Why does Square-Enix not sell subs for gil?

[PirateRyanG]

Obviously, RMT is out of hand. People are buying gil. That isn't going to change. You are never going to eradicate that problem. So, why not embraced RMT?

Why doesn't FF14 go down the same route as WOW, EVE, Runescape, GW2, etc?

Sell subs (or store credit) as a token. This token can then be placed on the market for those that want to buy gil.

If supply of the token is more than the demand, the gil price is lower. If demand is higher than the token supply, the gil price goes up.

As mentioned, this is never going to completely get rid of the gil sellers. However, in WOW, there was evidence that the number of sellers plummeted. This is because many companies had to cut their already razor-thin margins and many couldn't survive. Even now, there are far, far less gold sellers in WOW than there was pre-token.

There will be some players that get to offload their overloaded gil in exchange for a sub.

There will be players who want gil and will buy the token.

Those players with overloaded gil won't try to sell to shady sites (and yes, this does happen. It isn't just bots farming the gil), and nor will the players wanting to buy gil, because with a properly controlled market, the price should be fairly level with gil selling prices.

Right now (I just took a quick Google search) the price of Gold for WOW from a seller is more expensive than buying it through the WOW token. This is based off of one site.

SE benefits because people are buying the token, combatting bots, etc.

And yes, there may always be the odd person that bots for their sub, but meh. They won't exactly need billions of gil.

[Skivvy]

I think selling the subs would be a bad idea, however, I do think they should allow other items on the market to be sold for gil. Mounts, emotes, outfit pieces, furnishings..all fair game. This way SE still gets their sub money, but they may also have more people buying items in order to turn that in for gil.

[jimmybe29]

I highly doubt they would do it because SE has had issues with disastrous game launches and developments lately, losing quite a lot of money. FFXIV is carrying SE and making most of their revenues currently.
https://twitter.com/aitaikimochi/sta...35968344051712

[PirateRyanG]

I highly doubt they would do it because SE has had issues with disastrous game launches and developments lately, losing quite a lot of money. FFXIV is carrying SE and making most of their revenues currently.
https://twitter.com/aitaikimochi/sta...35968344051712

They get cash from this as a player would have to buy a token/sub from Squaresoft to sell.

In WOW, for instance, the token costs more than the price of a sub. So, in theory, Square would be making more money.

[caffe_macchiato]

SE doesn’t need to “benefit” any more than it currently is. None of that money is going back into FFXIV. It’s going into NFTs and gacha trash that will be taken off the App Store in a year’s time. SE is a multibillion-dollar company that gets 1/3 to 1/2 of their operating income from FFXIV. The cash shop that we have already goes too far—$22 for an outfit? Locking us out of correcting character mistakes unless we pay $10? They don’t need to be any greedier. Maybe if SE wanted more money, they should choose their investments more wisely.

Oh, and when are we getting bot detection? That would greatly limit the amount of gil that RMT sellers can farm. But SE is a “poor indie company”, after all…

[PirateRyanG]

SE doesn’t need to “benefit” any more than it currently is. None of that money is going back into FFXIV. It’s going into NFTs and gacha trash that will be taken off the App Store in a year’s time. SE is a multibillion-dollar company that gets 1/3 to 1/2 of their operating income from FFXIV. The cash shop that we have already goes too far—$22 for an outfit? Locking us out of correcting character mistakes unless we pay $10? They don’t need to be any greedier. Maybe if SE wanted more money, they should choose their investments more wisely.

Oh, and when are we getting bot detection? That would greatly limit the amount of gil that RMT sellers can farm. But SE is a “poor indie company”, after all…

If people weren't willing to pay that price, they wouldn't be charging that price.

Bot detection likely does exist, hence how botters are banned (in waves, for a variety of reasons).

But you can detect bots all day long, eventually they work out how to get around the detection system, or innocent people get caught up in it. Therefore, the best method is to price them out of the market.

[Shibi]

They used that in EQ2.

Cash poor players could grind up a months subscription in gold and buy a month from the marketboard.
Cash rich players could buy a token and list it on the marketboard for cash.

The end result is a bunch more people doing run-for-gil and the increase in party finder/shout advertising as they try to catch the players who want to be carried to the top of the raid tier / a pvp title.



But FFXIV doesn't have enough sinks to take the gold out of the system once it's created so freely. So the rarer items will become more expensive. Instead of 1 gilcap FC house sales you will see 10 gilcap FC house sales. How many months of free playtime will a gil farmer in Shanghai get by using every trick possible to snap up all available housing then selling it to people for their cash-bought gil?

[Saraide]

I'd like to keep real money incentives for the company out of the ingame economy as much as possible, please and thank you. Once you sell something ingame for real money you are changing the dynamic of the game. By selling the skips to grinds you are not only admitting that those grinds are bad, you are making them bad deliberatly.

[Atelier-Bagur]

SE doesn’t need to “benefit” any more than it currently is. None of that money is going back into FFXIV. It’s going into NFTs and gacha trash that will be taken off the App Store in a year’s time. SE is a multibillion-dollar company that gets 1/3 to 1/2 of their operating income from FFXIV. The cash shop that we have already goes too far—$22 for an outfit? Locking us out of correcting character mistakes unless we pay $10? They don’t need to be any greedier. Maybe if SE wanted more money, they should choose their investments more wisely.

Oh, and when are we getting bot detection? That would greatly limit the amount of gil that RMT sellers can farm. But SE is a “poor indie company”, after all…

You mustve not paid attention to the never ending cycle reports on launcher where they have a team reporting banned RMT accounts constantly.

They also recently said theyre expanding this team too. Just because its not "In your face" shown that theyre actively fighting against RMT doesnt mean theyre not.

The matter of the fact is that fighting against RMT in an online game is a never ending battle.

[PirateRyanG]

They used that in EQ2. But FFXIV doesn't have enough sinks to take the gold out of the system once it's created so freely. So the rarer items will become more expensive. Instead of 1 gilcap FC house sales you will see 10 gilcap FC house sales.

Cash poor players could grind up a months subscription in gold and buy a month from the marketboard.
Cash rich players could buy a token and list it on the marketboard for cash.

The end result is a bunch more people doing run-for-gil and the increase in party finder/shout advertising as they try to catch the players who want to be carried to the top of the raid tier / a pvp title.

Yeah. You would have to get the balancing right.

SWTOR allowed cartel store items (basically paid items) to be sold on the in-game store with absolutely no credit sinks.

The result was hyper-inflation, and now a new player would have to farm for 15-20 minutes to be able to afford a simple crafting mat.

So, you are right. Gil sinks would need to be in place, or hyper-inflation is likely to happen.