Will no longer purchase optional items in response to statue emote

[Carin-Eri]

Well, opinions aside, the statue has apparently sold out:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...o_buy_the_new/
Make of that what you will....

[CaptainLagbeard]

Well, opinions aside, the statue has apparently sold out:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...o_buy_the_new/
Make of that what you will....

Well, whaling is a thing... There is the 80-20 rule, 80% of sales is from 20% people...
And I wouldn't be surprised if a bunch of those statues end up on places like ebay...

[MitsukiKimura]

You don't see it on Mog Station because it's a bonus item that only comes with a physical statue (of a very questionable quality).
Here's the preview for the emote, on Lodestone:

https://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...7478018c14ddee

Noticed at the end the character doesn't remain at the idle pose for the animation. People who waste $400 on this just to have to keep pressing the emote or set up and macro honestly you get what you paid for. I remember Pre-ordering the Reaper Job Pin and it took them 9 months past the release date to send mine. I almost forgot about it.

[Ath192]

Well, opinions aside, the statue has apparently sold out:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...o_buy_the_new/
Make of that what you will....

There are players that would pay thousands of dollars for a limited edition emote. TBH there are people who will happily spend their life savings to have something others don’t in a virtual game. It is what it is. SE will gain negative PR from ripping off their customers if they keep doing this though.

I dislike the statues going up in price and the quality being…. Okay… at best. That being said I don’t plan on buying on ever but I do think the correct price for something like that would be in the vicinity of $150.00 USD.

[RailZack]

I am not very satisfied with the change in the Meister Quality figure's accompanying emote, from account-wide to single-character. This approach feels like a money grab.

[TheMightyMollusk]

SE is a corporation. Literally everything they do is a money grab.

[Cinnamonpop]

Late, and what I want to say real quick is that I knew the statue would get sold out (after all, that's inevitable with scalpers existing, and well, the fomo people experience is very real unfortunately) but I believe there is nothing truly to lose speaking out and speaking loud about your disapproval, which is what I hoped to do with this thread, and hoped others would as well.

Worst case scenario is nothing changes and we all move on. Best case, should enough people complain and perhaps even express the same sentiment as me of no longer buying anything optional, mayhaps Square Enix will listen on some level. Were the chances of the last part high? No. Might as well have been .1%. But do I think it's worth trying? Yes. Nothing ventured, nothing gained and all that. Lots to potentially gain with very little to lose.

[Halivel]

But of course they can sell more figures and get much more cash from people who buy that expensive stuff just because of the emotes. It's a shame for this company to use such methods, in my opinion.

The funny thing is I'm fairly sure they could make a lot more if they just sold it as a single player (or even account-wide) emote on Mog Station for like $15-20 or something.

ffxivcollect isn't exactly the most accurate thing ever on this since it's reported by players themselves, but still somewhat of a represenation:

Some of the Mog Station-only emotions ownship percentage:
Cheer Sticks recolor emotes: 12%
Deride: 13%
Drink Tea: 23%
Pantomime: 18%
Flower Shower: 24%
Wasshoi: 16%
Snap: 27%
Toast: 32%

And it continues for almost every shop-exclusive emote. There're pretty popular.

And then there's figurine emotes:
Zantetsuken: 1,4%
Diamond Dust: 1,9%
Ultima: 2,1%
Omega: 2,7%


And that's a difference in ownship between pretty simple looking emotes and something what a lot of people would be willing to spend on even if they generally do not buy things on shop. I know at least several of my friends who'd buy Shiva emote if it were to be on Mog even for higher price, and who otherwise don't spend even on Fantasias.

So funnily enough, no, I highly doubt they're winning much (if anything) by selling what's essentially a $150+ ($350+ for the "Sundering") emote (since figurines are crap) because a lot of people:
- Cannot justify spending this much on a physical good that doesn't even look the price it costs.
- A good portion of players don't actually live in countries where it can be easily delivered, so even if they wanted to get it - they can't or at the very least it would cost them 2x-3x the price.

There's also the fact that all of their figurines rarely, if ever, receive reprints. Especially Meister line. I only ever remember seeing one restock for Shiva and that's it. Emotes on Mog Station could be sold for eternity and bring money from both old and new players for years.

Sooo... yeah. It's a really weird way to milk players of their cash that doesn't even milk that much out of them on the grand scale of things in terms of potential profit. It's just... I don't know what it is really.
(And the fact it's already sold out is mind-boggling to me ngl. An ounce of self-respect where?)

[Cinnamonpop]

There's also the fact that all of their figurines rarely, if ever, receive reprints. Especially Meister line. I only ever remember seeing one restock for Shiva and that's it. Emotes on Mog Station could be sold for eternity and bring money from both old and new players for years.

Sooo... yeah. It's a really weird way to milk players of their cash that doesn't even milk that much out of them on the grand scale of things in terms of potential profit. It's just... I don't know what it is really.
)

This is just a guess, but to be honest I wouldn't be surprised if it's someone is trying to justify the figures existing for one reason or another. Though crap in quality, the department making these figures are still people with jobs who would like to see those jobs continue. Despite the quality of the figure, I doubt the quality comes from a lack of skill, but rather a lack of time+pay given by Square to ensure their quality.

Even should reprints never happen, figures and such selling fast, no matter what the reason, is the most direct message you can give to higher ups who only care about money and proving to their investors that they are worth investing in.

The quicker they can sell these figures, the more they can prove to the higher ups that it's worth keeping their jobs, and thus they get to keep their jobs. The emotes really are just there for the sake of proving their figures are worth investing in for people who aren't going to care or question why they're selling.

[Halivel]

This is just a guess, but to be honest I wouldn't be surprised if it's someone is trying to justify the figures existing for one reason or another. Though crap in quality, the department making these figures are still people with jobs who would like to see those jobs continue. Despite the quality of the figure, I doubt the quality comes from a lack of skill, but rather a lack of time+pay given by Square to ensure their quality.

Even should reprints never happen, figures and such selling fast, no matter what the reason, is the most direct message you can give to higher ups who only care about money and proving to their investors that they are worth investing in.

The quicker they can sell these figures, the more they can prove to the higher ups that it's worth keeping their jobs, and thus they get to keep their jobs. The emotes really are just there for the sake of proving their figures are worth investing in for people who aren't going to care or question why they're selling.

It's probably the most feasible explanation honestly, but then I also look at their other lines - like Bring Arts or Toy Arts. Those, while still frankly overpriced, look a lot better for a lower price tag.

I have 9S action figurine that costed $55 or something. It's genuinely pretty nice, although I could 100% find things of a better quality on AmiAmi for the same price.

So there's something with Meister line that goes beyond just not having potentially enough time and/or payment to make a better sculpt. Especially when there's $2400 2B (Nier Automata) statue that honestly looks majestic (still ridiculously overpriced, but it's 1/3 scale and very detailed so like... there I could at least somewhat understand the tag, just a tiny bit).