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

[Nicodemus_Mercy]

Now that the cash shop is established, every time a new minion/mount/gear is designed there will be some guy in management wondering if it could be put in the cash shop instead. It's a conflict of interest.

That's not how the development process works.

If they want more money they should make the game better so more people want to sub.

That's not your decision to make.

They could have never added a cash shop, and you would never have gotten things like Minfilia's Outfit. The content patches might have been smaller or have less voice acting or shorter cinematics due to not having the extra income generated by the cash shop as well.

People need to stop trying to be armchair developers. While you have every right to give feedback and share your opinions with the developers, if you haven't even worked in the MMO business to any degree, you aren't really qualified to tell those who are developing a highly successful MMO what they are "doing wrong" in how they generate and manage revenue.

[PotatoTree]

They could have never added a cash shop, and you would never have gotten things like Minfilia's Outfit.

People need to stop trying to be armchair developers. If you haven't even worked in the MMO business to any degree, you aren't qualified to tell those who are developing a highly successful MMO what they are "doing wrong".

Now you're making assumptions. It could very well be the other way, that without a cashshop we'd get the outfit since it was paid by our sub. And your cash shop money could be funnelling into other non-ffxiv ventures for all you know. We're talking $60 games, $60 expansions, monthly sub fees, and more. This game is magnitudes more costly than any AAA game, and comparable to a fairly expensive hobby.

And so far where are we at now? I guess we got so much money from the cash shop that we can increase the number of dungeons per patch from 3 to 2 right!!! Oh wait.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of the game. I've spent countless money subbing from 1.0, getting retainers, buying merchandise, etc. Possibly in the thousands now. If we want to use money as a metric to judge "support", then well I'm probably a bigger "fan" than 99% of players here. But I'm not going to pretend that SE isn't greedy. The only thing that needs to stop is people constantly trying to white night triple dipping.

[Nicodemus_Mercy]

Now you're making assumptions. It could very well be the other way, that without a cashshop we'd get the outfit since it was paid by our sub. And your cash shop money could be funnelling into other non-ffxiv ventures for all you know. We're talking $60 games, $60 expansions, monthly sub fees, and more. This game is magnitudes more costly than any AAA game, and comparable to a fairly expensive hobby.

And so far where are we at now? I guess we got so much money from the cash shop that we can increase the number of dungeons per patch from 3 to 2 right!!! Oh wait.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of the game. I've spent countless money subbing from 1.0, getting retainers, buying merchandise, etc. Possibly in the thousands now. If we want to use money as a metric to judge "support", then well I'm probably a bigger "fan" than 99% of players here. But I'm not going to pretend that SE isn't greedy. The only thing that needs to stop is people constantly trying to white night triple dipping.

I'm not a white knight for any game. I just understand how the business side of MMO development and revenue generation and allocation works to a degree. I'm not claiming to be an expert mind you, just that I have some measure of experience with it. In all likelihood, if the cash shop didn't exist, no you wouldn't have seen the Scion outfits added "just because". Not if they required extra work (which means extra cost) to make them useable for all the races. Every game has a budget it must adhere to in order to create its content. After that initial investment to get a game launched, game developers and their investors are looking to recoup their investment AND make a profit above and beyond. That's why those investors made the investment after all. Now there's a cost associated with maintaining those game servers, paying employees, and for future development, and subs are the primary method of recouping the initial investment and sustaining the game overall.

When a content patch is planned, it has a budget just like the initial game or an expansion has. What content gets made for that patch must fall within the budget or it doesn't get made. When SE makes something intended for the shop, that item is outside the budget. To justify the expense of making that item, its put forward as a way to generate additional income for the company. Those in charge analyze and make projections on how likely they are to not only recoup the expense, but also how much of a profit they expect to make for the effort.

You did mention something of note though. You are indeed correct that our "cash shop money" and in fact even some of our monthly sub money, could be (and to be transparent, almost certainly is) "funneled" into other non-ffxiv ventures. That's entirely intended. How do you think a game company generates capital to make other games without relying solely on investors or to encourage investors to jump on board? They use profits from their existing IP's that are currently generating revenue to fund their new projects and/or to show investors they have some "skin in the game" as it were.

The bulk of FFXIV's revenue is most likely folded back into the game for future development, but its virtually guaranteed that some of it goes to fund other projects. A game company cannot rely solely on a single IP to carry it for its entire existence. Why do you think Blizzard is putting out games like Hearthstone and Overwatch and Heroes of the Storm? They know WoW can't last forever and they need to diversify their portfolio to continue as a business.

SE is no different. But at the same time, those other IP's SE may be investing your sub money into could be highly successful and generate addition revenue that could, in turn, be put back into FFXIV allowing for bigger and better expansions and content patches.