Seriously SE???

[Nominous]

It's amazing how many blind followers not only acquiesce in being ripped off.
The don't even question it anymore.

good job, gaming industry. good job.

I say: 3$ discount for every month subscribed.

40 dollars isn't a ripoff, it's charging for a product. It happens to be the normal price for the product in this market. There's also no reason to question something that's normal practice, and has been for ages. You're about 10 years late for this whole, "You should be questioning this business practice" argument. For the MMO genre, anyway.

[CGMidlander]

It's amazing how many blind followers not only acquiesce in being ripped off.
The don't even question it anymore.

good job, gaming industry. good job.

I say: 3$ discount for every month subscribed.

Personalized pricing would cause support headaches and cannot be done for the physical copies.

[kyuven]

Personalized pricing would cause support headaches and cannot be done for the physical copies.

I can already imagine how bad it will be when the expansion goes live.
No matter how good your content is, when something new comes, people bitch to support.

[Gramul]

Welcome to gaming?

This shouldn't be an excuse.
Expansions should have no reason to cost more than the games they're expanding on.

The cost of the game itself.
The subscription fee.
The cash shop items.
The additional retainers.
The wedding ceremonies.
The special edition upgrades.
Square is using this game to milk as much return as they can and I'm not really sure why people are so okay with it. With every addition, I hear "Oh it's just a small thing. / It's just a visual trinket. / Oh it's not that much."

Why the unfaltering support of a practice that takes from you with little clear overall return?

[Zumi]

This shouldn't be an excuse.
Expansions should have no reason to cost more than the games they're expanding on.

The cost of the game itself.
The subscription fee.
The cash shop items.
The additional retainers.
The wedding ceremonies.
The special edition upgrades.
Square is using this game to milk as much return as they can and I'm not really sure why people are so okay with it. With every addition, I hear "Oh it's just a small thing. / It's just a visual trinket. / Oh it's not that much."

Why the unfaltering support of a practice that takes from you with little clear overall return?

SE wants to make money on their game. Microtransactions in mmos is just how the genre has evolved and gaming in general. This isn't like 10 years ago where you payed 1 sub fee and got everything. Now if you want extras you have to pay more. You are not required to buy the extra stuff if you don't want but its there mainly to make them money which is the goal of any game company.

[Gramul]

SE wants to make money on their game. Microtransactions in mmos is just how the genre has evolved and gaming in general. This isn't like 10 years ago where you payed 1 sub fee and got everything. Now if you want extras you have to pay more. You are not required to buy the extra stuff if you don't want but its there mainly to make them money which is the goal of any game company.

I get that. But my question is, why have we allowed it? Why are we okay with companies charging us more and more for less and less?

[Andevom]

SNES games used to cost around $80, just sayin'.

[kyuven]

I get that. But my question is, why have we allowed it? Why are we okay with companies charging us more and more for less and less?

Because we understand that content is expensive. The content in paid-for expansions has actually increased, not decreased. A standard actually set by WoW (which has included, at a minimum, a dozen new zones and dungeons a level cap increase, and a new race and/or class with each expansion) and Guild Wars.
There was a time, an expensive time, when MMOs would charge $30 for an expansion that was basically some new zones and equipment.
For example, EverQuest's Scars of Velious and Shadows of Luclin expansion probably contain between the two of them the amount of content we'll be receiving during 3.0. Each of those retailed for $30, and neither included a level cap increase. In fact the major selling point for SoL was the introduction of new character models, something WoW and DAOC basically just gave away for free.
So yeah, things have gotten better as to what is acceptable to charge $40 for, not worse. We're getting THREE new jobs! The only other game I know of that's done that in a single expansion was FFXI, and they didn't include a new race. Basically, we're getting in one expansion the same number of things WoW players got in three. For about the same price as one.

[Nominous]

I get that. But my question is, why have we allowed it? Why are we okay with companies charging us more and more for less and less?

What do you mean less?

3 New Jobs (MORE than ARR if I remember correctly)
1 New Race
Entire scenario on the scale of 2.0, if not larger.
2 new Primal fights, one with a creature never before seen in FF, made specifically for XIV.
Airships. The ability to build them, and have personal airships. This is a huge addition.
Flight, and different methods of exploration.
1 New City State, possibly more?
Like 2 more Beast Tribes if I'm not mistaken? I'd imagine there will be content involving this.
A 10 level cap increase, with many things we've not yet even learned about what comes with it.
They said to expect about as many dungeons that were on 2.0 launch, which is crazy to do from scratch. Some of the dungeons we had on 2.0 were just revamped old ones.

There's probably a ton I'm forgetting about, but that list already... for something that's only 40 bucks, is pretty great. Jumping in at the base level, you'd be paying like 20 bucks for ARR, and 40 for Heavensward. 60 dollars, which is comparable to any full release game today. Most games we have right now give you like, 30-50 hours of baseline enjoyment, with some games offering multiplayer experiences for replay value that extends into maybe 300-500 hours before you're pretty sick of it. MMO's give you at least 100 hours or more of baseline enjoyment, just capping one character and learning the game. That's not even considering you go into crafting, coil, leveling any more than one Job (which you most certainly will for cross-class) etc etc.

I'm having troubles seeing where there's anything to complain about. 'We' aren't okay with companies charging more and more for less and less. 'People' are increasingly more and more ready to make a big issue out of things because we're given a bigger platform to do so than before. Why do we allow them to charge us 15 dollars every month to play a game on their servers? Why do we allow them to put a Cash Shop in the game? Why do our characters hair clip with things? Why can't we have everything for free? Like... if things were how everyone on THIS forum wanted it to be, the game wouldn't be up and running, because SE wouldn't be funding them to do it.

[Ilitsa]

it's more than the base game is NOW, not more than the base game was when it first came out. 39.99 isn't even close to the price of a brand new, (not remastered/port of an old) game. 39.99 is not all THAT expensive tbh. I'm waiting to see what the physical CE is going to cost,