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.

[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.

[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.

[Metalface_Villain]

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.

nice to see a normal and informed take in a ff14 discussion which usually tend to be filled with fanatics shilling. big ups to our anti-capitalist king of these here comments

[Aldath]

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

Wildstar, Archeage, Secret World.
Have you heard about them? No? That's why they went from sub to F2P lol.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Wildstar, Archeage, Secret World.
Have you heard about them? No? That's why they went from sub to F2P lol.

I remember when people were talking about arcehage being a XIV killer. That aged well.

[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]

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.

[Musashidon]

Oh? I wasn't aware FFXIV had a different philosophy.

subs are just a way to get more money, how you want to look at it is up to you, but the sub wont change if they decided to drop the game like 11 where you pay a sub for a left for dead game.

at the end of the day the only thing a sub guarantees is you logging in.