Mogstation taking another step to the darkside

[Arngrim_Greyashe]

It might be better to be overly critical to prevent SE from considering taking further steps in expanding Cash Shop practices. Give an inch of tolerance and they usually will take a mile. Perhaps not at once, but little by little. Even if it's all useless criticism and they never were going to expand anyway, it's a worthy security measure to let developpers know where you stand.

Unless you actually like the existence of Cash Shop and want to expand it, shilling for SE just because you're a fanboy is silly and not in your best interest I'd say.

It seems to me that you're just echoing what you're reading from others without paying any actual attention to what I typed. Also this "give them an inch" saying is complete nonsense. You seem to forget that this is their game. Not ours. If they wanted to expand the cash shop, no amount of complaining on the forums will stop them. They would have already done it. We'd be sitting with BDO's predatory cash shop in XIV with it being a major part of the games focus.

I swear you all think this is the end of days every time they put a mount on mog station. If you want it, buy it. If you don't, don't buy it. It's simplistic. Not everything in life is free and your subscription doesn't entitle you to anything. It gets you an access pass to the game. Nothing else. This whole thread is completely unaware how a business runs, apparently. Businesses need money. They're getting money through subscriptions. They also added an extra OPTIONAL avenue to gain revenue. People that have extra money to spend can go there to buy optional things that get their attention if they so choose. It's not predatorial. It's not scummy. It's not shady. It's business. And a rather peaceful one in my opinion.

Also, calling me a fanboy for understanding how a business works and saying that I'm shilling for SE is a pathetic attempt to try to cover the fact that you have no real argument. Get out of here with that nonsense.

[SamRF]

It seems to me that you're just echoing what you're reading from others without paying any actual attention to what I typed. Also this "give them an inch" saying is complete nonsense. You seem to forget that this is their game. Not ours. If they wanted to expand the cash shop, no amount of complaining on the forums will stop them. They would have already done it. We'd be sitting with BDO's predatory cash shop in XIV with it being a major part of the games focus.

I swear you all think this is the end of days every time they put a mount on mog station. If you want it, buy it. If you don't, don't buy it. It's simplistic. Not everything in life is free and your subscription doesn't entitle you to anything. It gets you an access pass to the game. Nothing else. This whole thread is completely unaware how a business runs, apparently. Businesses need money. They're getting money through subscriptions. They also added an extra OPTIONAL avenue to gain revenue. People that have extra money to spend can go there to buy optional things that get their attention if they so choose. It's not predatorial. It's not scummy. It's not shady. It's business. And a rather peaceful one in my opinion.

Also, calling me a fanboy for understanding how a business works and saying that I'm shilling for SE is a pathetic attempt to try to cover the fact that you have no real argument. Get out of here with that nonsense.

By your logic of how a business works, there's no reason why this game wouldn't be BDO + subscription right now with obvious p2w mechanics. The reason that isn't the case is because there will be a massive exodus of players when SE would implement something like this, so it would be a bad business decision to do that. You could use the same reasoning with deciding between having a Cash Shop or not. A game may consider charging higher subscription (e.g. 20$/month) with the promise of never implementing a Cash Shop and may attract more players that way, since there are players who want to have such principle in their game. It's all about supply and demand.

If SE lets Cash Shop go out of hand, it will also perhaps lead to a player exodus and less players joining the game and thus it would have been a bad business decision if money lost by player decline is greater than the extra profit from Cash Shop. You can see what me and others are trying to do by being overly critical is warn SE that we will be dissatisfied and will leave the game if this does go out of hand. SE will thus perhaps be more inclined to be careful and not walk that fine line between players leaving and Cash Shop profit.

I'm sure forum complaints will indeed have minimal impact though so you may have a point with that. All else you said are cheap bashing arguments that sound eloquent but are empty of merit. I'm sure you're well aware that nobody cares about this game enough to feel entitled on actually deciding its direction. We're simply giving feedback (and our reasoning behind it).

[ElciaDeiLinus]

Players in general aren't that principled, if anything player behaviour has shown quite the opposite that there's almost none. Basically every major planned boycott by players due to company decisions gets ridiculed when the most fervent players ends up being the first to break from their supposed values.

If SE's sub went up to get rid of the cash shop you'd see far more people leave over the extra money, even if it's inconsequential- because regardless of what people signal regarding their feelings on MTs (and right now it's generally considered hip and progressive to hate it when companies make money of any kind), at the end of the day everyone's out for themselves and other people buying cash shop items to keep their own sub lower is always preferable.

It's a different story when the RNG elements of loot crates or the p2w aspects of the cash shop actually start to affect your in game content, but in this case that's not happening to anyone other than the few who both greatly want the new mount, and also greatly despise MTs.

[linay]

I overall agree with what you're saying here.

I've mentioned in earlier post that players likely aren't ready to pay for higher sub despite inflation, which leads me to believe Cash Shop practices will only get more significan in the future. It's this standard of 15$/month since forever that I don't think any MMO would dare to question any time soon. WoW might have had the opportunity to set a new standard but they seem to have gone the Cash Shop route.

Personally I'd gladly pay more for sub if it meant no Cash Shop at all. It's out of principle and desire for greater sense of immersion in the game and also prevent potential slippery slope (I realize slippery slope might be fallacy, but it would still put my mind more at ease knowing it's out of the question).

However it's pretty likely I'm in minority with this opinion (for now at least) and there is no solid niche game at the moment that would satisfy this principle. Thus you make a good point imo.

Your principle doesn't make sense, though.

You don't want to be charged separately for things that you want, but are willing to be charged more for things that you may not even want.

In principle alone, I would oppose the latter and accept the former.