The pull factor of Pay to Play

[Nalien]

And so the cycle begins...

SE introduces as cash shop.
People eventually get tired of the blatant greed and leave the game.
SE sees people leaving the game.
People who remain are obviously "OK" with the cash shop.
SE doubles their efforts into milking its consumer through the cash shop.
More people get tired of the blatant greed and leave the game.

Also, why are people talking about 2.45 as if it introduced a form of pay to win? Didn't pay to win get introduced ages ago? You know, when they added Retainer Ventures to the game and at the same time let us pay for two extra Retainers? I mean, you pay and double your Retainers output, be that shard/crystal farming, material farming, or expensive minion gathering...

[Sholah]

Didn't pay to win get introduced ages ago? You know, when they added Retainer Ventures to the game and at the same time let us pay for two extra Retainers? I mean, you pay and double your Retainers output, be that shard/crystal farming, material farming, or expensive minion gathering...

Good luck getting people to realize/admit that.

[BreathlessTao]

It definitely was a pull factor for me. I found it awesome that not only is it a FF game, but I didn't have to pay unknown amounts of money to be able to actually play it - monthly subs are great because they can be calculated with.

As for the cash shop, I think it's too new to determine its effectiveness in making the game better. But from a social point of view, it just widens the gap between certain groups of players, making more ground for toxicity, and that definitely isn't good. Paying for server transfers (or the like, eg name changes) - that's one thing I can understand. Even if it's technically a few clicks or so, it's still work on the databases, it changes the server loads, and let's be honest if it was free and everyone was jumping servers every month, it'd just be too big of a chaos. Fantasia...maybe. Kinda blurs the line for me, like, I do believe we could get one such option for free every year. But oh well. But any kind of cash shop, that is just not a good thing. Not with this mindset. And no, others doing it does not make it right. It's sort of a break of trust again, something they should be extremely cautious with, especially in this game, knowing its history. I just don't agree with the principles of it.

For now, I'll just sit and wait. It hasn't exactly ruined anything too much (more than enough content I'm blocked from that aren't cash shop anyway, so from that point of view, it's just one more, not really a difference) so far, but they are treading on very thin ice. I can see a point where my heart will break at the fact of having to quit playing if they take it too far.

[TurnBased]

Also, why are people talking about 2.45 as if it introduced a form of pay to win? Didn't pay to win get introduced ages ago? You know, when they added Retainer Ventures to the game and at the same time let us pay for two extra Retainers? I mean, you pay and double your Retainers output, be that shard/crystal farming, material farming, or expensive minion gathering...

This was what I was trying to tell people ages ago. Extra Retainers are Pay to Win, no matter how small, but nobody listened.

[Nalien]

Good luck getting people to realize/admit that.

At this point I don't care. Sheeple have already set this game on a downward trajectory that I doubt SE is going to care about/fix. When we could pay to get extra Retainers, I was against it to the point that I got banned from the forums (for suggesting the reward for subbing for a year should be a Retainer, because you know, those teleport tickets were lame and after a years play extra inventory space doesn't hurt), now I've watched it progress to Minions (god forbid some people enjoy collecting minions as much as others enjoy Coil) and finally this. If the sheeple want to continue idiotically defend such blatant greed, more power to them. If they want to point at the small print and claim it's OK, more power to them. The stupid tend to be so stupid that they don't realize how stupid they are, and I'm certainly not going to waste effort trying to convince them they're wrong. If they want to believe the ToS makes it OK, when all the ToS does is make it legal (and at this point I could be invoking Godwin's Law to highlight the difference), more power to them. It is very easy for these shortsighted sheeple to win, and they have. That's just how cash shops work, once the community is split into sensible people and sheeple, sheeple win. I cannot vote with my wallet since that wont change a thing (if anything it'll make things worse as my original post suggested). I have no pull within the community or games industry, so I can't change anything there either. I'm not going to take on a legion of idiots alone, and currently it looks like the community is still too divided on the issue for me to join with many others in outrage, and I'd say it's already too late for that anyway.

Amazing job Yoshida, you've restored my faith in the Final Fantasy franchise and then gone on to once again destroyed it, and it only took you a year. Bravo. Always nice to be reminded that this game is published by the same worms that published All the Bravest.

[Erudain]

Besides the main fact of being a FF....the other main pull was being a p2p.
I'm just so tired of f2p games where you have to end up dishing between 20-50 usd each month to be able to compete or do all the content.

Fantasias, sever trasnfers, name change....its pretty normal those service are priced because you actually need someone at SE to go look for your account and makes all the changes requested.

Let's say it this way. It's yet another minor annoyance, added to the pile. Not enough to make me stop playing right now but everyone has their limit which can be reached. Eventually....

As him above said....is not enough to make me leave now.....but it's adding up pretty fast lately. I just fear for the TT, Choco racing and Gold Saucer content at this moment (people with gambling problems + cash shop? who'd want to miss that kind of money!!!!!).

Regretfully I've been MMORPG-ing for 15 years now, I've seen mostly everything in the history of the genre and I've seen lots of game go down the cash shop routte like SE is doing....first services only, then some vanity, then more and more vanity, eventually some game content and game affecting stuff (then the excuse is "it's not pay to win!!1 it's just a comodity item!!!).
Spoiler alert: 99% of the time it doesn't end well. WoW is the only that somehow made it work, but 1 out of dozens ain't a norm, it's an exception

[Delily]

As absolutely NOTHING in the cash shop impact core game play, I don't care. As long as content is paid for by subscription fees, I don't mind.

[Sholah]

As absolutely NOTHING in the cash shop impact core game play, I don't care. As long as content is paid for by subscription fees, I don't mind.

Everything in the cash shop is content that isn't paid for by subscription fees. You are delusional.

[Aegis]

As absolutely NOTHING in the cash shop impact core game play, I don't care. As long as content is paid for by subscription fees, I don't mind.

Are you concerned that development time might be spent on making cash shop items rather than core game play? It certainly seems to have a better effort/reward ratio than developing new battle content.

[Erudain]

Or maybe it's me just getting old and not getting this new gaming times?

I'm gonna sound like a grandpa now but..."when I was younger, companies didn't release DLC content the very same day they launched the game......that would be a rip off since that's content that should've been in the game and everyone in the press and gaming communities would be at their throats"

But hey, that has become pretty much the norm now.....so either the world and gamers had gone nuts or I have.....I'm gonna go with the later.