Micro-Transactions In FFXIV?

On a related note..

http://kotaku.com/5426749/square-enix-launches-virtual-money-you-can-really-buy

SE launched "Crysta" - a virtual currency.
Haven't seen this mentioned yet. Heh.

If I recall correctly Crysta was for another MMO SE was part of by the name "Fantasy Earth Zero", it currently has nothing to do with XIV

Oh, wow, this does not look promising at all. Of course, there's always the possibility it will never touch 14, but then there's a possibility that it will...

I don't see why it wouldn't be integrated into FFXIV somehow since they made kind of a big deal about its launch, but as to how is another matter entirely. Naturally they'd coincide seeing as you'd purchase Crysta (sounds like someone's ugly sister, sorry to all Crystas out there) to be spent in an online gallery or in-game shop tied to your account, I'd presuuuume.

Personally I think the micro-transactions are going to be for character customizations and special items that I don't expect to be relevant to gear/stat oriented players. In that respect I could see if that's what they're referencing by saying "a lot of people want that kind of model" since even I've wanted some unique ways to make my character stand out since unless you're using an unpopular face/hair/model, Whitegate is just a sea of clones. "I'm the small model!" lol

If anything, all this does is make me want to start a LS/guild/whatevertheyendupcallingthem, called "HardMode".

Simple rules:
1) If there is any form of RMT for improved stats, and you use it, you're booted.
2) If you're a PC player and you harp on about how everything's so much better with WindowerXIV, you're booted.
3) If you put together events that state 'we need at least 6blm's or this will take too long/have a chance of failure etc.' you're gone.

Don't you think this should just be included in the next generation rather than be something we have to pay extra for on top of a monthly fee? Not interested in FFXIV = FFX1 "Now with more micro-transations!"
lol

Idk, seems right up SE's alley to do something like this. They know the RMT will get their greasy little paws into FFXIV. SE would probably rather have the money in their hands instead of the GS.

Personally I think the micro-transactions are going to be for character customizations and special items that I don't expect to be relevant to gear/stat oriented players. In that respect I could see if that's what they're referencing by saying "a lot of people want that kind of model" since even I've wanted some unique ways to make my character stand out since unless you're using an unpopular face/hair/model, Whitegate is just a sea of clones. "I'm the small model!" lol

I don't know what to think tbh.

We can only wait...

If it adds anything to the debate, I can relate the state of the gaming industry at the moment.

Monolithic AAA MMO's which do not have any form of RMT are seen as a dying breed. That is, games which derive a majority of their "fun" from the acquisition of items and experience, and which are closed systems whereby the only currency is time investment. (FFXI, for example.) Ruthless cost/benefit analysis has shown a few things about these types of games:

1) The market is not growing as fast as budgets. The same subset of people tends to play these games, and in order to get their business, you have to basically create the same game over and over again, but with progressively larger and larger budgets. This means companies are making progressively less and less profit margin on what is otherwise a pretty static player base. As an example, it is not unheard of for these games to now have development and infrastructure costs on the order of a quarter billion dollars, which is difficult to make back on $10/month subscriptions when a significant chunk of each account is going to pay for ongoing bandwidth and hosting fees.

2) The players of these games tend to be very content and service-intensive. They take their in-game prowess very seriously and occupy a huge amount of development time tweaking, balancing, retweaking, and arguing about skills, items, classes, etc. Regardless of how attentive the devs are to player needs, or how good the customer service is, these players are never happy. The tendency for them to continually badmouth the devs at every opportunity makes the games unenjoyable to work on and maintain. The best designers and coders in the industry are rapidly abandoning ship to more rewarding and enjoyable ventures.

3) Right now, the largest non-RMT approved game is World of Warcraft with approximately 10M subscribers. That sounds like a lot, but as I type this, more than 270M people around the world are playing non-traditional RMT-approved games and virtual worlds. (And paying just as much through microtransactions and other methods.) Furthermore, these more casual non-traditional games have development budgets that are frequently 1/10th to 1/100th the cost of a modern AAA MMO.

4) This number continues to increase at the rate of almost 20,000,000 per year, whereas the market for WoW/FFXI-style traditional MMO's has remained virtually flat for the past several years and shows serious signs of market saturation.

5) Combating RMT is expensive and questionably effective. There is no way to code to prevent it, and because RMT operations now make up approximately .03-.05% of mainland China's entire gross domestic product, you can count on someone in a country of a billion+ people to find ways around any block or filter. This need for ongoing policing and the PR nightmare around fighting the RMT is extremely expensive, cutting even more into development budgets and company profits. If you don't combat it aggressively enough, people quit. If you combat it too aggressively, people quit. It's lose-lose.

6) When companies are the ones providing microtransactions or RMT, they can always undercut the 3rd party illegal suppliers. This instantly dries up the market, stabilizing in-game economies, and resulting in better gameplay experiences for all users.

7) MMO's can do quite well and cater to both RMT, and non-RMT players alike, if they are designed from the ground up with that in mind. (Which FFXI was not.) As an example, EVE Online provides sanctioned methods to RMT that do not significantly effect gameplay and continue to grow their market share. Korean MMO's (the largest of which easily rival WoW in size) have provided company-sanctioned microtransaction models for almost a decade now, with no major backlash.

Will it matter with FF14? Probably not. The Japanese lead designer has already stated that he intends for FF14 to be a "hardcore MMO" that demands just as much time (possibly more) to play than FF11. So it seems SE is headed down the opposite path.

Make no mistake, however -- RMT is the wave of the future, according to just about every major game studio still left that hasn't folded into bankruptcy yet.

Jaerik made a very insightful post a while back that probably predicts pretty accurately what the futute will hold. I'll repost the novel because i think it's very relevant to the current discussion.

Wish we had spoiler tags like bg...

I would really hope that they're tending more towards the episodic content they've been releasing in the form of the last few mini-expansions. Aside from the 'Ultimate Collection' you buy them directly from S/E at a lower price than a usual expansion, all of which fits closely with the idea of a microtransaction.

Re-designing the FFXI in terms of micro-transactions:
- You buy FFXI and get the core game, sans any expansions. 3 cities plus Jeuno. ~$50
- Once you hit level 30 you want to level NIN, PLD, or SMN. You go to the S/E online store and pay $10 to unlock RotZ advanced jobs.
- You hit 40 and you want to level in TAU areas, so you drop $10 on the TAU map pack.
- BLU also catches you eye, so another $10 for TAU advanced jobs.
- You get to 70 and want to do some endgame events, so you buy Sky and Sea [RotZ maps, CoP maps] for $10 each

You see where I'm headed.

What I really hope they're not talking about is a system where no matter how hard you work at getting good gear in the game some schmuck with an assload of disposable income hops into the game and just buys himself full Hachiryu/Usuakane gear and a Futsuno Mitama and runs around complaining about how gimp everyone else in the game is.

Even if it's not the extreme example above, but let's say they can just spend $5 to give their weapon one more base damage it still corrupts the balance of the game in favor of those with money to burn. Purists such as myself will even argue that a merely cosmetic change that is available to those willing to pay would adversely affect the social balance in the game by allowing people to single out who has paid for something shiny while others have not.

WE WILL NOT BE SECOND CLASS CITIZENS.

YOUR SOCIETY BUILT ON THE BACKS OF THE PROLETARIAT WILL CRUMBLE AND THE BOURGEOISIE WILL KNOW FEAR.

>:|

That's a well written post, I just hope it'll ring true for SE if they decide to sell gil officially, or something similar.


People need to be reminded that while you complain about this and say that people are going to just buy gil and instantly become just as good as you with items you worked for.... that it already happens in FFXI.

I'm flattered by the quotation. I stand by the post, except for the last few lines.

It seems SE is backpedaling on their original statements in Japanese media that the game will be just as "hardcore" as FF11. I'm not surprised -- it struck me as an incredibly stupid business move.

Whether that means they'll clone WoW's casual gamer mechanic or not is still unknown, however. They've since gone into sort of an information blackout on that front. I suspect we'll have to wait for beta.