cost that was spent years ago.

I love how you imply here that the players should shoulder tanaka's failure.

[silentwindfr]

You should remember that ARR essentially sucked all SE money into rebuilding itself, many project went into frozen state (versus, anyone) or even was dumped. ARR cost a lot of money to be remade and people DO want to return their investment, so a lot from this number goes to recuperate R&D cost that was spent years ago.

yes, the game did cost them a lot, but what cost them more is all the "failure" they did recently, a lot of game (even if they did sell well) wasn't a true succes, because they cost them tons of cash to do but don't permit to make a lot of benefit from it. a good example is tomb raider or thief, they are good game that did sell well, but barely enough for call them a succes. more important, FF14 arr is out for more of 1 years (14 months) meaning they have get in this time period (for 1.000.000 subs at legacy subs) 139.860.000 euro (173.200.000 USD)... please don't tell me they did use this much cash for remake the game... more important, they have already said (to them shareholder) that FF14 is a critical succes bringing a lot of benefit that did covered all the cost of before.

the point it's why FF14 need an influx of more cash? mostly because they didn't learn from the error and restart stupid move... SE even if is a big company is not EA, Activision, Ubisoft... however they did relaunch the making of a lot of game... now the question is this, until when can we allows SE to use us for found them other game, while FF14 do need a lot of improvement in many domain? (Server capacity, more man power,...)

don't get me wrong, from a pragmatic point, i understand where stand Yoshida, but as player that invest cash every month into this game (part of a family with 4 active account) i'm concerned by them choice. more bad, i have the feeling that player are nothing more than milking cow for some higher ups of SE, it's hard but true.

you can tell me the game did cost them a lot, but don't forget that while the last years of the V1 all the player with an active account was paying a subs. (that why a lot of legacy are still around) we did invest in the change of the game. and now, the game did receive a massive afflux of money, sadly only a small portion was used for FF14, a lot of the cash was used for covered the loose of the game that did come out before FF14 and now that the society is in positive they still ask us more cash? sorry something need to be change and more important some question need to be answered, more bad they need to stop to see us like milking cow but really like investor that put a lot of money per years into them game!

[Roris]

Oh cmon, grow up. It's a game company that doesn't need more money than it already has, stop supporting their bad consumer practices and go play real videogames. Christ this is just getting ridiculous.

[Amused]

I've already cancelled my subscription and un-installed the game. You want us to leave? OK, that's fine. Just remember this when your servers are being merged, and you can't find people to group with because they've moved on to another game that doesn't treat it's players/fans as expendable.

[Gralna]

I've already cancelled my subscription and un-installed the game. You want us to leave? OK, that's fine. Just remember this when your servers are being merged, and you can't find people to group with because they've moved on to another game that doesn't treat it's players/fans as expendable.

[Alistaire]

I've already cancelled my subscription and un-installed the game. You want us to leave? OK, that's fine. Just remember this when your servers are being merged, and you can't find people to group with because they've moved on to another game that doesn't treat it's players/fans as expendable.

Makes me glad you can't post here without an active account.