Final Fantasy XIV

anyone have that illustration from the XIV website? looks really nice, would like it or half of it as wallpaper.
 
Valandil said:
I don't live in Sweden. I've never lived in Sweden. I've never even been to Sweden. Therefore, the 25% tax rate on clothing in Sweden is completely irrelevant to the 200-500% markup on retail clothing in the United States.
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It actually isn't, because all countries have tax on stuff you buy. Sweden just happen to have slightly higher than most. The reason I brought it up was so that you could follow my argument.

New Jersey for example have a 7% sales tax. That means if you purchase something for retail that originally cost 10, the recommended retail price will be ~22.

It depends on the store though, H&M for example buy their clothes for a few cent and resell them for upwards 1000% their manufacturing price, which you can see at the quality of their clothes. And let's not even get in to brands like Prada, Gucci, Dolce Gabana, Luis Vitton. Those are all brands that add several thousand percentage to the original manufactoring price. They sell the brand, not the clothes.
 
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Uzor said:
It actually isn't, because all countries have tax on stuff you buy. Sweden just happen to have slightly higher than most. The reason I brought it up was so that you could follow my argument.

New Jersey for example have a 7% sales tax. That means if you purchase something for retail that originally cost 10, the recommended retail price will be ~22.

It depends on the store though, H&M for example buy their clothes for a few cent and resell them for upwards 1000% their manufacturing price, which you can see at the quality of their clothes. And let's not even get in to brands like Prada, Gucci, Dolce Gabana, Luis Vitton. Those are all brands that add several thousand percentage to the original manufactoring price. They sell the brand, not the clothes.
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Sales tax have absolutely nothing to do with the markup on an item because the sales tax is paid directly by the end-user. You can't even really say that the manufacturer or the retailer pays a similar tax when purchasing the raw materials or the finished goods because they get tax credits, breaks, write-offs as a cost-of-doing-business.

The fact of the matter, to get semi-back on topic, is that FFXI is pretty much right in the middle of a per/month subscription price...and guess what...that's what the market dictates. If SE tried to charge $20/mo for FFXI, then the game probably would never have grown beyond 100,000 subscribers and even then it likely would have fallen off fairly quickly unless the content delivered was top-notch. The only other subscription-based MMOs I've played since FFXI (Lord of the Rings & Warhammer) both charged $15/mo unless you were a Founder or some other kind of charter memeber, and even then the price was $9.99/mo. So $12.95/mo isn't anywhere near an unreasonable price.

Another thing to consider is that of that $13/mo, only a very small fraction of that is pure profit. Generally those profits are re-invested into the company, and I would be willing to bet significant chunk of the profit stream from FFXI funded the R&D on FFXIV. Also, video games are a slightly different breed of business model in that they have HUGE up-front capital investments so it may take many months or even a few years for a company to recoup all the money it initially invested in its online game.

Finally, in some ways you should be thankful when a game is subscription-based, provided that the developer/publisher is a fairly compentent business. For example, when Lord of the Rings launched it gave everyone who was in closed beta and some who were in open an oppurtunity to pay $199 for a lifetime subscription. A few months into the game going live, they opened up this payment plan for all players on a very limited basis, I think it was a 30-day window. Also, if you purchased a "Founder's Subscription" you could refer friends who could also sign up for the $199 one-time fee even after they closed Founder's Subscription offer. Keep in mind that LotRO is populated primarily by adults (as compared to other MMOs) so a very significant portion of the player-base took advantage of this pricing option. If you paid your $199, after only 14 months of playing, you would essentially be playing the game for free. LotRO is now in its 26th month of being live and the population is fairly stable at an estimated 300,000-500,000 subscribers (Turbine doesn't release sub numbers).

Now, as a result of the lifetime subscribers, who make up a sizable portion of the playing population, and who are essentially playing for free, Turbine has taken a very significant hit to its revenue stream and it's starting to reflect in the content of the game. Original developers have been pulled from LotRO and moved to new projects. A lot of the new content is buggy and not very polished when it's released. A lot of the new content also seems to be cookie-cutter developed to save time/costs. As a result, the Lord of the Rings: Shadows of Angmar (original) and the Lord of the Rings: Mines of Moria (expansion) almost play like two different games and the expansion and free content updates since, quite frankly, sucks compared to the original release.

Moral of the story? Keep the subscriptions and the revenue stream they generate flowing, otherwise your game will become stagnant, repetitive, and boring. Sure, Turbine made back a ton of their initial R&D costs for LotRO with all those $199 subscriptions they sold, but once the timeline played out and the revenue streamed began to dry up, the game noticeably suffered.
 
And for some reason, GameTrailers feels the need to brand FFXIV as the biggest disappointment of E3 JUST BECAUSE it's an MMO... those fuckers >_>

Edit: And it seems I'm not the only one pissed off by GT's decision of biggest disappointment. This video has already gained huge controversy.
 
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Valandil said:
Sales tax have absolutely nothing to do with the markup on an item because the sales tax is paid directly by the end-user. You can't even really say that the manufacturer or the retailer pays a similar tax when purchasing the raw materials or the finished goods because they get tax credits, breaks, write-offs as a cost-of-doing-business.
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It does. It has everything to do with the markup of an item. If you worked in a store you'd know this.

With a 2.14 markup, with 7% tax you make 100% profit ($10 manufacturing cost, $10 profit, $1,4 sales tax in the case of New Jersey). See, if we take Sweden for example again, if you double the price, you only make $5 profit if the manufacturing price is $10. That is why sales tax has everything to do with the markup of the price. Without a sales tax, the markup wouldn't be as high. As I also mentioned, it also has to do with other costs, and not only sales tax, but it seem you completely ignored that part of my post.

Most retailers, despite what Ele says (except for manufacturers or stores that manufacture what they sell themselves) (ISP, game companies such as SE, H&M...) don't have a 700% markup on their items. They double the price and add the sales tax on top of that price. In the end, what customers are willing to pay control the end-price, as both you and me have written, yes. Ele does not seem to realize the reason though.
 
Gerry said:
And for some reason, GameTrailers feels the need to brand FFXIV as the biggest disappointment of E3 JUST BECAUSE it's an MMO... those fuckers >_>

Edit: And it seems I'm not the only one pissed off by GT's decision of biggest disappointment. This video has already gained huge controversy.
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GT is right on with their biggest dissapointment winner. There are gifs allover now of FFXIV. They are used to show something not important lol..

I had the exact same reaction the GT people are talking about when i was watching the E3 conference. I was just about to get almost excited for a FF14 announcement and then i saw it was just the MMO... It was a major womp womp moment if you understand that.

I know you would like for this video to become important and for GT to look like badguys but the FFMMO players are the minority in general gaming. At the peak supposably there were 2M players server wide.. I am sure the majority doesnt care about the announcement of an MMO.

EDIT: Not sure if i was so clear..
Its not that FFXIV is a dissapointment its self.. Or the announcement of the game is a dissapointment. The dissapointment was the average gamer was expecting FFIX.. and got an MMO trailer instead.
 
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Uzor said:
It does. It has everything to do with the markup of an item. If you worked in a store you'd know this.

With a 2.14 markup, with 7% tax you make 100% profit ($10 manufacturing cost, $10 profit, $1,4 sales tax in the case of New Jersey). See, if we take Sweden for example again, if you double the price, you only make $5 profit if the manufacturing price is $10. That is why sales tax has everything to do with the markup of the price. Without a sales tax, the markup wouldn't be as high. As I also mentioned, it also has to do with other costs, and not only sales tax, but it seem you completely ignored that part of my post.

Most retailers, despite what Ele says (except for manufacturers or stores that manufacture what they sell themselves) (ISP, game companies such as SE, H&M...) don't have a 700% markup on their items. They double the price and add the sales tax on top of that price. In the end, what customers are willing to pay control the end-price, as both you and me have written, yes. Ele does not seem to realize the reason though.
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Do you even understand how sales taxes work in the United States? A sales tax is a consumption tax, it isn't even listed on the price, nor is it considered when setting prices. I have worked in retail stores, worked for Gap, Inc. for 4 1/2 years and I worked for Hastings Entertainment, Inc. for 3 years. If you sell a product for $20, then your price tag says $20, but at the register the consumer pays, to take Norman, OK as an example, $21.60. That $1.60 in sales tax is paid directly by the consumer and that money goes directly to the state of the Oklahoma, Cleveland County, and Norman municipal coffers. It has absolutely nothing to do with profit margin.
 
Valandil said:
Do you even understand how sales taxes work in the United States? A sales tax is a consumption tax, it isn't even listed on the price, nor is it considered when setting prices. I have worked in retail stores, worked for Gap, Inc. for 4 1/2 years and I worked for Hastings Entertainment, Inc. for 3 years. If you sell a product for $20, then your price tag says $20, but at the register the consumer pays, to take Norman, OK as an example, $21.60. That $1.60 in sales tax is paid directly by the consumer and that money goes directly to the state of the Oklahoma, Cleveland County, and Norman municipal coffers. It has absolutely nothing to do with profit margin.
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Uzor is right. You are not the only one who paid this tax on the product. Every part of making the product is taxed here. So that 20 dollar product if it went through 5 different places and was taxed 5 times. You the consumer are paying that in the 20 bucks. If taxes go up that 20 bucks you paid last month is now 25 bucks. Then on top of all that you are going to pay your tax.
 
Jereme said:
Uzor is right. You are not the only one who paid this tax on the product. Every part of making the product is taxed here. So that 20 dollar product if it went through 5 different places and was taxed 5 times. You the consumer are paying that in the 20 bucks. If taxes go up that 20 bucks you paid last month is now 25 bucks. Then on top of all that you are going to pay your tax.
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No. It'll only go up if that $20 product is sold for more than $20 after the tax increase.

edit: I'm referring to the consumer of the product, not anyone else
 
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Jereme said:
Uzor is right. You are not the only one who paid this tax on the product. Every part of making the product is taxed here. So that 20 dollar product if it went through 5 different places and was taxed 5 times. You the consumer are paying that in the 20 bucks. If taxes go up that 20 bucks you paid last month is now 25 bucks. Then on top of all that you are going to pay your tax.
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Yes, the manufacturing process is taxed and those taxes DO go into figuring the price so that you can recoup the loss. Some of those taxes are sales taxes if you're company buying materials/products to sell...in that case you're a consumer just like the person walking into your store. Perhaps those are the taxes Uzor is referring to, and if he is, then we're on the same page. But the way I understood him is that he is talking about the sales tax that YOUR consumers pay for your product, and that tax has absolutely nothing to do with determining your prices. However, when you're talking about all the taxes in between raw good > item you sell, it doesn't matter if you are talking about taxes, salaries, utility bills, they are all considered overhead costs.
 
Valandil said:
Yes, the manufacturing process is taxed and those taxes DO go into figuring the price so that you can recoup the loss. Some of those taxes are sales taxes if you're company buying materials/products to sell...in that case you're a consumer just like the person walking into your store. Perhaps those are the taxes Uzor is referring to, and if he is, then we're on the same page. But the way I understood him is that he is talking about the sales tax that YOUR consumers pay for your product, and that tax has absolutely nothing to do with determining your prices. However, when you're talking about all the taxes in between raw good > item you sell, it doesn't matter if you are talking about taxes, salaries, utility bills, they are all considered overhead costs.
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Its both of them, actually. It differs slightly depending on where you go, but the general idea is the same. As for the end sale tax, some decide to include it in the price instead of adding it later on, while some stores choose to list it as price + tax. The latter being preferred at some places due to the customer subconsciously being tricked that the price is cheaper then it really is. In the end, said tax is still based on the cost of the item itself.

I've never bought electronics in the states, but I would believe that tax is included in the price directly instead of it showing as price with an added tax at the counter. Its all a matter of preference at the place you shop. An example would be the ISP, that most likely include the tax with the price directly instead. But then again, I don't have an American ISP, so I can't be sure about that either, but it is what would be the most logical.

edit: And you're not the only one that has experience with it :p My dad has owned a company for the past 25 years, so I've grown up closely tied to one for the past 22 years, and I've worked in it for the past 8 years (only 3-4 has been full-time though)
 
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TheOsyris said:
GT is right on with their biggest dissapointment winner. There are gifs allover now of FFXIV. They are used to show something not important lol..

I had the exact same reaction the GT people are talking about when i was watching the E3 conference. I was just about to get almost excited for a FF14 announcement and then i saw it was just the MMO... It was a major womp womp moment if you understand that.

I know you would like for this video to become important and for GT to look like badguys but the FFMMO players are the minority in general gaming. At the peak supposably there were 2M players server wide.. I am sure the majority doesnt care about the announcement of an MMO.

EDIT: Not sure if i was so clear..
Its not that FFXIV is a dissapointment its self.. Or the announcement of the game is a dissapointment. The dissapointment was the average gamer was expecting FFIX.. and got an MMO trailer instead.
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While I can understand that MMO players are not the majority of gamers, I wouldn't classify FF14 as the biggest disappointment of E3. Hell, even based off that Video, I'd go with the new PSP(Still no second stick and original price? Fuck you, Sony) far more than FF14 being the new MMO that they've been working on.

I can understand some disappointment at getting your hopes up for FF14 not being single-player; but "MMO players are the minority so who cares" is an pretty weak reason. They had to announce the game at some time, E3 is pretty much the perfect place. I'd go more with Sony's bullshit about it being PS3 exclusive when SE's already confirmed a PC version and they're considering a 360 version a much more valid reason to be disappointed(although that's with Sony, not SE) with the announcement. Sony probably knew Microsoft got FF13, so they jumped the gun announcing the "exclusive" FF14.
 
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I was initially very disappointed FFXI was online, but when I finally gave it a try to see if it was any good, it ended up being more entertaining than any other FF game I've played. I don't think they should call it a disappointment based on so little. It's just bad critiquing.
 
Bajaratt said:
While I can understand that MMO players are not the majority of gamers, I wouldn't classify FF14 as the biggest disappointment of E3. Hell, even based off that Video, I'd go with the new PSP(Still no second stick and original price? Fuck you, Sony) far more than FF14 being the new MMO that they've been working on.

I can understand some disappointment at getting your hopes up for FF14 not being single-player; but "MMO players are the minority so who cares" is an pretty weak reason. They had to announce the game at some time, E3 is pretty much the perfect place. I'd go more with Sony's bullshit about it being PS3 exclusive when SE's already confirmed a PC version and they're considering a 360 version a much more valid reason to be disappointed(although that's with Sony, not SE) with the announcement. Sony probably knew Microsoft got FF13, so they jumped the gun announcing the "exclusive" FF14.
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Technically I think they could be correct about it being a console exclusive, in 2010. It didn't rule out the possibility of a 360 version coming out in 2011.
 
Acutie said:
I was initially very disappointed FFXI was online, but when I finally gave it a try to see if it was any good, it ended up being more entertaining than any other FF game I've played. I don't think they should call it a disappointment based on so little. It's just bad critiquing.
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Again you dont get what GT intended... They dont think a FF Online game itself is a dissapointment.

Sony had gamers of all kinds watching there conference. They announce FF14 as an exclusive.

At that moment even if you dont like the FF franchise.. You said wow. For good or bad reasons.

Then you see that online sign pop up at the end.. And the MMO people stayed nuts.. The average gamer went.. lol.

EDIT: Baj that is a seriously good case to argue about the PSP Go. Man what a bad idea that was..
 
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TheOsyris said:
Again you dont get what GT intended... They dont think a FF Online game itself is a dissapointment.

Sony had gamers of all kinds watching there conference. They announce FF14 as an exclusive.

At that moment even if you dont like the FF franchise.. You said wow. For good or bad reasons.

Then you see that online sign pop up at the end.. And the MMO people stayed nuts.. The average gamer went.. lol.

EDIT: Baj that is a seriously good case to argue about the PSP Go. Man what a bad idea that was..
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Wii Vitality Sensor still beats the PSP Go Price. Yeah, Go's price is fail, but seriously, why does the Wii need a Vitality Sensor?
 
Gerry said:
Wii Vitality Sensor still beats the PSP Go Price. Yeah, Go's price is fail, but seriously, why does the Wii need a Vitality Sensor?
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I just think someone has to care in the first place for something to be a dissapointment... No one cares about the Vitality Sensor.
 
Gerry said:
Wii Vitality Sensor still beats the PSP Go Price. Yeah, Go's price is fail, but seriously, why does the Wii need a Vitality Sensor?
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I'd put the PSP Go ahead, the Vitality sensor is pretty useless, but the PSP Go is like a slap in the face to the gaming community. They might as well have just said "We don't care what you want in a portable, but we'll charge you out the ass for it anyways."
 
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