Cash shop and the situation with the game.

[Darkshade]

Hey guys remember when I warned you the cash shop stuff would only get worse and I was banned from the forums.
lol look where we are now

GMs are just waiting for this to get slightly more toxic with the bickering back and forth and they'll close this thread and it'll fade to obscurity.

[Hyouretsuzan]

snip

Forgive me for that. I know you didn't call anyone that. I used it as a general statement to others. I edited that sentence. While my stance on this topic is neutral...I suppose. It doesn't mean I don't listen to others. Everyone is entitled to their opinions. If you feel yours is the better cause, then go with it. You have every right to be concerned. I accepted that both sides believe differently. I guess it's mostly how people handle other people's opinion. Everyone believes their opinion is the better one so the thread usually ends up at an impasse. I do admire those that can be civil amidst uncertainty. Maybe SE will listen. Who knows. I'll stay around till the bitter end and see how this game goes.

[LaurelinKementari]

For everyone saying to "get over it", I feel this guy sums up my thoughts on that attitude pretty well, as well as why it's never a good thing to "get over it". Raise the noise.

[Colorful]

Forgive me for that. I know you didn't call anyone that. I used it as a general statement to others. I edited that sentence. While my stance on this topic is neutral...I suppose. It doesn't mean I don't listen to others. Everyone is entitled to their opinions. If you feel yours is the better cause, then go with it. You have every right to be concerned. I accepted that both sides believe differently. I guess it's mostly how people handle other people's opinion. Everyone believes their opinion is the better one so the thread usually ends up at an impasse. I do admire those that can be civil amidst uncertainty. Maybe SE will listen. Who knows. I'll stay around till the bitter end and see how this game goes.

I can only hope that Yoshida has some control over these decisions depending on their severity, I'd have to think so considering he's the producer and direction of the game, but who knows? He seems to genuinely care for his playerbase, and I don't believe he's one to see his game be milked for all its worth just as is happening to WoW.

For everyone saying to "get over it", I feel this guy sums up my thoughts on that attitude pretty well, as well as why it's never a good thing to "get over it". Raise the noise.

Jim Sterling. <3

Thanks for posting that video, forgot about it entirely.

[Darkshade]

I can only hope that Yoshida has some control over these decisions depending on their severity, I'd have to think so considering he's the producer and direction of the game, but who knows? He seems to genuinely care for his playerbase, and I don't believe he's one to see his game be milked for all its worth just as is happening to WoW.



Jim Sterling. <3

Thanks for posting that video, forgot about it entirely.

♥ Love Jim Sterling
To all those that hate us hating on the cash shop, we're trying to do you a service as well.
Yoshi and some of the devs/forum reps might be great wonderful nice people, but SQUARE ENIX like any corporation should not be an entity that you consider a 'friend'.

[Colorful]

Here's another video from Jim Sterling that goes in depth to the discussion of similar money grabbing methods found in other games. I highly suggest that everyone watches it, regardless if they're for or against the cash shop.

[Avin00]

I pointed this out about 8 or 9 pages page but I feel it needs reiterating as people keep bringing up the argument that development time on cash shop items takes away development time to the main game. It doesn't, the way it works is that Yoshida will go to the person at SE who holds the purse strings and say I would like to do this bit of development please how much money am I allowed to allocate to it. They will provide a costings or flat out say no. For items in the cash shop this will include how much profit they expect to make by adding this item to the game which makes it a significantly easier sell and makes that budget concern from SE's side almost non-existent thus those items do not come out of the main development budget. So in short while I will not say that every item in the cash shop would not exist without it I dare say a fair few would never have made it into the game without it due to above and their low priority in terms of golden path content.

[Colorful]

I pointed this out about 8 or 9 pages page but I feel it needs reiterating as people keep bringing up the argument that development time on cash shop items takes away development time to the main game. It doesn't, the way it works is that Yoshida will go to the person at SE who holds the purse strings and say I would like to do this bit of development please how much money am I allowed to allocate to it. They will provide a costings or flat out say no. For items in the cash shop this will include how much profit they expect to make by adding this item to the game which makes it a significantly easier sell and makes that budget concern from SE's side almost non-existent thus those items do not come out of the main development budget. So in short while I will not say that every item in the cash shop would not exist without it I dare say a fair few would never have made it into the game without it due to above and their low priority in terms of golden path content.

Except that is not how it works, at all. The developers are paid a salary like every other game developer there is (other than indie devs working for themselves), and Yoshida calls the shots for every piece of content that is or isn't made for the game. You know what we believed this money would go towards? Funding better servers, so we can actually get passed these server limitations and guess what, they're present to this day. The development team has stayed the same size to this day, nothing has changed. None of this money is being put back into the game, period. That's made blatant by the fact that we had to give up a dungeon, delay the side story quests and relic weapon to 3.15 just for Airship Exploration. The fact that we haven't gotten more inventory space, the fact that housing still has not been fixed and will never be fixed at this point. They're putting the the same amount of content as they did when they began the patch cycles, some may argue even less since 3.1 was a monumental patch. You don't allocate money towards a feature, you allocate time and that responsibility lies on the direction, who goes by the nickname Yoshi-P. The staff are being paid the same no matter what you develop, and we're giving them a flat rate of $12-15 a month regardless of if they're late with patches or not.

And I've met with a terrible fate, no more posting until that's gone I guess.

[FallenArisen0990]

Text

This is pretty much what it boils down to. These topics aren't going anywhere and do nothing but cause the community to dislike each other even more. At this point everyone is just saying the same thing over and over. What can you do to change it? Making topics doesn't solve anything because all Mods have to do is delete posts and lock the thread if it gets too out of hand. It may sound ignorant to say but honestly that what it boils down. Your wallet speaks louder than reading a wall of text to them.

Text

Good or not, you still are supporting it. I've already been behind the gate where money was an issue. What did I do? When I got money, I would use it and buy the item I wanted. This is the era we are in now. DLC is staple and will continue because of how big the Internet has gotten in terms on Download/Upload speeds. It so bad that NA gets majority of it games certain companies *coughCapcomcough* as Download. It proper whines me up when companies like *coughNintendocough* start doing it as well. Why is it EU, that gets a Physical Copy and Im stuck with a Download only? A bit off-topic I know but this how it is. EA does it, Namco does it, Activision does it, Square Enix does it, and many others. It's true money can be the honest issue but I ask myself. If you can barely afford a P2P MMO, why are you paying for it rather than using that money for other important needs. It's sad to say but if you don't have money, what good are you to companies? Everyone wants to get paid for what they do. Sure we can vocal but Companies can just easily pull the plug on everything *coughKonamicough*. This is a topic that's been around for like 10+ years now. It hasn't change then and it won't change in the future.

[Avin00]

I work in software development and what I posted is how features are implemented Yoshi must get approval for all man hours spent just like every other company. I'll give exact numbers so it's more digestable. I want to add a new minion to the game it will cost 40 man hours to produce costing say £1000. Now without the cash shop that means 40 man hours that make SE nothing or next to nothing so there is a snowballs chance in hell of it getting approved and believe me while Yoshi may be in charge you can be sure that he still has to go through approvals for everything in the game. Enter the cash shop same minion but now Yoshi has a better argument and can add to that costings an estimated sales figure of say selling a minion at £5 and estimated to sell say 2000 or so of them so SE makes a nice big profit that Yoshi can then use to fund other things or more likely just keep the bosses happy so they are more likely to approve something not for the cash shop. This is a simplification but you get the idea.