Cash Shop: Stifling development.

[Adrian74]

Personally I don't see a problem with the cash shop. Everyone who is against it has bought something from it, don't lie, you know you have.

I bought several things with a smile on my face, they're all vanity, but I love them all the same because I like to play around. I like that we can now buy halloween gear outside of Halloween, instead of having to wait for the event to roll back through. That I am very pleased for.

If you count buying a fantasia and name change.... (I wouldn't count it). Unlike many persons I wouldn't feel good with myself if my actions would be the opposite to my words. I'm not playing in a P2W game, instead I came to experiment FFXIV: ARR because I swore to myself time ago that I'd never touch that hell again...

My principles are over my leisure. And that's what I most fear of this all. I love this game, for me it has been "The Perfect Game" this whole year. I have not bought any new game, I didn't even buy a PS4, why? I have a good PC and FFXIV... But I know myself very well, if FFXIV will become P2W, I'll leave, not without trying to make people and devs understand that it is a bad way first, of course, since, I'm not the typical person that abandons what loves so quick and in silence, I rather first try and fight for it, then when it is hopeless, and people supports it so much because I DUNNO then it is when I leave, when there's no solution anymore.

"Can we monitize this?"
is a question any business should be asking. Its also been stated that cash shop sales go back into game dev and resources, and if their honest about this, then I'm all for it. The cash shop model is more or less here to stay, not just for FFXIV, but games in general. What works for a business model in 1999 no longer works in 2014, and market forces have to evolve to survive, or die. The reality is while sub fees are still more or less the same for mmos for the last 15 years, the resources to make and maintain these games are several times higher. That extra resource needs to come from somewhere.

Solution, increase the sub. I don't know why developers fear this too much. It is comprehensible the sub should become higher at some point. I wouldn't mind if it would increase one euro per year, seriously. BUT NO CASH SHOP... Sub is something we all pay, we all remain the same to others inside the game. We can't pretend also a sub will remain the same quantity during years and years... It's funny, if they'd raise the sub one euro, I'd pay a total of 12 'extra' euros per year, while with cash shop I would pay 0... Yes, that's how much I love the subscription model.