So, even Wildstar is going f2p...

[KuraiKiserogeru]

Isnt this hypocritical when FF14 has a cash shop that has been updated a few times?

XIV cash shop is not pay to win.

[sharazisspecial]

XIV cash shop is not pay to win.

I was responding to the statement that yoshi made that cash shops are bad because they take away dev time.

[BreathlessTao]

Yoshida already said it won't happen.

... /point <ownsignature>

So yeah, I love the man and have huge respect for him, but I just can't really take anything he says for granted anymore. :|

[Slirith]

Wildstar hyped the hell out of their game then failed HARD like SWTOR did

[KayoZ]

So sad. That wouldve/couldve/shouldve been a nice MMO to play.

Doubt FFXIV is going to go F2P anytime soon. SE seems to have some strong dedication to P2P for some reason. Not that im complaining. Not to mention they have no real reason to complain about FFXIV at the moment, its doing great, climbing sub numbers, and being one of the most profitable products they have now. All while its closest competitor continues to shoot itself in the foot, removing features while FFXIV adds them.

[Spawnie]

Wildstar hyped the hell out of their game then failed HARD like SWTOR did

this ^ it was a huge letdown considering all the pre release hype it got....got boring real fast

[Zeonx]

Yoshi P is one of the most outspoken anti-f2p game devs out there.

And his reasoning for it is pretty much the best one.
Would you rather the devs be working on the best content they can or the best ways to wring money out of the playerbase?

Also a game that is surpasses expectations by a wide margin is a lot more likely to keep up their standards than a game that goes out of it's way to fail at every turn.

Bless online since 2012 before FFXIV ARR was released 2013 the original 14 didn't have a few things.

You should check out the similarity's it has as it looks almost as if SE has taken some idea's from it.

I believe its going to be F2P also when it is released.

[Nalien]

Isnt this hypocritical when FF14 has a cash shop that has been updated and will most likely continue to receive more time from the devs in the future.

Hasn't it been receiving less of their time though? Minions and some of the wedding stuff, sure. Since then though? It's mostly just turned into "Lets get real money for these old event items". Other than the minions (which I assume there are more of coming eventually) they don't really seem to be putting a great deal of development time into it. The most unique thing the shop has gotten is Sleipnir, but that was basically in the game already (was shown to be a possible player mount during beta).

[SecretCrowds]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but they also pretty much fired the guy who was against the FTP model. Was either Daglar or Elrar, don't remember which. But one of the them was very against FTP but wouldn't you know it, they canned him and shortly after...FTP.

Hmm. Actually Scott Hartsman was the chief producer of Rift and said that," We will never go F2P" line. He left due to personal reasons but rejoined later as Trion CEO to oversee the F2P. Daglar took over as chief producer and still is. Elrar was fired, but mainly because Trion lacked money and "restructured". A lot of others were fired too since Trion could not afford to pay all those salary.

Edit: Hmm... Maybe I should clarify this. When I say Trion could not afford to pay all those salary, I mean that they were losing money in general and not that they actually missed out on paying salaries. That would be a serious accusation which I doubt would be true anyway.

[Alberel]

I have never played it or researched it in anyway.

But isnt Destiny like a successful modern day b2p mmo?
This type of model seems like the one that will take off, pay for content instead of every month. Casual friendly as well. Maybe wildstar has made enough from its subs now it will go F2P to attract more potential customers that would not touch it with its sub fee.

B2P and F2P are completely different beasts. With a B2P model every player in your game HAS to invest money to play; with this in mind the developers have a more stable income stream than a F2P where they rely on 5% of the playerbase to spend enough money to fund the entire game.

GW2 is also a B2P model though and they've been doing terribly for the past few years. They had literally added no new persistent content to the game until last year. It took them three years just announce their first expansion... The B2P model leads to very slow content releases.

As for Wildstar though: I don't think you understand how the subscription model works from a business standpoint. If Wildstar had made enough money back through subscriptions to cover its costs it would basically be a free money farm for the devs and publisher as all subs from there on would be pure profit. It would actually be very stupid to upset that model by spending a fortune on converting the game mechanics to suit the F2P model and risk losing all those subscribers in the process (there is a reason why P2P subscribers usually abandon a game when it transitions to F2P). No developer would take such a risky move unless they didn't have much to lose, and if they don't have much to lose it means the game was not doing well at all.

In contrast FFXIV is the most successful subscription based MMO after WoW. They have an awful lot to risk losing if SE were to ever consider a F2P transition. They won't do it unless the game suddenly tanks, which is honestly unlikely at this point.

There are some decent F2P MMOs, Warframe comes to mind as one such, but they're typically built from the start to be F2P. Converted games usually don't strike the right balance.

Hasn't it been receiving less of their time though? Minions and some of the wedding stuff, sure. Since then though? It's mostly just turned into "Lets get real money for these old event items". Other than the minions (which I assume there are more of coming eventually) they don't really seem to be putting a great deal of development time into it. The most unique thing the shop has gotten is Sleipnir, but that was basically in the game already (was shown to be a possible player mount during beta).

I actually think the community backlash over the Sleipnir mount caused them to rethink their approach to the cash shop. As you say their cash shop releases have slowed to a crawl and they mostly just focus on re-releasing missed event items now. That and the expansion has probably taken all of their attention.