The FFXIV Cash Shop is greedy

[SamRF]

In terms of micro-transactions, the only game that is fair to compare with FFXIV is WoW because it's the only other big modern game with the same business model (B2P + subscription). Other modern games are either F2P or B2P and don't require a subscription (for which you pay at least 130$ a year).

So let's compare the WoW Cash Shop to FFXIV's.

I'll list how many items for the main categories there are in the Cash Shop from each game (Mog Station and Blizzard store) and then also compare that number with how many of those items there are in total (ingame: FFXIV, WoW).

Cash Shop First Item release date:
FFXIV: 2014
WoW: 2010

Mounts:
Mog Station: 21
FFXIV: 210
Blizzard Store: 17
WoW: 425 (358 currently obtainable)

Minions/Pets:
Mog Station: 33
FFXIV: 737
Blizzard Store: 17
WoW: 1279

Glamour: (not counting seasonal!)
Mog Station: 81 (52 full attires)
Blizzard Store: 0

Some (few) of these Mog Station items are from events. Take note that WoW also has events and a bunch of mounts and items that are no longer obtainable. They don't offer them in their Cash Shop and let the players who did get them enjoy the rarity/exclusivity of their item. [Edit] The WoW items, while being way fewer in amount, are generally more expensive and for many double the price in Mog Station (imo what matters most is the amount of content that is behind micro-transactions, not necessarily the price.). All mounts are 25$ and all Pets are 10$.[/Edit]

Other than these categories: WoW offers 2 Cash Shop toys (to be used permanently). 1 is a usable fireworks effect, the other one is a transmorpher beacon which allows you and others to glamour wherever you want. The only other major thing WoW offers are WoW Tokens, but arguably these are consumer friendly since they are bought and sold by the players themselves ingame for either subscription (saving irl money) or ingame gold (buying other people their subscription), thus the only direct way Blizzard profits from this is by reducing RMT. Other than that the net amount of subscriptions stays the same (players who buy tokens, basically pay for the subscription of other players). [edit2] Turns out the tokens cost 5$ more than sub, so Bliz does also directly profit from them.[/edit2]

Now it's FFXIV's turn. Beside glamour FFXIV still has much more to offer in their Cash Shop which WoW doesn't even have categorized, namely: Seasonals, Housing, Dyes, Emotes, Chocobo Bardings and Orchestrion Rolls. These all amount to more than 240 items (many of which below 5$). Note that WoW also has seasonal items but they don't offer them in Cash Shop, instead let players enjoy the exclusivity.

But wait, we may be ignoring the elephant in the room, which are ADDITIONAL RETAINERS which you can HIRE. These Retainers offer you more inventory space, ability to sell more items at once and additional means for acquiring gil (ventures).

Then there are the additional services which both games offer (appearance change, level boost, ...) which don't provide more content ingame. The WoW ones are admittedly more expensive (sometimes double) than FFXIV.


With this comparison, I believe I can safely claim that the FFXIV Cash Shop is indeed greedy and unnecessarily expansive.

[hobostew]

Gamers rise up!!!

Like a decade ago maybe

[Avidria]

Not to nitpick but unless they removed it WoW does, in fact, have transmog items in their cash shop.

Edit - huh. Don't see them anymore lmao. But yeah they had three transmog helmets added back in '13. Mostly ugly as sin but they were there :P

Anyway the only thing I'd agree is a bit greedy is paid retainers. Esp when you could argue those actually DO give an advantage in game - more storage, selling space, and ventures per hour.

[Derio]

The only gripe I have is with the retainers. And dont get me started on the mobile app.

Inventory space is the biggest issue. I dont care if they sell optional mounts and glamour on the mogstation, but I shouldnt have to pay for inventory space.

[Eldevern]

There are not that many things that bother me in the cash shop. My main grievances would be :

Items should be account wide.
Glamours should be dyable
Seasonal items should be available each year (only during the event but every year)
Housing items in the cash shop since :
- items can be lost with the house
- items can be stolen if placed in FC house

This said, I consider the whole housing system as disappointing but it is another subject.

[Macleod]

...because we needed another thread about this.

[RareItems]

Meanwhile in Black Desert Online... Cash shop prices and the variety of "For Convenience" sales are on the rise, they made over 1 billion dollars in profit back in 2019 xD.

[Goji1639]

All shops are greedy by design.

As far as world of warcraft goes, it has a bigger community and makes more money, so the existing community doesn't get poked for money as often. That's just the logistics and reality of how this kind of game is monetized.

As long as the item shop is mostly cosmetic I don't really have a problem with it.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

I only pay ~$96 a year. Pretty cheap for entertainment if you ask me.

Most of the mounts on the mogstation are either recolor of mounts you can get in game, old event mounts, or korean/Chinese exclusives that were brought over because people asked for them.

There are the moogle, sleipnir, carbuncle (1 cuz recolor), whale, and clouds bike (fanfest reward) that are unique (going off memory atm, not able to log in at work) that's 5 mounts that are unique to the mogstation and were designed for it for the global release.


The dyes are all obtainable in game, from retainer ventures.

[LittleImp]

The retainer issue is absurd, and something that doesn't get enough discussion in the community imo. It's essentially a form of pay2win, as they are indeed a direct source of ingame income.
It's also pretty obvious that the immense amount of unnecessary material bloat in the game are designed to fill your free storage and try to push you to buy additional retainers.

Mogstation has always been scummy. I think it's getting additional heat now because players have so little relevant content to do in the current state of the game. Seeing high-quality stuff getting added to the cash-shop while we get less and less content in each patch can be frustrating.