This is pure, disgusting greed

[Catwho]

Yea but the difference is, iirc was it always stated in the past that the Income from the Cashshop flows in things like better infrastructure etc etc better said back into ffxiv, not in every other project square has

Yep, this is the issue most of us have with paying our extra money at this point. From a software development perspective, I understand that the department (CBU3) cannot arbitrarily expand the team and hire more staff just to make more content - the more points of communication you add in a given project, the more problems it causes. Scalability has been a problem in software for 50 years and rapid expansion only causes software to become more delayed. Additions to a team and project expansion have to be done slowly, thoughtfully, carefully. This isn't me pulling shit out of my ass; I have a degree in business technology and it's a known issue. If they are planning on adding any more staff, they are going to be working on 8.0 content, not 7.X at this point. The book The Mythical Man Month addresses these problems with scaling in software, for all you nerds out there. AI can't fix essential complexity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month

But the financials for SE in 2024 came out and the only two games that made money were FFXIV and the new Dragon Quest remake. The majority of their losses were in the mobile division as they chased after the next Pokémon Go or Genshin Impact and failed to find it. I don't think XIV mobile is going to fix that issue either, but I suspect they were forced into it by the CEO and are trying to make the highest quality version they can despite knowing it's probably futile.

I realized one of the factors in why the US mobile game market isn't as strong as it is in other countries is because we don't have mass transit, and mobile games tend to be the kind of thing you do while standing at a train stop or walking from your station to work or school. When we're commuting to school or to work, we are driving ourselves, and playing a cell phone game while driving is a fast way to get a ticket from a cop or to get into an accident.

Still, how is it that SE still doesn't understand the rest of the global market that does play mobile games? Pokémon Go was a roaring success because it banked on nostalgia... but also because they included a way to earn coins to spend in the cash shop besides paying money, and encouraged people to GO OUTSIDE AND PLAY. I know people who have never paid a dime to Niantic but they can still have maxed out inventory and cute outfits, because they early their daily 50 cents in cash shop coins by taking over gyms and having an agreement with a friend on another team to trade gyms every other day. That one little bit of grace made people more willing to spend cash on the timed research for additional bonuses or for the remote raid passes to join in battles on the other side of the planet.

[Greyhawk]

God, if you think this is greedy, don't ever open the Square Enix store.

[Khryseis_Astra]

But the financials for SE in 2024 came out and the only two games that made money were FFXIV and the new Dragon Quest remake. The majority of their losses were in the mobile division as they chased after the next Pokémon Go or Genshin Impact and failed to find it. I don't think XIV mobile is going to fix that issue either, but I suspect they were forced into it by the CEO and are trying to make the highest quality version they can despite knowing it's probably futile.

From my understanding, SE sold the assets for the creation of the mobile game, they’re not running it themselves. So mobile isn’t taking any time or money away from the actual game. But I do think they are spreading themselves too thin… not unique to them, corporations all over trying to do more work with less people to try and maximize profits. It’s just really starting to show lately.

As far as the main topic goes, I’ve wanted this hairstyle for so long, and while it would have been nice to have an in-game way of obtaining it, at least for an arbitrary period of time before it got moved to the cash shop, I do like the new direction of decoupling the hair from outfits on mogstation. If you only want the hair, it’s $5. And the first outfit with separate hair (G’raha’s) was cheaper than past hair/outfit combined sets, so on the other hand, if you just want the clothes and not the hair, you’re paying less than you would have in the past. Hopefully that does all go back into this game!

[yesnt]

I do like the new direction of decoupling the hair from outfits on mogstation. If you only want the hair, it’s $5. And the first outfit with separate hair (G’raha’s) was cheaper than past hair/outfit combined sets, so on the other hand, if you just want the clothes and not the hair, you’re paying less than you would have in the past. Hopefully that does all go back into this game!

NPC Outfit including hairstyle was $15,
now NPC outfit plus hairstyle is $17 (G'raha).

For sure just a matter of time until the $5 hairstyles become $7 hairstyles.

We also know that all the money does not go back into the game.

[DPZ2]

But the financials for SE in 2024 came out and the only two games that made money were FFXIV and the new Dragon Quest remake. The majority of their losses were in the mobile division as they chased after the next Pokémon Go or Genshin Impact and failed to find it. I don't think XIV mobile is going to fix that issue either, but I suspect they were forced into it by the CEO and are trying to make the highest quality version they can despite knowing it's probably futile.

Not sure where you're looking for "2024". We've been in Fiscal Year 2025 since 1 April 2024, and the financials for FY2025 will probably be out some time towards the middle of May 2025.

Net Sales for FY2025/Q1-Q3 (December 2024 report, so that may be what you were reading) are down something like 18 billion yen. Operating income (ie profit) was only down about 3 billion yen from FY2024. Profits from Digital Entertainment were 27.6 billion yen.

The major expansion release in the summer contributed about 60% of the profits from MMO, but the other two, HD Games and Smart Devices did not suffer a loss unless you consider 10 billion yen in profits as a "loss".

The XIV Mobile game is in the hands of Lightspeed Studios, who paid SE for the use of their IP. I suspect TenCent Games will be making a profit regardless of whether or not there are North American (really, the USA) players.

[Vrankyl]

People out here defending the cash shop then complaining the game has no content
Golly gee I wonder why you have nothing to work for

Except less cash shop items wouldn't equate to more content at all. It's been stated numerous times that the Cash Shop Team is completely separate from the team that actually works on the game itself, which has been made apparent with how some of the gear released on there is designed that doesn't quite flow the way the stuff released in game does. The most egregious being the Prince and Princess sets. So while yeah, it sucks that this stuff is being released on the cash shop and not in game and I would love for it to be in game the alternative could very easily just be... it never exists and we still don't get extra for it going away.

[Collin_Sky]

It's been stated numerous times that the Cash Shop Team is completely separate from the team that actually works on the game itself

That aside, the cash shop item we're talking about here already exists in the game as it's an NPC hair style. No work needed from the outside team. Same with literally every old event reward. These could very easily be attached to some content for people to do.

[Luluya]

WHM/BLM ARR artifact armor still doesn't have those second dye channels, but they've been hard at work adding second dye channels (and in some cases, firstdye channels too to previously undyeable items) to Cash Shop sets.

Cash shop is at the expense of in-game items.

[ZephyrMenodora]

WHM/BLM ARR artifact armor still doesn't have those second dye channels, but they've been hard at work adding second dye channels (and in some cases, firstdye channels too to previously undyeable items) to Cash Shop sets.

Cash shop is at the expense of in-game items.

Dying the sacred WHM Artifact Armor at all is sacrilege.

[Kranel_San]

You need to pay $60 dollar to buy the full game, or $40 for an expansion. On top of that there's a subscription fee. After MULTIPLE years of players asking: Can we get Hilda's hairstyle, like this thread here:

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/496026



Square Enix didn't add it to a dungeon or the Gold Saucer. They added it as a $5 Mog Station item. Do you know many Mog Station items there are in the game now ? The total microtransactions you can buy is now more than $1000. This is for a game that you have to pay AAA money for, on top of that you have a subscription fee, and hmm ? The most popular requests that players have been asking nicely for is something you have to pay extra !

This is just pure, disgusting greed. Not to mention they don't even allow any refund, so if you don't like the hairstyle or change race you can't even do anything about it. How is this acceptable ?

Next time, don't ask Square Enix for any cosmetic. You know what they will do ? They'll take the most popular request and add it to Mog Station.

Chloe

It's the people who are at blame here, not the corporates.

The corporates needs to pay back the investors and cover up the costs. The sad reality is that if people are willing to pay, then they'll offer it for sale.

If people AREN'T paying for microtransactions, then said cosmetics will be in-game to be obtained via in-game methods.