FFXIV Merchandise

[Punainen]

Something that doesn't cost a fortune but is still cool... SE's prices for stuff are always ridiculous.

[Kannadi_Albedo]

Funny, I was about to make a thread on this very topic.

Even a brief combing of eBay turns up a ton of plush and plastic for previous Final Fantasies, but FFXIV has... not a lot. How might it be fixed?

Minions come to mind immediately: dozens of chibi-form creatures practically destined for keychains. Who wouldn't want their own Baby Behemoth? Then you have adult-sized monsters, good for plush or plastic. FFXI had a plush sabretooth tiger; FFXIV could move just as many plush diremites or dodos.

Want to diversify with miniature NPCs? The Grand Company leaders are as distinct and eye-catching as marketing could hope for. And villains? You already have two antagonists in full Judge-like armor, and merchandise of Gabranth ought to suggest the Cool Factor there.

There exists a statue of FFXI's Shadow Lord, routinely sold for over $200. I have at this moment a three-inch version of him on my desk. Nael van Darnus, zealot of Bahamut, would go well right alongside him.

And then there's the flaming Meteor icon, the symbol of ARR. So many applications, even outside the realm of t-shirts. FFXI sold reproduction rings of the three nations; the very symbol for FFXIV 2.0 is a ring. Granted, a precise replica of the icon wouldn't be the most comfortable thing to wear, but think of a hundred-dollar reproduction of this contest-winning ring.

Such potential. So many things on which I would pile (a responsible portion of) my disposable income.

I hope some news about merchandise will come out around launch. That's the best time for it.

[finiteHP]

With the advent of 3D printing, it's becoming possible to make custom figurines. I personally would pay some money if I could have a figurine made that takes my char creation choices as input so I could have a personal little Myranda sitting on my desk! A choice of armor/clothing would be nice too, but I'd even be willing to settle for being locked into race specific starter gear or similar to make it more feasible from a production standpoint.

Neal Van Darnus statue,because the best Final Fantasy villian since VI deserves a damn statue.

Goobue plushies with wire inserts in the arms that we might pose them would be fantastic!

As long as these were good quality I would throw my money at SE.

[Yrusama]

As much as I'd love to see Nael Van Darnus on my shelf next to the Shadowlord, it's hard to imagine they'd make merch of him since he was a temporary character. Sure, he left a great impression, but if he doesn't show his face...er...helmet... in ARR, new fans aren't going to want to decorate their houses with it.

[Myranda]

Oh hey, this thread got necrobumped! :P

Looking back on what I wrote before about 3D printing characters, it occurred to me that one of the very advantages of it would be less investment cost to set it up, since you don't need to prepare a die/cast/mold that needs to churn out thousands of identical figurines to turn a profit off of it. By it's very design a production run of 1 unit is barely different in preparation than a run of 1000 units. What I don't know is how far along 3D printing is as a technology, if it's actually gotten to the stage where it's easy enough to do the complex shapes involved with figurines (ex. like hair strands hanging down), or for incorporating many colors into a single piece (the videos I've seen of printers are all monochrome). Still, it sounds really promising as a future possibility and with a lot of flexibility to produce not just characters, but any sort of mob/boss/other object like an aetheryte.

All that said, and pertaining to all kinds of merch in general, I think SE is really waiting to see if ARR succeeds as a game in its own right before considering dropping any significant level of investment in providing us swag for it.

[Deli]

proper 3D model is the hardest...in some situation XD

[Enkidoh]

Yeah, I think the first lot of merchandise that's going to be available for ARR will just be what's included in the currently hypothetical CE version - what that's going to contain is anyone's guess though.

A little Derplander figurine would be nice to have on my desk next to my monitor though (complete with removable helm and Bravura).

[Nekomataya]

I think this is a more accurate representation of what (professional) 3D printers can do: http://www.figureprints.com/wow/
Something like that for our FFXI and FFXIV characters would be awesome.

[3Jane]

Toner cartridges. Actually I just need some, but a logo would be nice