Quote Originally Posted by Nominous View Post
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You're definitely right that no side is entirely correct, but I've seen many games with a lot of innovation fail due to greed, namely ArcheAge. Hurts to say that name at this point, they pulled a complete bait and switch from the Alpha, ran away with everyone's money and now Trion's reputation has dropped like a rock. Once known as a publisher that makes fair games that has seen moderate success, now known as a money grubbing company set to to make a quick buck whenever possible. How can anyone defend that? There's no longer a real community to play with in ArcheAge, world first raiders are leaving in droves at this point and yet people claim that Trion is doing nothing wrong. This isn't a one case kind of deal, it's done by the majority of publishers that aren't closely tied to the game, even China's FFXIV is a little sketchy.

FFXIV is relatively light on the monetization, the majority of items are items that took little effort to implement (which is a good thing, as it doesn't detract from development time) and if subscription numbers drop in a content lull I can see why they would release something like Minfilia's set to make up for that loss in profits. I just can't take the side of people claiming that implementing completely new sets into the cash shop, those should be earned from events, the Gold Saucer, or be veteran rewards. Nor can I take the defense of people defending pay to win, you can argue that no side is right or wrong, but when a game loses 90% of its population there's a clear answer as to whether that decision was good or bad for the game. I feel as if I'm deviating a little from FFXIV's cash shop, but w/e. I don't think we'll go pay to win, but I do not want to see completely original cosmetics in the cash shop. I might as well pack my bags and take leave to a buy to play MMO at that point, no?