Another View of Final Fantasy XIV's Housing

18 Dec 2013
0

FFXIVHousing2b

A few days ago we had an article posted talking about housing, and the level of disappointment from the community.

The wonderful thing about this community that we are all a part of, is that there are all sorts of different people with different play styles and opinions. Fusionx shared his opinions on housing, and now I’d like to share mine with all of you.

Over the past weekend the patch notes for Final Fantasy XIV 2.1 were released and the hot topic on all fans of the series minds is the cost of land used for the new housing system. Initially I had the same reaction to the price of land that was released, and the backlash and outrage of some players is understandable, if not expected. However; after giving it some thought, I feel that the prices are acceptable if not fair for everyone involved. Now, I know there are those out there who feel cheated by the announcement of land prices, and using a word like fair might even seem a bit harsh, so what I’m going to attempt to do in this article is break down some of the arguments against the land prices and offer my thoughts as to a counterpoint to the points being made.

Argument #1
The Cost of land will crash the markets.

The premise behind this argument is that because everyone will be saving their money in order to get the money needed to buy a plot of land, no one will be buying anything, thus bringing down prices on everything across the board. This is true, prices are going to fall, they started this weekend, but like any market it will have a low point and a high point, and what those points are we can only begin to speculate. However, the idea that no one will be buying doesn’t really give justice to the laws of economics. Namely, that of supply and demand which drive the in game economy just like in the real world. So prices will fall, but unless drastic changes are made to drop rates of items and materials, they will continue to retain their value, that value being relative to the buyer. So while at the start the market will shift over to benefit buyers more it means that the value of each Gil has more buying power than it did previously. What does buying have to do with housing, well just about everything. This might be a great time for a lot of people to make a lot of money, with materials in ready supply and at low cost savvy investors might take this opportunity to turn a relatively low upfront cost into nice profits down the road. Buying stacks for 1/10 their original cost now, and selling them later will help some players be able to make up some of the needed gil for acquiring a house.

marketboard

The idea that no one will be buying anything in this economy is false, however yes, there will be fewer buyers to start as everyone is holding on to what they have, as they don’t know where the markets will go, and that is a market in panic. We see this in our own world, the doom and gloom comes out, people get scared and pull out of the economy and lose a lot of money, but what history shows us is that when prices are low, now is the time to buy. So to sum up this argument is that the economy will not crash, it will change, and it might be the time to buy up some inventory and hold on to it for the next few weeks.

Argument #2

Who has the kind of Gil to even buy a house?

Ranging from 4 million Gil on a small plot of land to 625 million Gil to the largest plot of land in the best location across all worlds seems like a large jump, and to be fair 625 million Gil is a whopping sum of money for anyone. However, those are not the prices of land, those are the inflated prices of land, and since every six hours the land will lose .14% of it’s value up to 90 days reducing the price of houses by over 50%. To keep the math simple, we’ll say all land will lose 50% of its value over the next 90 days, and in the end the value of houses will be as follows:

2 million Gil for a small plot of land up to 312 million Gil across all worlds.

Knowing that land is going to be a depreciating asset players could be voluntarily giving up to 50% of the cost to the server. Yes, there is competition for the best spot, and that is OK they are doing that, but even after you buy that plot of land, the value will continue to go down for the next 90 days. Another point to remember is that you will be able to resell your land, so land will retain its value, and as long as you’re able to resell your land on the market place, you’ll be able to keep the value of land. This is important because in game land goes from a depreciating asset to an asset that holds value, and provides benefits. And what this means for free companies is that you’ll be able to sell your land and upgrade to bigger plots of land later. From the first impressions of the system, this implies that not everyone is going to start out with the large house and large plot of land, those are huge and powerful group trophies to show off to the whole server. This also allows you to have land, and work towards greater goals, of getting that large plot of land.

I think the price of the best spot for the large plot of land is so shocking is to allow for free company driven goals and to add even more value into the free company home. The best rewards come from long term goals and achievements, but players shouldn’t see 625 million (312 on my server) as their goal, but rather 312 million (156 million on my server) as their goal. Again, if we are not able to re-sell the land, then this might create a bigger issue all around, but we will know more in the coming weeks.

One last thought to share, with land losing value for the next 90 days, and Gil gaining value with market prices dropping, player will find that their Gil will go further than it did prior to the patch, with more buying power after the initial drop in prices, we should see prices rebound and eventually settle down over the coming month to the next 90 days.

Argument #3

With a free company with X number of members, it will take us Y number of years to get the money needed.

True, if everyone in your free company was only able to save up 50k a week to contribute to your goal of that large house it would take you a while, and that is the point. Now I’m only speculating on the thought process going on at Square Enix, but it sounds like free companies will want to get some land and later upgrade, thus giving real value to the perfect spot for your home. The only thing to note is that there will be many new avenues for Gil acquisition, so we will have a real understanding of how long it will take to acquire the needed Gil, thus Gamer Escape has created a shared document to help track the total amount of Gil, and we will use this to analyze Gil acquisition over the course of the next several weeks.

Yoshi-P has also taken to the forums to clarify on the reasons for high costs and different prices across the various different servers. You can find his full response here.

FFXIVhousing

Closing Thoughts

Personally I find that the prices are fair in regards to the price of land. I think there were a lot of players (myself included) that thought we would be buying a large house within hours of patch 2.1 going live. These numbers were a blow to that idea, and thus new goals are created. There are those out there that might want to walk away from housing based off these numbers, and that is their option, but this might be the right time for players to take advantage of cheap prices, and pick up new members for their free company to help everyone get to their goals faster. Agree, disagree, it’s up to you, and feel free to add your thoughts to the comments below. 

The choice, as always, is up to you, how will you approach this new economy?

Share your thoughts below. :)