Stop Making Should-Be Achievement Gear.."Optional Gear"

[Nihonnick]

Not true. You mention that this is how it is with SE and yet, FFXI continued to release new holiday event items and with each passing event you were able to obtain them if you missed out, all without having to pay extra.

This isn't a Square Enix thing, it's a Final Fantasy XIV 2.0 thing.

I did clearly say (aside from old event items) meaning not including them.

[Arkune]

ff11 isn't that old of a game either and still running, had a smaller player base and never did a cash shop.

Are you serious? You mentioned XI, hell no please dont ... do that...

how many years, the Level cap of XI remained the same (75)? how many YEARS People farmed 1 damn Pieces of Gear couze it never droped? How many Years just a handfull of People was able to Clear Chains of Promathia pre Nerf? Back in XI less PPL took breaks. I came back 2 Weeks ago after a 2 Years Break. In XI you better never missed a Dynamis Run for your Gear, so you barely unsubbed.

Ah and btw. didnt they start adding Server Transfers and Character Name for MoneyZ?

I guess we both played different Games.

[Maero]

Eso would have been a better comparison then Wildstar i would think, no?
It has done far better then WS, lol

[Ririta]

Are you serious? You mentioned XI, hell no please dont ... do that...

how many years, the Level cap of XI remained the same (75)?

Isn't that a good thing?

[Alleo]

They tripled FF14's budget for SB. For that to happen, the development teams had sufficient financial data to convince the corporate side of things that the investment was worth it. We are getting a lot system wise. I seriously doubt FF14's sub numbers have increased to the point that would justify it otherwise. Upgrades and moves like that aren't cheap and they are on top of the usual development costs.

This is the reality. If we want more for FF14, the games earnings have to be high enough to justify it. That means either A) a lot more players, B) a higher sub fee or C) additional revenue streams.

But doesnt that mean that the game itself is not running that well if it needs cash shop on top of the sub to get a bigger budget or to get new servers? I mean isnt that kinda scary? What if people will stop buying things from the cash shop? Will we never ever get an server upgrade again? Will we get less content in the expansion after SB if the cash shop is worse than now? A subscription MMO needing the cash shop to survive would imo mean that they dont have enough sub numbers..which would mean that it would be not profitable if they will stop putting things in the cash shop..more and more things in the cash shop could also at the same time mean that sub numbers will drop -> need more items in the cash shop to make up for this.

SE is a really big company and FF14 1.0 really went bad thus I can imagine that SE itself did not want to give the devs a really nice budget to work with..just in case that ARR and HW would be a failure too. I just believe that they finally are believing that this game will do good and are reinvesting the money into it. I also cant see how a budget can be tripled just by cash shop. That would be one hell of sold items.

I really don't think you should be comparing Wildstar to FFXIV here. FFXIV has proven itself to be much more successful. Why would you want a successful MMO to emulate a comparatively unsuccessful one?

So somehow a MMO that is less successful than FF14 still manages their needed cash shop customer friendlier than FF14? Doesnt that just show that maybe just maybe FF14 does not need a cash shop or at least not one with such prices and could still function quite well?

[Talraen]

But doesnt that mean that the game itself is not running that well if it needs cash shop on top of the sub to get a bigger budget or to get new servers? I mean isnt that kinda scary? What if people will stop buying things from the cash shop? Will we never ever get an server upgrade again? Will we get less content in the expansion after SB if the cash shop is worse than now? A subscription MMO needing the cash shop to survive would imo mean that they dont have enough sub numbers..which would mean that it would be not profitable if they will stop putting things in the cash shop..more and more things in the cash shop could also at the same time mean that sub numbers will drop -> need more items in the cash shop to make up for this.

SE is a really big company and FF14 1.0 really went bad thus I can imagine that SE itself did not want to give the devs a really nice budget to work with..just in case that ARR and HW would be a failure too. I just believe that they finally are believing that this game will do good and are reinvesting the money into it. I also cant see how a budget can be tripled just by cash shop. That would be one hell of sold items.

Look at it this way: if FFXIV "needs" the cash shop to survive, what that means is that the cash shop is keeping subscription prices down. It also means that if the cash shop were to fail in the way you describe, they would either tighten the budget on the game, or raise sub prices. In which case the cash shop is saving money for anyone who doesn't buy anything from it.

I think we all focus way too much on exactly what money comes from where and goes to where. The bottom line is, if FFXIV makes more money (however they do it), they are likely to spend more money on it, and vice-versa.

So somehow a MMO that is less successful than FF14 still manages their needed cash shop customer friendlier than FF14? Doesnt that just show that maybe just maybe FF14 does not need a cash shop or at least not one with such prices and could still function quite well?

No. It doesn't necessary mean anything, but it somewhat implies that FFXIV's model makes them more money than Wildstar's does. While I don't think it's entirely fair to draw that conclusion, I have no idea how one would draw the opposite conclusion. Can you explain?

[Alleo]

You know if they need to increase the prices of the sub because otherwise they cant keep on making anything for this game..than I would just say that it would be fine to increase them. I mean I dont want an increase of maybe 5 € or something but just increasing it by 1 € per month should be quite a lot more money and if that means that for that we will get everything in this game and need no cash shop, well I would be all for it.

Someone once calculated the cost for all cash shop items and had around 1.000 dollars that are necessary to buy everything here. So I just see that for someone that wants every mount, pet and older stuff..well it would be way cheaper to just increase the sub price a little.

[DaikiKiyoshi]

So somehow a MMO that is less successful than FF14 still manages their needed cash shop customer friendlier than FF14? Doesnt that just show that maybe just maybe FF14 does not need a cash shop or at least not one with such prices and could still function quite well?

I think the fact that Wildstar has a more consumer friendly cash shop model becomes irrelevant in the face of their lack of success in comparison to FFXIV. FFXIV's model has been proven to work, there's just a few people who get unhappy because they don't like it for a multitude of reasons. But even people who don't like it still support it and buy the stuff.


As far as Wildstars cash shop being more consumer friendly than FFXIV's showing that FFXIV doesn't even need a cash shop or doesn't need such high prices, I don't think that is a conclusion any of us are qualified to make. Unless you work for SE and know their financial status you don't know what they need and don't need in terms of revenue sources.

[Talraen]

You know if they need to increase the prices of the sub because otherwise they cant keep on making anything for this game..than I would just say that it would be fine to increase them. I mean I dont want an increase of maybe 5 € or something but just increasing it by 1 € per month should be quite a lot more money and if that means that for that we will get everything in this game and need no cash shop, well I would be all for it.

Someone once calculated the cost for all cash shop items and had around 1.000 dollars that are necessary to buy everything here. So I just see that for someone that wants every mount, pet and older stuff..well it would be way cheaper to just increase the sub price a little.

I can't say I have any data on how much the average subscriber actually spends in the cash shop, but I suspect you're underestimating it. In the free-to-play world, a small number of people ("whales") spend the vast majority of the money. It's entirely possible Square Enix makes considerably more than 1 euro per subscriber per month in cash shop revenues, in which case raising sub fees by that much would generate less revenue than they do now. Also, while people certainly do complain about the cash shop, relatively few people even go so far as to threaten to quit over it, whereas any increase in the subscription fees would likely have a measurable impact on subscriber numbers. In short: raising fees for everyone is going to anger a lot more people than adding optional items.

Also, practically speaking, many people (myself included) have bought a lot of these mounts, pets, and older stuff. If they suddenly gave all of those away for free, those people are going to be understandably upset. The best case scenario is that they stop putting things in the cash shop, they'd be crazy to go beyond that.

[Arkune]

Isn't that a good thing?

For me, it was the best Thing ever. Back in the Years no Ilevel Shit, just Wear whats the BiS for different Spells as a RDM :P