Steam payment HUGE price increase!

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Originally Posted by Adachi_Ame

Also it has come to my attention that apparently it was announced this was going to happen in an interview around May.

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Oh, really? Can you share the link or at least name the source?

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Originally Posted by Adachi_Ame

I dunno if it was or not

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Okay, nvm.

Seriously, though, in what kind of a twisted world informing your clients about a price change via some "interview", that nobody even heard about, is considered a decent practice?

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Originally Posted by Adachi_Ame

Also it has come to my attention that apparently it was announced this was going to happen in an interview around May.

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Doesn't change the fact that it was never oficially announced directly to the players through official means (Lodestone, e-mail, etc.).

This is not the kind of information that only gets mentioned briefly on an interview. I don't think people would be very happy if SE decided to change the base subscription price and only mentioned it on a random interview.

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Originally Posted by Anzaman

I don't know how much it'll impact SE, but at least it's making me even less interested in looking at reviews at this rate.

I'm not defending SE on this, they should have given warning beforehand.. but I personally just find it annoying when people bombard game/expansion reviews because of bad PR. Nothing wrong with the product itself.

Were non-Steam players from Russia and Brazil paying this updated subscription amount earlier? :confused:

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We aren't bombarding the GAME itself with bad reviews though, just the move from the company. If you read the rising reviews on steam you'll see this.

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Originally Posted by DoppelShifter

[...] I'd like to see them indeed start moving less "half-assedly" towards true regional pricing. [...]

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Well, specifics of how they get there aside, I agree with what you're saying in general. I think that's a worthy goal, even though it'll be a long road to get there.

Basically it allows us to crystallize the story so far:

1) Generally speaking, the whole world pays FFXIV subscription and Optional Item prices that are aligned to the baseline/official currency prices in USD, EUR, GBP and JPY. When you purchase directly from Square Enix, you will pay in one of the official currencies at the going market exchange rate.

2) If you buy the game through Steam, you have the option to pay via Steam Wallet. Steam Wallet uses regional pricing to convert to various global currencies; these prices are set by Square Enix. In most countries of the world, the prices are roughly equivalent to what you would pay in one of the official currencies.

3) However, in BR and RU, the prices in Steam were not aligned to the base currencies. If you converted these local market prices to USD/EUR, Steam customers in these two countries were able to subscribe and purchase optional items cheaper (in the case of RU, significantly cheaper) than customers outside of Steam or in other countries. This difference appears to have been caused in part by currency fluctuations, since the ratio had not been changed in nearly 5 years, despite major currency devaluation in these markets.

4) As a result of the lower Steam prices in those markets, FFXIV gained new customers who otherwise would not have been able to afford the game. They were subscribing at the seemingly-fixed local rates set through Steam Wallet, rather than the official price.

4b) Some customers, however, also discovered that they could buy optional items from the Mogstation using Steam Wallet's local market pricing, and trade them to players in other markets. This is something you can no longer do directly in Steam, but was not forbidden by Square Enix's technical systems.

5) On Tuesday, 18 July, without any specific prior warning or notification, Square Enix adjusted the currency-specific rates in Steam for RU and BR customers to bring them into closer alignment with current currency exchange rates. The resulting increase in some cases nearly doubled (BR) or more-than-tripled (RU) the monthly subscription fees. Although the new fees are more closely aligned to the prices in USD/EUR/etc., they are much higher than going market rates for other competing MMORPGs, such as World of Warcraft (which officially supports regional pricing). Customers who have existing subscription agreements in Steam will continue to get the prior rate until they renew.

5b) The FFXIV User Agreement does state that 30-days notice would be provided for subscription fee changes, however it only refers to the official prices on the FFXIV website, which did not change.

6) For many players, this sudden increase will mean they can no longer play the game, as it is priced way beyond their local market's purchasing power. In addition, this unannounced change comes on right on the heels of a major expansion; many customers would not have purchased the expansion if they had known in advance that the Steam prices would undergo such a large change. They are also no longer eligible to get a refund for the game and/or expansion, despite no longer being able to afford to keep playing due to this regional pricing change.


The concerns are:

- Why was Square Enix unable to provide 30-days notice prior to the adjustment of local market pricing in Steam?
- Is there any recourse for customers who purchased the expansion under the pretense of Steam's previous local currency rate, and now find themselves unable to afford the new Steam price?
- Will Square Enix implement an official regional pricing model that keeps the game accessible in markets (like RU and BR, among others) with less purchasing power?


(I'm not sure it was really necessary to summarize the whole thing... but maybe it will help someone better understand what's going on.)

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Originally Posted by Adachi_Ame

I mean from me, I see both sides of the argument. I mean technically wasn't the sub system exploiting a loophole through steam in a sense? But Yes the lack of communication and the timing of this was very bad.

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It's not a loophole. SE had to deliberately choose to implement Regional pricing in the first place.

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Originally Posted by Adachi_Ame

Also it has come to my attention that apparently it was announced this was going to happen in an interview around May. "They made the announcement around the end of May from what I read Because they KNEW it was a problem but they said they couldn't get Steam to fix it at the time Because it was on Steam's end the problem was according to SE (I dunno if it was or not)"

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Can we get an actual source for this instead of an "apparent" "interview"?

I was wondering, since some players advocate that SE is in their right doing this and is not breaking their own ToS in increasing prices without warning, then would it be the same if they decided to do a price 'adjust' for USD paying players in adjusting USD to Yen at some point in time?

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Originally Posted by Nezia

I was wondering, since some players advocate that SE is in their right doing this and is not breaking their own ToS in increasing prices without warning, then would it be the same if they decided to do a price 'adjust' for USD paying players if they decided to adjust USD to Yen at some point?

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Probably not because it would be affecting them and not random people they can't sympathize with in the internet.

I assume that someone sent a new ticket (I presuppose this because people are sending their responses a lot), so anything new ?

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Originally Posted by Ckrownz

I assume that someone sent a new ticket (I presuppose this because people are sending their responses a lot), so anything new ?

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From what I've seen from people that talked to me and people who posted on FB and even here, there are 2 kinds of tickets people are making:

1 - simple asking for a refund: this one has always ended with a decline, since from steam own ToS when selling games, there are very well strict conditions for someone to ask for a refund, and since SE waited exactly 1 month to increase the prices asking for a refund won't do much with don't some argument.

2 - ask for a refund alleging that the game publisher broke their own ToS(4.1 paragraph) and thus you can no longer play the game: People doing this kind of tickets are usually receiving responses like "we will be sending this issue for a proper investigation, we thank you for your patience.", not a denial nor acceptance, which I understand, since Valve is not SE they have no business being up to SE ToS and stuff, then they need to make a proper investigation in order to take a position.

"YOU ARE DREAMMING IF YOU THINK STEAM WILL GIVE YOU A REFUND", nope, I'm not, it has happened before, namely No man's sky and the latest batman game, where even no longer being in the traditional refund policy, Valve understood that the buyers had been tricked by the publishers and either did not receive what they paid for(no man's sky) or could not play the game they paid for(batman).

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Originally Posted by Nezia

sorry for the snip.

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Do you think that this enrage of the community will bring fruits ?

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Originally Posted by Ckrownz

Do you think that this enrage of the community will bring fruits ?

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We can't say anything for certain yet. For now all we can do is attract more people to discuss the issue and voice their opinions.

If this will bring a change to SE pricng policy (i.e. make themn revert the changes) - good for us, we'll be able to return to the game without any issues.
If not - a lot of us will just have to quit and move on. Which is a shame, since a lot of the RU/BR players have invested a huge amount of their time into this game, and the idea of having to spend three times more workhours to afford the sub isn't really exciting for any of us.

Is purchasing from the steam platform itself the only way to get more play time if you have a Steam account?
Can't people purchase pre-paid cards or something?

Just wondering, mine is a standalone account.

In Russia now the subscription is more expensive than the client itself)) It's funny that the cost of the game was calculated not at the rate of the dollar to the ruble but subscription at the rate.

ARR has been cheaper than the sub for EU since HW came out at least. This is nothing new.

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Originally Posted by Ckrownz

Do you think that this enrage of the community will bring fruits ?

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Hum... let me put my sincere thoughts here.

SE is a company, and like any company they think only about money. Never misunderstand things, companies are not your friends, but they get a lot of money if they make you think so, after all the only goal of any company is making money, things like environmental care and social thought are nothing but propaganda to attract people and make money, as I said before, they get a lot money if they make you think they care.

It is also important to note that most mmo players are not loyal to game, they come for the hipe of the expansion and then leave the game 4~12 months later, which is ok and not reprehensible in any way, they paid for it, they use it as much as they like for as long as they like. In other words, a lot of money companies like SE or Blizzard gets from their games comes from selling the expansions, not monthly payment.

From the above, I believe that it is safe to infer that (at least in Brazil) SE believes they will make some profit from this change, since even if let's say 60% of the Brazilian players leave the game thanks to the price increase, a big portion of them are people from the previous group that would leave the game in some time anyway and the players that remain paying increased prices would in the long therm make up for the ones who left.

All this said, the only way for changes to happen is if SE understands that the change in monthly payment in such a shady manner made them lose money. Steam downvotes help, because the overview of the game may influence future possible players, the same goes for social media posts(like this one or facebook) and journalists or youtubers thoughts on the matter.

But the thing that pretty much would make SE revert the prices all by itself would be Steam deciding to refund the game/addon. The money the company had for guaranteed would suddenly start to leak from their wallets, and this they cannot suffer. And don't think they would be ashamed to go back on their actions and/or apologize or would be too proud to do so, no, companies don't know such things as shame or pride, as said before, anything goes for money.

And there is a silence. No announcements, no emails, only come-off from moderator.
The best company in the world.

The irony in this situation is not only they destroyed their reputation in affected countries, but granted more potential and returning subscribers to FF14 competitors such as World of Warcraft. Who taught these men marketing.

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Originally Posted by FedorSumkin

The irony in this situation is not only they destroyed their reputation in affected countries, but granted more potential and returning subscribers to FF14 competitors such as World of Warcraft. Who taught these men marketing.

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Yes. after my sub ends i with my freinds already decided to return to WoW.

Russian playerbase annihilated. I don't know if increased sub price for remaining players will cover sub losses from all players who are not able to pay anymore. If Russians are going to pay now like everybody else, they should at least have the same salaries like everybody else first.

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Originally Posted by SuperZay

Russian playerbase annihilated. I don't know if increased sub price for remaining players will cover sub losses from all players who are not able to pay anymore.

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It seems like increased subscription price won't compensate for playerbase loss. Let's take our static for example. We agreed on continuing playing FFXIV for 2-3 month more because some of us have already payed for it in advance. After that we'll probably move to another game or maybe even stop playing MMOs for some time (it's difficult to invest lots of time in one game and be treated like garbage; some of us will need time to recover).

Some Russian players will stay because they pay full price already. They are mostly legacy players or those who started playing before FFXIV became available in Steam. But SE won't get any additional profit from them.

Anyways, SE profits is not my concern. They made their move, we draw a conclusion.

It seems that people dont understand the difference between something being fair and it being equal. Here in Germany people that have a higher income will pay a higher income tax on it and people that only earn a certain amount of money per year (around max. 8800 € per year) wont have to pay any income tax. This is fair. If everyone needs to pay the same amount of taxes in percent than this would not be fair but equal to all. But something being equal is not always the good decision.

So this situation itself might make everyone equal but its far away from being fair.

Also most people are angry because there was simply no communication about this. This is the main problem. Even if it was not against the ToS (through some kind of loophole) its still a bad practice. The reputation and good will of a company is really important today and things like that can destroy a reputation which is not easily reclaimed. And a bad reputation can even ruin a company.

Like I already posted, this decision (even if I am not hit by it because I live in Germany) left me really disgusted about SE, so I will refrain from buying items from them again (Mog station, merchandise), I will not recommend this game to anyone anymore and I might not even buy any other games from SE again..dont want to finance a company that makes so many greedy decisions and that even after it is known, still chose to ignore it..

The player base in these two countries might be small but they are still paying customers..this and the horrible handling of the EU campaigns show that the company itself does not respect their customer, only their money.

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Originally Posted by Nezia

But the thing that pretty much would make SE revert the prices all by itself would be Steam deciding to refund the game/addon. The money the company had for guaranteed would suddenly start to leak from their wallets, and this they cannot suffer.

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I'm not sure even that would work. I mean if you look at all the "restrictions" they have in place, SE will continue to march to the beat of their own drum. What I do hope however is Steam do an automated refund for ALL BR/RU/other affected regions. Like, people don't even ask for the refund, they just get it. That would mean a huge chunk of change lost for SE as you say, and it wouldn't be a trickle if Steam refund them all at the same time, it would be a huge slash into their profits that would be harder to miss than the trickle.

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Originally Posted by DDkiki

So a question, how do you try to refund SB? Steam not allow it cuz i played "obviously" more then 2 hours and declined my reason, or its done by MogStation?

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Use the reasoning of explaining how SE has made the game unplayable due to the price increases exactly one month after the release of SB with no official warning, used as a deceitful method to obtain money for the product without having to provide the continued service.

So a question, how do you try to refund SB? Steam not allow it cuz i played "obviously" more then 2 hours and declined my reason, or its done by MogStation?

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Originally Posted by Paladinleeds

Use the reasoning of explaining how SE has made the game unplayable due to the price increases exactly one month after the release of SB with no official warning, used as a deceitful method to obtain money for the product without having to provide the continued service.

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i wrote that SE broke ToS, tripled sub time, scummed me and im unable to play cuz of it. Still got declined with typical "you played more then 2 hours"

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Originally Posted by Alleo

It seems that people dont understand the difference between something being fair and it being equal.

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Here's a simple visual explanation
http://i.imgur.com/467BTDH.jpg

Well, this is an interesting topic, but something struck me while reading this post:

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Originally Posted by polyphonica

~snip~

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Specifically on point 4b. I remember on Discord a month or so before Stormblood hit, a raid member linked something that directed you to an exact copy of the Mogstation with much lower pricing than SE's store. At the time, I told her not to link stuff like that again, it very much reeks of RMT and ToS violation and had reported the link to SE's customer service. Especially since the place claimed it was completely legit and even supported by SE. Now when you compare it to point 4b, we see the culprit.

I believe it's safe to say that these areas got screwed over for someone else's greed.

I want to sympathize for players stuck in this unfavorable outcome, but my original post kind of holds true here: who actually holds the finance in this situation? I don't think people got it what I was actually alluring to. Steam's Wallet is something under Steam, not Square Enix. If Steam sells something for a loss, then it's Steam that loses money. Not Square. If Square starts to lose money for it, they will adjust. They didn't adjust their subscription prices, so to speak; it's still $12.99 to $14.99 USD. All that changed was Steam's pricing through Steam Wallet. When looking on point 3, it really reads like while these currencies devalued, Steam Wallet failed to update appropriately, leading to this issue. This issue can happen on any currency that fluctuates a lot.

I really hope those requesting a refund do get it, but reading those two points alone, it really doesn't look favorable unless the ToS violation extends to Steam Wallet.

As a Russian player I can't understand why SQEX decide to drop off the regional pricing policy. Moreover, it was done silently, without any kind of notification. There are a lot of players, who bought SB knowing that monthly fee is acceptable and yet they were scammed. Why is there such a bad attitude towards us?
Pricing increase is very huge: now monthly fee is about 900 RUB. It's an outrageous price for a subscription. Median salary in Russia is about 23000 RUB (335 EUR) per month and in most cities it decreases by almost two times. But it does not mean that the market in Russia is poor. Russian players are quite similar to Chinese players and prepared to spend money on games. But not that much.
Will there be new Russian players after this move? Most likely no.
Has SQEX ruined its reputation by this move? Undoubtedly, yes.
I can pay a new monthly fee without problems, but I won't do so, because I simply do not want to pay for a game, whose publisher allows itself such terrible deeds without a twinge of conscience.

Nice year with ff14, nice emotions from MSQ and music. But... That's all Folks! At least I am done with this price for sub.

"If Steam sells something for a loss, then it's Steam that loses money."

It was said that SE determines the pricing over Steam, they were not making it cheaper for the sake of it.

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Originally Posted by JunseiKei

Snip

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Well, here's the thing... said prices are controlled by the game's publisher, not Valve. Square Enix dictates the prices for Brazil and Russia, and then ignored them for 5 years with no change. Might have been an oversight, but this oversight was what brought the Russian and Brazilian player base we have here.
Also do note that at least for the Brazilians, the previous price for FFXIV (around 29BRL) was already more expensive than the official prices for WoW in Brazil (23,90), and only a bit lower than the Russian price (550RUB), so it's not like it's unsustainable (...unless Square Enix screwed up beautifully in their infrastructure and are having to spend far more money per player).

Also other games also use this kind of regional pricing directly through Steam, Warframe being one of them. It's still an opt-in process though, since games like Elite Dangerous do not use regional pricing, and Warframe itself didn't support it at first, but later included regional pricing.

So yeah, despite this involving the Steam storefront, all prices were being regulated (or ignored) by Square Enix, and it was their decision to remove the regional pricing (one has only to look at the price of the base game: it still uses regional pricing in Brazil and Russia; the base game + Stormblood costs 105,99BRL, which is far less than the ~200BRL that would correspond to the pricetag of 60USD).

We hope that this overall shady behavior serves as a justification for Valve to weight in just like they did in NMS and Arkham Knight and allow for refunds; or at least poke Square Enix saying "Yo folks, you have an impending PR nightmare here on this side. Either authorize the refunds or do something about it".

I'm not sure what kind of contract they might have specifically with each other, but generally the way Steam works is that Valve just charges a percentage of what the developer makes.

Wow SE, you really want to see Blizzard win don't you? I hope competitors take full advantage of this.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

It seems that people dont understand the difference between something being fair and it being equal. Here in Germany people that have a higher income will pay a higher income tax on it and people that only earn a certain amount of money per year (around max. 8800 € per year) wont have to pay any income tax. This is fair. If everyone needs to pay the same amount of taxes in percent than this would not be fair but equal to all. But something being equal is not always the good decision.
So this situation itself might make everyone equal but its far away from being fair.

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You know what would be fair?
1)Square Enix apologizes for not informing customers of upcoming changes on the official site.
2)Square Enix announces that during month after that declaration users that are affected by that change are free to refund at least the Stormblood DLC.

Doppel, just wanna say you're DOPE. Those are grear examples for people outside the affected areas.

I really wanna know what people are doing besides filling this forum with rage. I dont say your claim is wrong but some people think that SE havent pronounced yet, but they did! in this same forum.
About violation of the terms of service, i dont see anyome hiring a lawyer or filling a demand to steam and square enix.
Its good to rage in this forums as you know that wont change anything.

I havent seen press taking the matter, besides that what?

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Originally Posted by albertopin

I really wanna know what people are doing besides filling this forum with rage. I dont say your claim is wrong but some people think that SE havent pronounced yet, but they did! in this same forum.
About violation of the terms of service, i dont see anyome hiring a lawyer or filling a demand to steam and square enix.
Its good to rage in this forums as you know that wont change anything.

I haven't seen press taking the matter, besides that what?

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Well, aside from this forum:

- People are raising awareness about this issue in other places, including reddit, neogaf, facebook communities and other places. More than anything, we can't let this matter just "die down" and get cold and forgotten.
- The reviews keep coming to the Steam page (currently at 48% and still going down), which is helping to raise awareness and also warning people who were considering to buy the game, and are now giving up due to what happened.
- We're still contacting other outlets. SidAlpha reported on the subject, and some people are contacting other outlets. It would be nice that more and more people could help on that.
- Multiple players are asking for refunds for the game. Square Enix didn't authorize the refunds, but players are taking the complains to Valve. If more people continue to do that, we might have a situation like No Man's Sky or Arkham Knight, where Valve intervened and allowed refunds due to the circumstances. This would finally be a more high-profile impact on Square Enix's pockets, so they wouldn't be able to ignore the matter any longer.
- A lot of players are migrating to other games. Some FCs with a heavy number of Russian players are already planning their migration to WoW, and I myself will probably be migrating to Guild Wars 2. This kind of migration, coupled with the spread of awareness over the issue, might have a cascade effect that, if not exactly major, will be less easy to ignore.

Aside from that, we keep asking that other players keep spreading the word, reaching for press, youtubers, gaming communities and so on. We can achieve something, but we must keep acting on the subject for that to happen.

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Originally Posted by JunseiKei

When looking on point 3, it really reads like while these currencies devalued, Steam Wallet failed to update appropriately, leading to this issue.

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No, that is not what happened, and people have explained this to you and others countless times in this thread.

yeah, this thread spiraled off the course and blew up in a glorious ball of fire and rage.

What most people don't seem to understand is that we are not complaining ABOUT THE PRICE, we are complaining that Square Enix didn't warn anyone and they made this change exactly after the deadline for users to ask for a refound in the Stormblood expansion.
With that in mind, you start to ask yourself if that was a big scam from their part just to sell more Stormblood copies, since a big part of the users from Russia and Brazil wouldn't get the expansion if the knew about the changes in the subscription price.

The problem with steam reviews is they are not based on region, eo now there are a lot of "sub increased 3x with no warning" reviews with no explanation that wouldnt impact anyone other than those in 2 countries. The sub also only increased if you used steam, the base sub for the game did not change on the official site .

While this does suck for those effected, a lot of those reviews are misleading. Its also not the devs fault, they are not in control of the company financing.

People saying this is not related to the game itself... /)_- Do you understand that this situation is ruining the gaming experience for the affected people?

Also, Stormblood has been a mess for me. I lost six days of sub while SE were trying to fix their stuff, but ok. Got my ping effed up with the server moving, but ok. Im not expecting refunds for that, but my personal experience has been ruined by all these factors and the lack of transparency, and I think it's fair to share my disapointment with the overall service on my Steam review.

Funny thing is, maybe I wouldnt even made the effort to spend with SB knowing how much the sub would cost to me one month after the purchase.