Potential Sub Price Decrease

[Greyhawk]

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

To add to that list - SWTOR did this their first year of release, you have the option of F2P or a sub. Frankly, F2P is utterly painful to play in that game, for the sole purpose of making you have to sub to play it. It's so limiting in F2P is painful to the point of you either like it so much you sub, or uninstall it faster than you can click the button to do so.

[Payadopa]

According to inflation we should be paying over $20 a month.

The gaming industry is way larger now and makes twice as much as Hollywood and ten times as much as the music industry. Games on demand means less storages and less shipping. Devs also don't create their own engines as much anymore and just stick to Unreal or whatever. Funny how those aspects always get swept under the rug. Oh and did the recent AAA price increase lead to no Mtx (that can bunkrupt you)? Would a potential sub increase lead to the cash shop bekommen mg abolished? lol Yeah, good one. Honestly, we need a new gaming crash like we had in the 80s.

[DPZ2]

Honestly, we need a new gaming crash like we had in the 80s.

So, the economic loss of US$30 billion dollars across 3 years in arcade, console and computer video games, coupled with the destruction of the US video console market, coupled with the rise of proprietary game consoles was a great thing?

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

The gaming industry is way larger now and makes twice as much as Hollywood and ten times as much as the music industry. Games on demand means less storages and less shipping. Devs also don't create their own engines as much anymore and just stick to Unreal or whatever. Funny how those aspects always get swept under the rug. Oh and did the recent AAA price increase lead to no Mtx (that can bunkrupt you)? Would a potential sub increase lead to the cash shop bekommen mg abolished? lol Yeah, good one. Honestly, we need a new gaming crash like we had in the 80s.

Yes, all of what you said has everything to do with square and the fact that XIV is running on an in-house engine, not a licensed 3rd party one.

[MsMisato]

I will be flat out honest I don’t see them lowering or raising the sub price. There are two option a 9.99 with limited characters and the regular price I think 14.99.

[Mcg55ss]

This is an unbelievably based take

Lol what is based about it

[Orinori]

Lol what is based about it

The take of being able to access free trial zones when your sub has run out but losing access to non-free zones and content until your sub is repaid.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

The take of being able to access free trial zones when your sub has run out but losing access to non-free zones and content until your sub is repaid.

Do you remove all of your gil over 300k?


Forcibly remove you from your fc and house?

[LilimoLimomo]

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....
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?

With respect, this is not an accurate analysis; if we take a step back and look at the experiences of non-cutting-edge players, we can see how this isn't true.

Example 1:

If I'm a new player and I buy Dawntrail and start playing the day it releases, my $15 a month gets me access to all of the content in the game. That's 6 expansions, as well as all of the patch content for 5 expansions. And I have access to all of it for just $15!

Example 2:

Let's take a more up-to-date player. They bought Endwalker, played it to completion in a month ($15), and then ended their sub. If they come back for Dawntrail, they'll have all the patch content waiting for them...without having paid any of the years' worth of subscription prices that you're proposing are their cost. A mere $15 for their first month back gives them access to all of it.

These examples demonstrate how there isn't a correlation between the amount paid for subscriptions and access to patch content.

The Way Things Really Work

There are two costs you need to pay to play Final Fantasy IV (excluding free trial content): content and access.

Content: The price of the newest expansion will get you access to that expansion's content (as well as any previous expansions' content). Without this, you cannot play the content of an expansion.

Access: Your monthly subscription cost gives you permission to access the servers. Without this, you can't play the game at all.

Aided by this more accurate model, we can see that patch content is not paid for by a player's subscription; rather, it is included with the price of the expansion content. Once you've purchased the expansion, you can access the patch content as soon as it is available without paying any additional fees; you simply need to pay the subscription fee for access during the period in which you want to access that content.

[Stasya]

The amount of content devs put for every major patch (~4 months) does not justify sub pricing model at all. You know where all the money go aswell .... to side projects ....