Potential Sub Price Decrease

[Orinori]

Before I start I sadly have to preface, no I am not someone's alt I just don't post here a lot. No this is not a hate thread, if you disagree feel free to discuss. No I do not hate FFXIV just because I am criticizing it. Yes you are entitled to a different opinion. I know this is pointless to ask but hopefully we can keep this thread at least mildly civil.


With Dawntrail less than a year away and my excitement high for it, I was thinking about the game and what plans Square-Enix may have for the future. It is clear throughout Endwalker that the budget and planning for patch content has not increased since Heavensward. Never have we gotten a "more and more" scenario for patches like we do with Expansions where each one has grown in scope and size as the income of the game has increased.

When you pay a subscription in an MMO, you are directly paying for patch content, not Expansion content. You already paid your $60 for the expansion. If Square Enix does not have plans to ever increase the amount of patch content delivered I think it would be reasonable to entertain the idea of a subscription price reduction as spending power for the average person is falling globally.

To put it in perspective, at nearly $15 a month you are paying the entire box price of the game or an expansion *per patch* at their 4 month patch cycle. Do you think that $60 is a fair price for a half hour of MSQ, 1 dungeon, and 1 trial?

This could all be moot as well however, as they've stated that the 7.X series will have the most content of any previous expansion, which is quite different than saying that Dawntrail specifically will have the most, so they may already have plans to ship an expanded patch content pipeline.

What are your thoughts? Do you think that $60 is a reasonable price per patch? Do you think they'll improve patch content in Dawntrail? Am I a big stinky idiot? Will Green Mage have dots?

[LioJen]

I have never heard of any subscription model lowering the sub price, only ever going F2P.

More likely they would increase the sub and blame "inflation" just like they have increased the base MSRP on games from $50 in the PS2 generation to $60 in the PS3 generation, to now $70. Global spending power is down, but corporations cannot abide by profits decreasing, so they will just suck whoever can afford it for more.

Also, never forget that savings are never passed on to the customer. Even though digital platforms like Steam eliminate the costs of disc manufacturing, packaging, shipping and stocking, new games are still released there for the exact same price as the physical copy.

So just because THEY are spending less on this game, doesn't mean they will let YOU spend less on it.

[Musashidon]

you are paying 15$ to log in and nothing else.

patch content is a way to keep people subbed but its not the reason you pay the sub.

[Orinori]

I have never heard of any subscription model lowering the sub price, only ever going F2P.

More likely they would increase the sub and blame "inflation" just like they have increased the base MSRP on games from $50 in the PS2 generation to $60 in the PS3 generation, to now $70. Global spending power is down, but corporations cannot abide by profits decreasing, so they will just suck whoever can afford it for more.

Also, never forget that savings are never passed on to the customer. Even though digital platforms like Steam eliminate the costs of disc manufacturing, packaging, shipping and stocking, new games are still released there for the exact same price as the physical copy.

So just because THEY are spending less on this game, doesn't mean they will let YOU spend less on it.

Yeah thats true, I guess its just wishful thinking. Though I actually do agree with box price games going up, I've been an advocate of that for years as I believe it to be one of the driving forces that make the game industry uncharacteristically greedy is the fact that the budgets for these games have skyrocketed unfathomably and yet they've remained $60 since the late 90s, but I'm getting off topic.

[undull1]

Sub prices have technically increased for recurrent users for the last few years, why would they suddenly change course now?

[Nizzi]

Publishers are starting to charge $70 for games due to inflation and the costs of development increasing; there's no way we'll ever get a sub price decrease and if anything I'm just thankful they haven't decided to hike the price. I pay the $13 a month for the lower one and that's fine for me. I would never argue against paying less, I just sincerely believe there's 0 chance SE will ever entertain that idea.

If there's anything I could change about playtime and access, I would say that I don't enjoy the free trial having unlimited access to ARR-SB forever where as I'm locked out of the entire game if I unsub for a bit. Why can't my sub run out and I can still have the same access that a free trial player has? I've already bought and paid for ARR, Heavensward and Stormblood in the past, yet I'm still forced to pay the monthly sub if I want to do POTD? It's a bit annoying to me. If it's because SE is afraid all of the idlers will unsub and just use /say to chat in Limsa, perhaps that means there's not much worth actually paying for this expansion?

[Orinori]

you are paying 15$ to log in and nothing else.

patch content is a way to keep people subbed but its not the reason you pay the sub.

Oh? I wasn't aware FFXIV had a different philosophy. Inherently a subscription exists in MMOs to fund the continued development of the game, ie: patches and added content. They were devised as the first model to sustain a game that wasn't developed, finished and then shipped. When the Expansion model was brought around, subscriptions stayed as a buffer since expansions in MMOs are usually a year or two apart, and the subscription is what funds that development as the proceeds from the purchase of the game/expansion was just earning back what they spent and generating some profit.

I've never seen anything to indicate that CBU3 handles this philosophy differently however.

[Orinori]

Publishers are starting to charge $70 for games due to inflation and the costs of development increasing; there's no way we'll ever get a sub price decrease and if anything I'm just thankful they haven't decided to hike the price. I pay the $13 a month for the lower one and that's fine for me. I would never argue against paying less, I just sincerely believe there's 0 chance SE will ever entertain that idea.

If there's anything I could change about playtime and access, I would say that I don't enjoy the free trial having unlimited access to ARR-SB forever where as I'm locked out of the entire game if I unsub for a bit. Why can't my sub run out and I can still have the same access that a free trial player has? I've already bought and paid for ARR, Heavensward and Stormblood in the past, yet I'm still forced to pay the monthly sub if I want to do POTD? It's a bit annoying to me. If it's because SE is afraid all of the idlers will unsub and just use /say to chat in Limsa, perhaps that means there's not much worth actually paying for this expansion?

This is an unbelievably based take

[Payadopa]

Honestly, as someone who's been here since the closed alpha of 1.0 I have to say I'm having a hard time justifying a sub. What's there is high quality in terms of looking nice and being bug free but that's about it.

Content is too formulaic and what's new is disappointing like Island Sanctuary (Criterion being the exception somewhat). Then there is the whole triple dipping thing what with a sub, expansion cost AND a cash shop being there. I'm also not a fan of crossovers. Fall Guys can be as good as it wants to be, all I see is an IP that's being advertised to me. It's like FFXV's Cup Noodles but less egregious.

All you realistically do is watch cutscenes and fight brain-dead enemies with boring jobs (unless you raid, but that's a whole different can of worms I'm not opening lol). You could replicate that feeling by watching a YouTube video while occasionally pressing a butting on a controller.

So in conclusion, for me it's teetering on the edge of not being worth it. If I didn't socialise with others, occasionally raid or didn't have a house (nice one, YP) I'd take breaks more often.

[LioJen]

Yeah thats true, I guess its just wishful thinking. Though I actually do agree with box price games going up, I've been an advocate of that for years as I believe it to be one of the driving forces that make the game industry uncharacteristically greedy is the fact that the budgets for these games have skyrocketed unfathomably and yet they've remained $60 since the late 90s, but I'm getting off topic.

No, they were $50 until about 2006. And that was when almost every developer made their own custom engines for every game. Today they all use a standard licensed premade engine like Unreal, which means they don't have to train anyone in its use since every programmer and graphic artist already knows it. The industry being much larger as a whole means the pool of potential employees is much larger, meaning the cost of labor has been decreased with the increase in worker competition. Many games now use a whole host of pre-made stock assets, as seen even in FFXV where they used Chinese-bought enemy assets, saving on man-hours. Average computing power is also much higher than before, which nullifies any increase in cost you may assume due to "HD graphics" being resource intensive.

Logically the cost of development should be down, and likely is. The bloated budgets probably come from inflated executive pay and marketing agencies. Keep in mind that any increase in sticker price will NOT result in a pay raise for the actual programmers, artists, and real workers on these games. It will only result in a bigger check for the guy in the suit who did nothing but sign his name, and larger dividends for the stockholders who would gladly tear the company into pieces for the same result.