I want an official response.

[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!