The whale mount is up on Mogstation

[Yshnal]

This carries the assumption Cash Shop items were ever going to be rewards to begin with. They aren't. They are designed for one singular purpose: to make a profit.

Riddle me this. Everyone whining about the Cash Shop views it as a greedy tactic from SE, yes? Okay. What is a greedy company like SE more likely to do in the event people actually did boycott the Cash Shop?

- Decide to release all future exclusive mounts in the game for free
- Determinate the team who designs these Cash Shop exclusives are better utilized on another project, thus the exclusive mounts and etc simply stop being made

I'll give you a hint, it isn't the free option.



Name one industry in the entire world that has remained exactly the same spanning over decades. "In the past," games cost substantially less to make. FFX cost approximately $34 million whereas many triple A titles nowadays broach the $100 million mark. You can't look to ten ago and say, "well that's how it used to be. So it better never change!"

This is what triple A games looked like in 1999



And this is in 2013 and 2018, respectively



Hmm, I wonder what changed...

FFXIV -this very same game- survived perfectly fine and even saved SE from bankruptcy without the cash shop (including extra retainers, phone app, etc.), doing it after being a failure and an economic black hole during it's rebuilding. On top of that, back then we got more content and with better quality, and all glamour, minions and mounts were obtainable in-game. Also, event rewards were available the next year for gil, we got plenty of them, and without housing stuff that a lot of people can't use. On top of that we had the veteran program offering exclusive items, which now is gone (this is important when thinking about the cashshop stuff, and the ways that the game uses to keep people playing nowadays). And with all that, as I said, this game was financially successful and even funding other projects.

Now re-evaluate what the person that you quoted said because, with all due respect, what you said makes no sense. FFXIV is not in a better shape than it was pre-cash shop, nor offers us more stuff. Quite the opposite, in fact, as I listed up there. So, in light of that, it's either what MomomiMomi said, or that they're plainly incompetent in using their funds (and this includes many possibilities). Both options are terrible, and no customer should say "oh, everything is alright".

[Bourne_Endeavor]

It's a bit disingenuous to say that you're not affecting the market. This current market trend in games was only solidified because people kept buying into microtransactions for things that were already offered for no additional cost. If they add a lootbox tomorrow and no one buys it that would be the end of it, but if people started buying it then you're gonna see more and more items added to the lootbox, when before the lootbox said items would have been part of the sub price at no additional cost.

Actually, this is disingenuous itself because you're still assuming all these cash shop items will be funneled back into the game. They won't. Companies will simply stop making them entirely. As stated in my post above, a greedy company doesn't start giving away stuff for free once people stop buying it. They stop producing to begin with since it's no longer profitable. This Whale exists because it was going on the cash shop and would earn SE $30 for each purchase. Take away said profit and why do you expect them to still work on something that no longer has any financial benefit to them? Saying it used to be apart of our sub assumes content is being cut to be sold back to us. If something was never designed in the first place, it cannot be cut.

Now do some companies abuse this practice? Of course. In fact, since you mentioned lootboxes, I'll point to Star Wars: Battlefront II and how EA lost several millions because people discovered they were intentionally screwing character progression in order to incentivize lootboxes. For comparison sake, in FFXIV, we occasionally have an exclusive mount which is functionally identical to every other mount in the game. Star Wars released with a grind that took over 4,000 hours to obtain everything. You could take every single grind in all of FFXIV combined and not spend that much time on them. What comes down to is many people do not necessarily mind cosmetic micro-transactions or DLC they feel is worth the investment. Should a company get out of hand, the playerbase will bite back. Enough people don't feel SE's approach of purely cosmetic items is a big deal.

Now you may not like that approach, but that's a difference of opinion and nothing more. People who do aren't naive, gullible or wasteful. They simply have more money than you (general) and are willing to spend it on luxurious other people either can't afford or don't feel its worth their money.

[Yshnal]

Actually, this is disingenuous itself because you're still assuming all these cash shop items will be funneled back into the game. They won't. Companies will simply stop making them entirely. As stated in my post above, a greedy company doesn't start giving away stuff for free once people stop buying it. They stop producing to begin with since it's no longer profitable. This Whale exists because it was going on the cash shop and would earn SE $30 for each purchase. Take away said profit and why do you expect them to still work on something that no longer has any financial benefit to them? Saying it used to be apart of our sub assumes content is being cut to be sold back to us. If something was never designed in the first place, it cannot be cut.

Now do some companies abuse this practice? Of course. In fact, since you mentioned lootboxes, I'll point to Star Wars: Battlefront II and how EA lost several millions because people discovered they were intentionally screwing character progression in order to incentivize lootboxes. For comparison sake, in FFXIV, we occasionally have an exclusive mount which is functionally identical to every other mount in the game. Star Wars released with a grind that took over 4,000 hours to obtain everything. You could take every single grind in all of FFXIV combined and not spend that much time on them. What comes down to is many people do not necessarily mind cosmetic micro-transactions or DLC they feel is worth the investment. Should a company get out of hand, the playerbase will bite back. Enough people don't feel SE's approach of purely cosmetic items is a big deal.

Now you may not like that approach, but that's a difference of opinion and nothing more. People who do aren't naive, gullible or wasteful. They simply have more money than you (general) and are willing to spend it on luxurious other people either can't afford or don't feel its worth their money.

The current state of FFXIV is a consequence of how some people were welcoming with open arms everything that SE did with the cash shop without a second thought, and they'll keep pushing the line more and more, while giving less and less. The phone app is a direct consequence of that acceptance. As it's the now gone veteran program, which was offering these same things that nowadays SE tries to sell us in the cash shop (what a nice coincidence, right?). Or how they have no urge to fix the inventory issues because that would mean less income from retainers. I could keep going on, but overall what I'm saying is that the cash shop is affecting the game more than a lot of you think.

Worst thing is that some of us warned people years ago, yet here we are, with so many things gone or not properly fixed.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

No need to exaggerate. Few people expect Enix to release all future cash shop mounts ingame for free. Nor do we expect them not to have a cash shop. Some of us even prefer it, it's like donating to the company as a thank you for creating a game we enjoy. There's nothing wrong with buying the Whale.

The complaints source from the fact that Enix has a far bigger cash shop than other subscription MMO's and is one of the few large subscription MMO's to lock bank space, alts and their mobile app behind microtransactions. People start to feel annoyed when they continually stuff things into the inflated cash shop while throwing Pagos at us as content.

Overall it's excessive. In fact, that's a good question for those who feel it's fine, how much would Enix have to tie to microtransaction for you to view it as excessive? For example if all mounts besides your chocobo were cash shop exclusive, or glamour prisms, or the gold saucer? They're all optional after all.

It isn't an exaggeration whatsoever. People whine about every single exclusive item that ever crops up on the Cash Shop. A good portion of people in this very thread want the Cash Shop discontinued entirely and still equally expect all the mounts and glamour to be made available through quests, achievement points and etc, i.e., they want them for free. You can't claim is a greedy company—which I don't deny, by the way—only to turn around and demand they make exclusive Cash Shop things free. Greedy companies don't do that.

As for the size of the Cash Shop. This stems from SE putting old event exclusives on there whereas other MMOs simply render them lost forever. In other MMOs, I couldn't have Lightning's hair or attire because I wasn't playing during her event. It's simply something I won't ever have. SE's solution was to make a profit of this instead of making event items exclusive.

And now who's exaggerating? We've had two exclusive mounts put on the Cash Shop this expansion out of how many free ones? I'll humor the question though and say I'd be less inclined to play if I couldn't obtain any cool outfits or mounts without paying for them. Good thing that hasn't ever been the case in FFXIV. The overwhelming majority of my mount, minion and glamour collections are all in-game items I never had to purchase.

FFXIV -this very same game- survived perfectly fine and even saved SE from bankruptcy without the cash shop (including extra retainers, phone app, etc.), doing it after being a failure and an economic black hole during it's rebuilding. On top of that, back then we got more content and with better quality, and all glamour, minions and mounts were obtainable in-game. Also, event rewards were available the next year for gil, we got plenty of them, and without housing stuff that a lot of people can't use. On top of that we had the veteran program offering exclusive items, which now is gone (this is important when thinking about the cashshop stuff, and the ways that the game uses to keep people playing nowadays). And with all that, as I said, this game was financially successful and even funding other projects.

Now re-evaluate what the person that you quoted said because, with all due respect, what you said makes no sense. FFXIV is not in a better shape than it was pre-cash shop, nor offers us more stuff. Quite the opposite, in fact, as I listed up there. So, in light of that, it's either what MomomiMomi said, or that they're plainly incompetent in using their funds (and this includes many possibilities). Both options are terrible, and no customer should say "oh, everything is alright".

Because a lot of the content back then was already made. They literally had Titan sitting around waiting before the relaunch even started. You're also assuming the relaunch did not put SE in a financial hole. Just because it proved successful doesn't mean they weren't operating under the red line. Best Buy spent almost an entire decade losing money and surviving off debt. Considering the dire state of Square Enix at the time, it's not hard to imagine they weren't in good shape either and were looking to find other ways to profit. We already know the Mogstation paid for the Chaos datacenter. If you want to claim that a lie, by all means, but at this point we're arguing opinions and assumptions, not facts.

Better quality is also very debatable. Heavensward is widely considered the best period of FFXIV's life cycle... and the Cash Shop was in operation a year prior.

Regardless, my point is MomomiMomi is looking at past MMOs and comparing them to current ones. You can't look at FFXI, released in 2003 and expect FFXIV to have similar upkeep and development costs when it released in 2013. Even if they release less, the cost of development has increased substantially. And this spans the whole gaming industry. While some companies do exploit, and I have no doubt SE is among them, an exclusive mount every once in a while means very little.

[Lastelli]

It isn't an exaggeration whatsoever. People whine about every single exclusive item that ever crops up on the Cash Shop. A good portion of people in this very thread want the Cash Shop discontinued entirely and still equally expect all the mounts and glamour to be made available through quests, achievement points and etc, i.e., they want them for free. You can't claim is a greedy company—which I don't deny, by the way—only to turn around and demand they make exclusive Cash Shop things free. Greedy companies don't do that.

I'd just like to have the chance to obtain a 2-seats mount without either having to spend 21€ or having to go through the hell that is the 2000 mentor roulettes achievement.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

The current state of FFXIV is a consequence of how some people were welcoming with open arms everything that SE did with the cash shop without a second thought, and they'll keep pushing the line more and more, while giving less and less. The phone app is a direct consequence of that acceptance. As it's the now gone veteran program, which was offering these same things that nowadays SE tries to sell us in the cash shop (what a nice coincidence, right?). Or how they have no urge to fix the inventory issues because that would mean less income from retainers. I could keep going on, but overall what I'm saying is that the cash shop is affecting the game more than a lot of you think.

Worst thing is that some of us warned people years ago, yet here we are, with so many things gone or not properly fixed.

The current state of the game is because SE diverts funds to other projects. You think that will change without the Cash Shop? In fact, it's far more likely to impact the game worse. For example sake, I'll use simple numbers. Say FFXIV generates 50M a year while 5M comes from the Mogstation. If that 5M were taken away, do you think SE will merely eat this loss... or will Yoshida find himself with a smaller budget for 5.0 to make up the lost income? EA has certainly proven they will opt for the latter every single time. The sheer amount of cut content that was leaked on to Reddit back when BioWare was developing Mass Effect 3 is jaw-dropping. EA didn't give a damn. They wanted the game finished in two years even if it meant cutting content.

When it comes to less content. The Mogstation isn't what will get their attention. Unsubbing from the game entirely will.

I'd just like to have the chance to obtain a 2-seats mount without either having to spend 21€ or having to go through the hell that is the 2000 mentor roulettes achievement.

Now this I agree with. It would be nice to have at least one two-seater mount not locked behind extreme grinds or money. Granted, there is the Amber Draught Chocobo, but even that requires the whole friendship thing.

[Dualgunner]

And now who's exaggerating? We've had two exclusive mounts put on the Cash Shop this expansion out of how many free ones? I'll humor the question though and say I'd be less inclined to play if I couldn't obtain any cool outfits or mounts without paying for them. Good thing that hasn't ever been the case in FFXIV. The overwhelming majority of my mount, minion and glamour collections are all in-game items I never had to purchase.

TBH the bold was all you had to say in response to his question. He posed a hypothetical with the intent of finding what you would consider the limit to be, so of course the hypothetical will be exaggerated. Acting like this is beneath you.

[Lastelli]

Now this I agree with. It would be nice to have at least one two-seater mount not locked behind extreme grinds or money. Granted, there is the Amber Draught Chocobo, but even that requires the whole friendship thing.

Honestly, I'll be pretty upset if the final doggo mount won't be a 2-seater. I mean...I already know it won't be, but I'm still gonna be upset. Is one single "free" 2-seater mount per expansion asking too much of them? Would too many 2-seater mounts be too much for the servers to handle?

[Yshnal]

Because a lot of the content back then was already made. They literally had Titan sitting around waiting before the relaunch even started. You're also assuming the relaunch did not put SE in a financial hole. Just because it proved successful doesn't mean they weren't operating under the red line. Best Buy spent almost an entire decade losing money and surviving off debt. Considering the dire state of Square Enix at the time, it's not hard to imagine they weren't in good shape either and were looking to find other ways to profit. We already know the Mogstation paid for the Chaos datacenter. If you want to claim that a lie, by all means, but at this point we're arguing opinions and assumptions, not facts.

Better quality is also very debatable. Heavensward is widely considered the best period of FFXIV's life cycle... and the Cash Shop was in operation a year prior.

Regardless, my point is MomomiMomi is looking at past MMOs and comparing them to current ones. You can't look at FFXI, released in 2003 and expect FFXIV to have similar upkeep and development costs when it released in 2013. Even if they release less, the cost of development has increased substantially. And this spans the whole gaming industry. While some companies do exploit, and I have no doubt SE is among them, an exclusive mount every once in a while means very little.

You're talking about some of the things that we had at 2.0, which used some assets from 1.x. I'm talking about what we got from 2.0 up to when the cash shop was opened. In the case of the veteran program, for example, none of that was done already. Also, as I mentioned in the previous post, yes, the relaunch was a black hole. But 2.x literally brought SE back from the red, and part of the money made in FFXIV allowed them to work on other projects, even on those that were blackholes themselves for years.

About quality, well, content was way more thought-out, we had less recycled/recolored gear, we got more dungeons, which were also longer and harder, both Coil and CT were way better than anything that we got later, better side quests (even with their own trials), etc. Heavensward just carried on with some of that, without making any substantial changes and while having huge flops like Diadem. But even then it was still not that bad. The problem is how things have been developing over time, and it's easy to see that the cash shop has gotten more and more focus while the game itself has kept losing things, either due to them being a deterrent for the Mog Station, or even because they were shifted to it. That's not debatable, it's there for anyone to see. Heck, Stormblood was supposed to have the biggest budget so far, per Yoshi-P words, yet here we are. And I doubt that Eureka ate all those additional funds.

Also, there's no point in looking to previous MMOs or games when this very same one provides you with enough data to show you that what you said is not true in the case that we're talking about. If FFXIV was able to do all that for SE without the cash shop and with less players, it's safe to think that it would be financially sustainable to keep doing the same nowadays. Especially when the game not only hasn't improved or changed things substantially, but has kept things the same or worse.

EDIT:

The current state of the game is because SE diverts funds to other projects. You think that will change without the Cash Shop? In fact, it's far more likely to impact the game worse. For example sake, I'll use simple numbers. Say FFXIV generates 50M a year while 5M comes from the Mogstation. If that 5M were taken away, do you think SE will merely eat this loss... or will Yoshida find himself with a smaller budget for 5.0 to make up the lost income? EA has certainly proven they will opt for the latter every single time. The sheer amount of cut content that was leaked on to Reddit back when BioWare was developing Mass Effect 3 is jaw-dropping. EA didn't give a damn. They wanted the game finished in two years even if it meant cutting content.

As I said up there, they already did that back then. That just tells you how much money FFXIV makes them, just with the subs. Sure, nowadays nothing will change if the cash shop is gone, but that's because the damage is already done. A lot of people not even remember or care about the lost things, while others don't even know that that existed (the event items being buyable being the prime example, as it's something that keeps popping up). But that's not because SE wouldn't be able to reintroduce them to the game, but because they just won't bother to invest money in these things again. Now, we don't complain because we think that SE would give us anything back. We do it because we don't want them to keep pushing the line even further, which is exactly what has been and will keep happening.

When it comes to less content. The Mogstation isn't what will get their attention. Unsubbing from the game entirely will..

I already do that. As I've said in the past, I only sub sometimes now, to play with some friends, and just the entry sub. However that does nothing when we have so many whales (pun absolutely intended), but that doesn't mean that I can't voice my opinion and reasons. Who knows, maybe someday the playerbase will say enough is enough, but I doubt it. Anyway, I don't really care that much anymore; this is a bit to raise awareness to the people that don't know certain things.

[MomomiMomi]

Regardless, my point is MomomiMomi is looking at past MMOs and comparing them to current ones. You can't look at FFXI, released in 2003 and expect FFXIV to have similar upkeep and development costs when it released in 2013. Even if they release less, the cost of development has increased substantially. And this spans the whole gaming industry. While some companies do exploit, and I have no doubt SE is among them, an exclusive mount every once in a while means very little.

You don't have to look that far back. In this very game, before the cash shop existed, seasonal event items from previous years were available in-game. Then the cash shop came, and they took that away.