You think our Cash shop is bad...take a look at THIS

[Archaell]

FFXIV's cash shop is indeed still reasonable... except for one thing - retainers.

I could live with buying additional retainers for 10$ etc, but paying additional sub fee? It doesn't matter how small the fee is, it seems nuts.

[Risvertasashi]

FFXIV's cash shop is indeed still reasonable... except for one thing - retainers.

I could live with buying additional retainers for 10$ etc, but paying additional sub fee? It doesn't matter how small the fee is, it seems nuts.

From a business standpoint, it's one of the most brilliant moves in the industry. Previous games that sell inventory space only get a one time fee; MMO market standard sub fee has basically been stagnant. Yoshi finally found a way to increase it, while not scaring off (more) new players with an even higher monthly fee.

As a player, though, yeah, it sucks.

[BreathlessTao]

From a business standpoint, it's one of the most brilliant moves in the industry. Previous games that sell inventory space only get a one time fee; MMO market standard sub fee has basically been stagnant. Yoshi finally found a way to increase it, while not scaring off (more) new players with an even higher monthly fee.

As a player, though, yeah, it sucks.

I don't know, if they have to increase the sub fees, I'd rather they increased the sub fees - would be straightforward and direct, instead of cornering players into a situation where they eventually "have" to pay more anyway. Throwing items from the past in a cash shop in a P2P game - that's just shady and leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Those who keep on p(l)aying already paid for all those, and they're just making others pay for them too. Whether it affects the gameplay or not is completely irrelevant, this is the core of it in either case. And it's not like they couldn't make those items obtainable in-game if they wanted to.
Especially with this "reasoning" that that cash shop purchases contribute to further development of the game itself - er, what happens with all the subscription money then? Yes, they're launching an actual European datacenter - now, more than two years after launch. Why is it that pretty much everyone else can do that right at the start of a game? And at the same time (now, more than two years later, with lots of content patches and an expansion later) we're still getting the "can't do it because of servers" blahblah when it comes to a bigger inventory, either directly or via retainers - and oh, look, it actually can be done, it just has to be a rent model because they apparently need more money...? Even more shady.
No, the whole thing just doesn't sit right. Especially in a game where the devs have been (used to be?) so obsessed with "restoring trust" and being transparent and communicating with the players. Dunno about others, but I personally don't like being taken for a fool.

[Felis]

FFXIV's cash shop is indeed still reasonable... except for one thing - retainers.

I could live with buying additional retainers for 10$ etc, but paying additional sub fee? It doesn't matter how small the fee is, it seems nuts.

but retainers are extra and not inside the cash shop ^^
Still better than +3$/month for every character slot that we had during 1.x

[Colorful]

but retainers are extra and not inside the cash shop ^^

Well, they're still in a shop that you use cash to buy things from so...

[Felis]

Well, they're still in a shop that you use cash to buy things from so...

Then 1.0 had also already a cash shop, because we bought character slots extra (yes, even the first character slot)

[Colorful]

Then 1.0 had also already a cash shop, because we bought character slots extra (yes, even the first character slot)

That's not the point though, it's that charging monthly for retainers is a tad crazy.