Gentrification and Class Struggle in Final Fantasy XIV

July 6, 2017 6:49 PM

Final Fantasy XIV (previously) is the MMO version of the belovedJapanese RPG franchise. Like many MMOs, Final Fantasy XIV allows players to create their own personal online homes. Like real homes, these serve as a base of operations, a place for parties, and a way of showing off one's taste and status. And like real homes, they are a limited resource. Each server allows a fixed number of houses, typically about half the number of actual players.

Kotaku explores what happened when two players beat the rush to a relatively unpopulated server in advance of a new expansion, bought a huge chunk of the available real estate, and then found themselves under attack by newcomers who found there were no homes left for them. The situation offers a glimpse into what happens when a game becomes more real than anyone expected, raising questions about equitable distribution of resources and how inequality creeps into a system where everyone begins on an equal footing.

posted by Naberius (24 comments total)

I'm having Ultima Online flashbacks.
posted by tittergrrl at 7:12 PM on July 6, 2017

Ready Player One is looking more and more likely as a future.
posted by Fizz at 7:25 PM on July 6, 2017

Yeah not really getting the outrage here. It would be one thing if they were dumping tons of real world money into squeezing other people out, but if they're grinding for the gil, that's just part of the game, right? The comparison to real-world "you're poor because you're lazy" attitudes just isn't there, because it's a game that's literally designed to reward marginal effort fairly.
posted by fifthrider at 7:25 PM on July 6, 2017

I wonder how many of the outraged masses are Trumpian gamergaters who would hotly defend some 1%ers right to do that in real life.
posted by Dr. Twist at 7:45 PM on July 6, 2017 [5 favorites]

... heh. I once pulled the opposite in Kingdom of Loathing, attempting to equitably redistribute piles of a popular consumable for cheap. Didn't occur to me what kind of a shock to the system that would be for the poor mat farmers who were involved in the supply chain - the whole thing was really controversial after my people rolled it out.

(My clan's shenanigans made the wiki. This incident was a big part of why I ended up studying economics formally later. Also, why I never founded - and barely ever even joined - a game guild again. This all ate up an unbelievable amount of time while I was looking for a job.)

Funny to think about people soaking that much effort into something as small as housing, but it just reinforces what I observed at the time: virtual economies are a great place to get a cartoonish snapshot of real world issues, maybe get people thinking about them in a little more depth.
posted by mordax at 7:51 PM on July 6, 2017 [15 favorites]

I wonder how many of the outraged masses are Trumpian gamergaters who would hotly defend some 1%ers right to do that in real life.

Absolutely spot on.

And the reason why is best illustrated via me stealing a fantastic comment from the recent libertarian utopia FPP on the topic of their libertarian compatriots:

They just think that living in a shittier world is a fair price to pay for "freedom".
...
No, they just have the delusion that they'll be the ones at the top of the shit heap.
posted by RolandOfEld at 7:54 PM on July 6, 2017 [2 favorites]

So, I a) play FFXIV, and b) am a homeowner in the game, so I can understand why people are angry. The thing to understand about housing (which Kotaku doesn't mention) is that there are two game systems locked behind housing - airship explorations and gardening with crossbreeding - that have a number of key crafting materials, rare minions, etc. involved with them. By these individuals owning so many plots, they actually hold a strong economic edge, especially if they have several shell free companies (guilds) to execute airship exploration missions with.

In addition, housing for free companies have several significant benefits, such as cheaper teleports (your home, once a certain outdoor decoration is put on it, becomes a preferred teleport location), crafting boosts, access to merchants, retainers, and the market board - houses serve as an economic and social hub. Not to mention that a free company that owns a house can provide apartments to their members, letting them have a small space they can call their own. (There are also apartments available outside of the free companies, but they're more expensive.)
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:06 PM on July 6, 2017 [7 favorites]

#2real2real
posted by Foci for Analysis at 8:09 PM on July 6, 2017

To give an example, you eventually learn how to summon your chocobo as a support companion who will fight alongside you. Normally, your bo can reach level 10 - but, it is possible to level your bird to 20 (which you want, as it maxes out the bird's abilities and stats.) However, doing so requires an item that has to be grown per level (there's one side quest in the first expansion that gives you one, but beyond that, you're purely reliant on the player economy.) As such, these items sell for a pretty penny, and controlling several houses makes it much easier to produce them, taking more of the market for yourself.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:20 PM on July 6, 2017 [5 favorites]

Oh shit, I remember Warehouse 23.
posted by isauteikisa at 9:08 PM on July 6, 2017 [1 favorite]

I agree housing can be entertaining but isn't it SE's fault for allowing players to own more than one house on an account? I don't play enough to justify owning property other than the cheaply shared spaces like apartments and Free Company housing available.

Also, there's a lot of worlds on NA datacenter like Siren and other low pop servers even in EU datacenter which one can transfer for $18. For example, Omega is the latest EU world which had housing for everyone for 2 weeks. Also, SE plans to open a new housing ward in the new town hub in a few months too.

Other than decoration there's no real use for a small house unless you want an outdoor yard since apartments come with a stable and market board/bell right outside.
posted by chrono_rabbit at 11:38 PM on July 6, 2017

Even a small house has the ability to put in an eight plot garden, as well as workshop and FC housing for an FC.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:46 PM on July 6, 2017

NoxAeternum: "By these individuals owning so many plots, they actually hold a strong economic edge, especially if they have several shell free companies (guilds) to execute airship exploration missions with. "

Hmm. If I understand this correctly, I think this implies that individuals who have accumulated sufficient capital resources can use those resources to reap an economic advantage that becomes difficult if not impossible for those with fewer resources to overcome, thus entrenching their dominant position. Furthermore, through the use (or abuse?) of certain legal, organizational structures, they can overcome various prescribed limitations on the accumulation of such resources.

Well, thank goodness that I don't play Final Fantasy XIV so I won't have to deal with these phenomena in my own life.
posted by mhum at 12:27 AM on July 7, 2017 [15 favorites]

As is natural and expected this happened in Second Life over a decade ago, complete with real estate speculation buyers, a de facto class war and a bubble and everything.

I have no idea what the solution ended up being. I think Linden Labs just massively increased the servers and built a better grid and sim system and knocked the legs of the market out from under the speculators.
posted by loquacious at 2:03 AM on July 7, 2017 [2 favorites]

I don't know why they are calling it "gentrification" though. There is a specific housing dynamic that is called gentrification which is not just monopolisation, which is actually what is happening here.

It's more like "Squattocracy": early adopters buy cheap, massive areas of otherwise vacant land and obtain a relative monopoly once more people arrive. That is not gentrification.

Gentrification is about displacement and only occurs where there is an existing population. Its more like conquering / colonial displacement of an "indigenous" population.

this kind of article just dilutes the specificity of the phenomena of gentrification by collapsing it with other wealth based housing issues.
posted by mary8nne at 3:18 AM on July 7, 2017 [7 favorites]

.....why is there a limited supply of housing in a videogame?
posted by Automocar at 6:33 AM on July 7, 2017 [1 favorite]

Yeah, it's interesting there's real estate scarcity at all. There's no significant burden to Square Enix making sure there's plenty of houses for everyone to buy, or guarantee one house per player, or whatever they want. I wonder why they chose to have a limited supply of houses?

Hopefully because it creates interesting gameplay. I gather houses are resellable, so they've created a limited commodity and a market. Is that market fun? Apparently not, for these have-nots. NoxAeternum's comment that owning a house makes it easier to access other gameplay systems suggests that limiting housing limits their players. OTOH it creates more of a market and more trade, and maybe that's fun? At least for the folks who play a lot and have capital. If you just want your dress-up-doll to have a dollhouse it sounds like a bummer.

Eve Online is a full game built on economics and scarcity. Their market creates a whole lot of gameplay, the most interesting part of the game when I played it. But FFXIV feels like a different game to me.
posted by Nelson at 6:37 AM on July 7, 2017

There's no significant burden to Square Enix making sure there's plenty of houses for everyone to buy, or guarantee one house per player, or whatever they want. I wonder why they chose to have a limited supply of houses?

The issue is that houses aren't instanced. If you own a house, you own a piece of the persistent world, which has more overhead. The reason for this is because houses were originally designed for and sold to free companies as guildhalls. It was only later that the door was opened to private ownership. And yes, this has been bitterly argued over.
posted by NoxAeternum at 7:13 AM on July 7, 2017 [2 favorites]

Ah, so the original game design was one guidehouse per group of people not one individual house per person. That explains the history. I like non-instanced housing, it feels more like a real place, and I think having some competition for prime real estate is a good idea. But why not develop a new subdivision?

Maybe that's what apartments are? I gather they were added later. Are apartments instanced? Why are they less popular with players than full houses? Is it purely an aesthetic thing, or do some of the gameplay stuff like crafting mats not work as well in an apartment?
posted by Nelson at 7:36 AM on July 7, 2017

They have brought more housing on (I bought my house in the last major expansion of housing, during the release of 3.3. I was up when the patch went live so as to buy the house.) And there is a new housing area being added in 4.1, a few months from now.

Apartments were added much later, and aren't as popular because they're smaller, and more importantly, they only give you limited access to gardening (you can put flowerpots in your apartment, but you can only grow one item in each, with no cross-pollination opportunities.)
posted by NoxAeternum at 7:57 AM on July 7, 2017

They are, in fact, releasing a new subdivision in the new DLC area. On most popular servers, these new houses will likely sell out within 5 minutes. I'm part of a guild that really wants a house (as pointed out by NoxAeternum) so we can access airship building and its associated content. There is literally no other way to do some of that content. Unfortunately, guild housing is the same market as personal housing. It's extremely frustrating.

Apartments are a bandaid fix, albeit a fun one. They ARE instanced, but have some limitations. You can't design the outside (obviously). There's a smaller limit on the number of items you can have inside. You can't have a workshop or an airship. I don't know if you can do cross-breed gardening. They also can't be shared; I can leave my apartment open for anyone to visit, but not designate specific tenants who can interact with the items inside.

Currently on my server the only way to buy a house is to find someone willing to "sell", pay them essentially a bribe to relinquish the plot at a given time (6 million gil for a small plot is an average price), wait at the housing board while they do so, then immediately purchase the plot (another 3.5 million for a small plot) and hope nobody else gets it before you. "Selling" your plot is technically against terms of service and can get you a warning or a ban, and the entire scheme hinges on good faith. It's incredibly easy to scam, and very few people ever get justice for that.

Yes, I am salty as hell about the entire situation.
posted by specialagentwebb at 8:03 AM on July 7, 2017 [2 favorites]

Kotaku explores what happened when two players beat the rush to a relatively unpopulated server in advance of a new expansion, bought a huge chunk of the available real estate, and then found themselves under attack by newcomers who found there were no homes left for them.

heighten the contradictions!
posted by indubitable at 9:34 AM on July 7, 2017

So, to give you an idea of what the housing block looks like:

* There are 30 plots in a subdivision. These vary in size between small, medium, and large (with larger houses able to support more facilities and vendors.)
* There are two subdivisions in a ward, for a total of 60 plots.
* Each housing district currently has 12 wards, for a total of 720 plots.
* Currently, there are 3 housing districts (The Goblet, Mist, and the Lavender Beds), for a total of 2160 housing plots per server. In a few months, a fourth district, Shirogane, will allow sales, raising the total to 2880 plots.
* Purchase costs vary between 3.5M-50M gil for the land, plus an additional .5M-2M for the house. For many endgame players, this is a reasonable (if significant) amount. For free companies, who can pool resources, this is an even easier hurdle to get over.

This is why there's such a run on housing, and why people who hold several plots are not looked on kindly.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:07 PM on July 7, 2017

I think the problem is that these kind of games offer safety. It's like a kind of libertarian utopia. If you could just steal someone's house, everything would get sorted in the churn.
posted by yonega at 5:20 AM on July 8, 2017