This is just appalling

[Belhi]

You cannot foresee whether an item in the cash shop is going to turn a profit or not. The cost of creating these items, without a doubt, is funded by the revenue from other sources. Employees don't work for free on the hopes that their item will sell enough for them to get a paycheck from it.

However I'm sure there's no doubt at all that an item like this will profit, because there are people out there willing to pay absurd prices for exclusivity.

You are perfectly correct. How do you think FFXIV 2.0 even got funded? The money certainly didn't come from 1.0. I fail to see your logic in that we are "getting more than we pay for" when we literally pay hundreds of dollars to play this game long term.

Not always. Development can be funded by credit/loans. A lot of business is, particularly in sectors like the construction industry.

Sales forecasting is definitely a major part of any development of a product. You think they make stuff at random and hope it will sell? They look at the sales performance of other items and the perceived demand and do an assessment comparing the item to the projected likely sales to the development cost to decide if the item is developed. If the sales forecasts don't show a good chance of acceptable profit vs risk they won't develop the item. Yoshi P literally said this is the model SE uses for developing Mogstation items and it is the reason the Krile outfit hasn't been developed yet. The technical costs of the development for sale of the Krile outfit are high enough that there is a question of it would be profitable. It would have to sell well to be worth it.

Accounting is about balancing books. Revenue is balanced against expense. If the Revenue earned by a sales item exceeds the expense of its development, it is effectively paying for itself.

Do you have any idea how much income is generated by monthly subs alone?

Let's do some simple maths with hypothetical numbers:
$15 per month
100,000 subs
That's $1.5m per month

Based on census websites there are over 400,000 active subs in 2017. Pretty easy to see that they are making a lot of money from subs alone.

MMOs are by far among the most cost intensive entertainment software items to develop. Take a look at Blizzard's earning reports. Yeah WoW makes them a lot of money but it is hugely successful, on a scale much bigger than FF14, and Blizzard's other franchises like Hearthstone and Overwatch are highly competitive. WoW has been in decline but blizzard's earnings are up.

That is because the MMO market is quite a small portion of the gaming market and MMOs are expensive to make and maintain. Hearthstone comparatively was made with a tiny development team (like 20 people) and is now one of Blizzard's big earners. Small investment, huge earnings. The Mobile market in particular is huge. MMOs have been in decline for a while. There aren't many major western companies developing new ones in the current market. That is because the profitability verses cost investment of MMOs has been in the decline in the recent past.

SE has a lot of games it develops for a number of markets. Last Financial quarter SE reported its yearly revenue was around 2 billion dollars (Note this is revenue, not profit). Even with 1 million subs FF14 would be a $180 million of that, less than 10%.

[Valinis]

Basically what I understand from your posts is that you are saying FFXIV is solely driven by profit (they won't create anything that they can't make a buck from). If that's true, then that's pretty sad from a consumer point of view, knowing that the company doesn't care about me as a customer at all, only my wallet.

As others have stated, why can't items like this be tied to in-game content? Why must they double-dip for profits from it?

[Belhi]

Basically what I understand from your posts is that you are saying FFXIV is solely driven by profit (they won't create anything that they can't make a buck from). If that's true, then that's pretty sad from a consumer point of view, knowing that the company doesn't care about me as a customer at all, only my wallet.

As others have stated, why can't items like this be tied to in-game content? Why must they double-dip for profits from it?

Do you think game developers are charities? Of course they driven by a profit. Any publicly traded company is. That doesn't mean they won't make investments for the sake of their customers or spend money on things for their customers which on their own will not turn a profit but in a sense it is still related to profit since such actions sure up customer satisfaction. Good customers care for their companies but its a two way transaction. They offer a service or product and they are paid as a result. They have done that and frankly make a lot of effort to satisfy customers. The server upgrades were a major investment to satisfy customer desires for the quality of the service.

And where are you getting the idea they are double dipping?

Let me say it again. Non-seasonal cash shop items are NOT made with the budget allocated to the game due to its sub revenue. The reason they aren't tied to in-game content is because they are made with funds allocated outside the budget that SE uses to develop in game content. If they weren't in the cash shop, THEY WOULD NOT BE CREATED IN THE FIRST PLACE. The Fuga Attire wouldn't have even been developed in the first place. Your basically asking them to give away more than you paid for, for free and complaining that they aren't.

Now there is an argument that seasonal items are paid for by the sub fee but technically they were paid for by the people playing at the time the items WERE free in game so anyone not subbed at the time didn't in fact pay for it.

[Aramina]

Basically what I understand from your posts is that you are saying FFXIV is solely driven by profit (they won't create anything that they can't make a buck from). If that's true, then that's pretty sad from a consumer point of view, knowing that the company doesn't care about me as a customer at all, only my wallet.

As others have stated, why can't items like this be tied to in-game content? Why must they double-dip for profits from it?

Do you tell your boss to pay you less because someone else decided you make more than enough money? That's exactly what you are expecting SE to do.

[HyoMinPark]

Basically what I understand from your posts is that you are saying FFXIV is solely driven by profit (they won't create anything that they can't make a buck from). If that's true, then that's pretty sad from a consumer point of view, knowing that the company doesn't care about me as a customer at all, only my wallet.

That's the way all businesses operate. I'm certain that if you had a business, while you would be concerned about customer satisfaction, you would also be concerned about your daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly profits. Because you would have business bills to pay. You would have to pay to rent the space your business occupies. You would have to pay your employees. You would have to pay for supplies your business may need. You would have to pay for electricity and water. I could go on. Businesses that don't make any money slowly go out of business. Or are bought up by larger businesses. You can't expect SE to just have one source of income (subscriptions).

As others have stated, why can't items like this be tied to in-game content? Why must they double-dip for profits from it?

Why must I pay extra to get extra movie channels from my television provider? Or pay extra to get more cellular data from my phone company? Or pay extra on my housing insurance to get things such as flood coverage? By your logic, all of these would be considered double-dipping for profit as well. If you want extra items, expect to have to pay extra for them. I don't expect my phone company to just randomly give me an extra 10 GB of data a month for free.

There are items tied to in-game content. Just look at the recent events:
Heavensturn event: new glamour items (the masks)
Valentine's event: new emote (/dote)
Easter event: new mount (Egg mount)
Little Ladies' Day event: new glamour items (Songbird attire), new emote (/songbird), new housing item (cherry blossom petal pile)
Gold Saucer event: MGP bonus, new hairstyle (Rainmaker, which I see you sporting), new housing item (stuffed Sabotender)

You're making it sound like there are no in-game items with regards to all these extras, but that isn't the case.