I want an official response.

[Felessan]

no they are not popular, i did post on another thread an interesting subject about the % of people buying stuff in the Free 2 play model, showing that only 2-3% of the whole playerbase really purchase stuff. but still this model survive, even if it's the biggest scam of the time. since the name it's a lie, the game is never free.

Standard metrics for F2P game is that around 10% (of actually playing) pays money and around 1-2% pays A LOT of money.
And those 10% still much more than cash shop haters as majority of players just don't really care whether cashshop in game or not (none of my in-game friends really care about this enough to affect their decision to play in any way)

it cost them almost nothing and bring them a loooot of cash...

You should be gratefull than, because game gets additional money for improvement and it is someone else who pay the bill.

very very very low count of post on the forum. they rarely go over 100 post some have even less than 50 post count, meaning this people that are fast to answer are only there for defend the cash shop.

Number of post in no way meaningful, the crowd that like to sit on the forum have similar mentality and thus cannot represent game population as a whole. The number of low post members in resistance shows that there are a lot of resistance outside usual forum crowd. A lot of people take game less serious to get so much emotionally invested, so they not go to the forum to share their opinion (just sometimes read something, look at info etc) and for them such hard push against cash shop is an offense, as for them buying stuff in cash shop ruin nothing in their casual play on one hand, on other hand they do want some fluffy stuff without being gated behind 5 mil gil pricetag, which is just unattainable for many.

[AxelDH]

Would've been nice if perhaps they added like, 6 new dyes at once; 3 in game, and 3 paid extras. Putting it all on the store is annoying!

[Khemorex]

So the platinum wedding costs around 30€ , hmm thats probably a bit less then the expansion is gona cost.

[RickXRolled]

Looks like the OP is not amused.

[Khemorex]

I swear it's like you guys have tunnel vision. Is this what the modern MMO player is? They only care about end game dungeons?

The modern MMO player cares only about theyre personal stuff these days it seems :/

[Akuryu]

Says a lot that the first major patch since the addition of the cash shop is about 2/3rds cash shop related. You'd have to be blind not to see where this is going.

[Dalex]

So much whining...

The greatest feedback Square Enix gets is their sales numbers, if you don't like the cash shop, don't buy from it, and if you are correct in assuming that everyone agrees with your opinion, then no one will buy from the cash shop and Square Enix will get rid of it. But posting feedback in the forums is not going to do jack if in the end people are buying from the cash shop anyways.

Entitlement...it's spreading.

[Sholah]

Entitlement...it's spreading.

Are you kidding me? What do you think a sub is supposed to be for? It's supposed to entitle you to all the content the game has to offer. Why are we paying a sub if they're locking everything "optional" behind the cash shop now? Whether it's optional or not, content is content.

[Taika]

The cash shop really is affecting my motivation to keep playing and paying for this game. I just can't help thinking that our family puts 240 euros a year in to the game while SE keeps locking out stuff that could and should be included in the subscription fee. It's not a lot of money in itself, but it starts to feel more when updates like this leave a sour taste in your mouth.

One can claim that it's only "optional content". We're playing a game, all the content is optional. And yes, everything that is in game is content. They might as well lock extreme primals behind a paywall because they don't really offer an advantage (as they're lower item level content than the current highest one). Or all relics after your first one. Or new jobs because you can progress in the game just as well with the originals. This argument could be discussed but it would require people to start defining what counts as "mandatory", what "optional", and basically, what is important content and what isn't.

One can also say all complainers should just quit. Well, not many games would get anywhere if every time someone is upset with a single feature they'd just leave and not say a word. It would also leave the developers wondering. I would like to think that there would still be developers that would be interested in hearing what their players think.

[Sholah]

One can also say all complainers should just quit. Well, not many games would get anywhere if every time someone is upset with a single feature they'd just leave and not say a word. It would also leave the developers wondering. I would like to think that there would still be developers that would be interested in hearing what their players think.

The other problem with just quitting is that nothing will change. Cash shop supporters will keep dumping more money on SE and make up for the losses, and SE will just add even more cash shop content to please them and drain even more money.