Steam payment HUGE price increase!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Enkrateia

Greetings, everyone!

Thank you for your cooperation, understanding, and patience.

LGM Enkrateia

---

Thank you for reply,could you confirm if the price of auto renewal subscription will change too?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Enkrateia

Greetings, everyone!

Because this is a topic that is directly concerning to these customers, I do not want to have to close down this thread. However, the discussion should likely focus around the change in price, instead of more subjective terms like "fairness" and "entitlement", since those discussions can be very inflammatory. I have already removed some posts for crossing that line, and would prefer this discussion remain open to provide feedback and dialogue instead of needing to be closed because it is inflammatory.

I will work on trying to get more information about the changes in prices, so you can be more informed in the process. I can confirm that the prices have changed for some of our customers. If you feel that the change is incorrect, please feel free to respond, and I'll make sure it's looked into.

Thank you for your cooperation, understanding, and patience.

LGM Enkrateia

---

So are these changes really intented? If so then there was a immense lack of communication in making such a huge increase in the sub price without any notice nowhere. Also making this exactly 1 month after the expansion release makes it all look kinda... You get it, right?

Having about 3$/hour here (and thats a good job if you have 3$/h after tax for the big citys, 1$ or 2$ average for the country especially for the kids who have time to play) many will stop pay for the game
I stoped my very old FFXI sub when they decide to change sub from $ to €, old accounts was all $ and this is huge difference
Now probably many here will stop FFXIV as well
260₽ and 880₽ way big difference

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Enkrateia

Greetings, everyone!
I will work on trying to get more information about the changes in prices, so you can be more informed in the process. I can confirm that the prices have changed for some of our customers. If you feel that the change is incorrect, please feel free to respond, and I'll make sure it's looked into.
Thank you for your cooperation, understanding, and patience.
LGM Enkrateia

---

Hello.

On steam we can found a lot of games for 20 $ but steam make it for 37,00~40,00 R$, i don't think this is a update on the value, i believe the price is really fair for what we can pay.

Take a look on Blizzard World of Warcraft, the game time here for us is 24,00 R$ and in dollar cost 15$.

I dont believe this can be a update on the game time, if is, a lot of people will quit the game.

So please, take a look to our market careful.

12,99 for 29,00R$ is a good deal, why change now ?

I hope you guys can change it back and make us happy :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rita1989

It's seems some countries were paying a set price rather then paying 13.99 USD converted to local currency on steam and SE decided to change it to what it should be.

---

Thanks for your answer, much appreciated.

While I think it's fair that everyone pays the same amount, I don't think it's fair to have a change like this happen with no notice.

It is also worth noticing that Behemot is a very well populated server, and a great portion of these players are Brazilians, with this change in price many will just leave the game, and I can not see many joining in, with how more acessible wow monthly payment is for us right now.

As a current SE costumer for long time I would like to say 2 important things:

#1 - If you (SE) want to change your monthly payment you have all your rights but PLEASE give to us any clues, advertise, information or semething like that, I'm upset right now for playing and paying for a long time and received it for it.

https://image.ibb.co/dU97N5/Done.png

#2 - World of Warcraft is the major MMORPG in Brazil, it has Portuguese (Brazil) translation and Portuguese (Brazil) dubbing however FFXIV nay... I've spent money and time playing a game what I choosed and better WOW (FFXIV) but c'mon! Their game has translation and dubbing with a HALF monthly cost in our country.
https://image.ibb.co/gPvE25/wow.png

Nevertheless I want to believe on that, SE do not want to lose their Brazilian players from all servers (Bahemoth mostly). In a nutshell R$41,00 only a minority of us could pay for it and I will be among them.


Hydaelyn please save your brazilian players!

I'm feeling totally disappointed and sad with this. The game is having a lot of problems since the new expansion started (lag spikes, disconnect erros, ddos attacks...), but what happened today was a complete disrespectful move. Almost 1 month after the expansion release you decide change the price we (players outside US that pay through steam wallet) making it cost 10-12BRL more? I'm really sad with this because I really like the game and it has been giving me a very good time since I started playin... unfortunately I'm not a rich person and the "new" price for the month sub isn't viable for me to pay. :(

The saddest part of this is that my sub time will end tomorrow..

The fact that this is being changed without any form of customer notification is unacceptable and needs to be corrected immediately. And companies selling at a reduced rates in economies that aren't as strong is a common sales practice in many industries. It's just not something most people in more developed / economically secure countries are aware of. (I'm from Canada.)

Really hoping it's just some sort of error and not a permanent thing :\ This is a big increase in the subscription price for many of us, but the worst part for me is not being informed about this happening, especially with Stormblood's launch - lots of us have paid for this expansion expecting to be able to play it for months, paying the same subscription value we're all used to. And now a lot of players (including me) might become unable to pay their sub fee, which means we've wasted a lot of money when we bought Stormblood.

To the people thinking we shouldn't voice our concerns because now we're just 'paying the same' as NA players, please imagine how you'd feel if your subscription fee went up $10-20 with no explanation whatsoever, no previous warning, nothing, after you just bought a game expansion. There was no attempt to warn us about this.

That's almost double the price without warning whatsoever.
Completely unacceptable because the lack of communication.
I feel so bad for Brazilians and others effected by this.

The "pay as we do" arguement is understandable, but there are few points that needs to be mentioned:

1. Steam regional pricing was like that for years. This seems to be way too long to be simply an oversight in pricing policy to be corrected.

2. If steam pricing is intentional, when people would like to hear an official announcement of why SE decided to change the pricing policy.

3. If steam pricing was NOT intentional, why did it took so long to correct it for a standarized price?

Personally i too got affected and i am able and willing to pay more, but a closure for this change would be much appretiated.

I believe this is mostly steams fault though, since they are the ones ultimately responsible for that update on their site, but it is still something square should have cleared up just in case by posting it on their region forums atleast.

I live in a country that has the same average income as you in Brasil and I always had to pay the same sub amount as everyone else. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Sure, it's a big change for you guys, but there were some other countries that have as bad economy as yours and it was always the norm for us to pay as much as EU or NA players, just saying.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Reaperking386

Due respect, but isn't there a South American forums to bring this issue up rather than the NA?? If there is none then idk I will shit up, but it feels like this has nothing to do with NA region since this is in summary a price change for Brazilian players who were not given proper warning from steam or square enix. I believe this is mostly steams fault though, since they are the ones ultimately responsible for that update on their site, but it is still something square should have cleared up just in case by posting it on their region forums atleast.

---

There is no NA forum. This is general forum for english speaking people.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aronys

There is no NA forum. This is general forum for english speaking people.

---

Ah very well.

Quote:

---

Sure, it's a big change for you guys, but there were some other countries that have as bad economy as yours and it was always the norm for us to pay as much as EU or NA players, just saying.

---

If this situation was from the start, no problem. People rage because they already bought new expac and suddenly can't afford to play it. Without any warning from SE.

Any word from steam? I thought they were pretty good for answering questions in the past.

I hope they'll fix it as soon as possible... There're a lot of questions to both SE and Steam. The price increased too much for russian (and as I can see for brazilian) players. It doesn't mean we're special or something. We just want some kind of explanation why it happened.
Just imagine guys that you paid about 280 rubles and now you should do the same for 880 rubles without any announcements.

This change triples the price of a subscription in Russia, making it stupidly expensive. If this change is final, I don't see any reason to continue playing this game.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Moonlite

Any word from steam? I thought they were pretty good for answering questions in the past.

---

Steam is silent atm,SE send me this: "This email has been sent to notify you that your ticket was received properly. We appreciate your patience and apologise for the delay in responding to your ticket directly."

To add, a retrospective for russians:

When World of Warcraft increased their base subscription, they gave a several week announcement for that, and explained it by making russian accounts being classified as global EU from that point. The price has increased to 150 roubles more per month.

When EvE increased their base subscription, they gave months of warnings. They justified the increase due to majority of big league players using low russian prices to their advantage. The price has increased to 200 roubles more per month.

When FFXIV increased their base subscription via steam, it was done without any warning or given reason whatsoever that steam pricing will be generalized to match worldwide sub cost (even more, it wasn't even made known at all). As a result the price has increased to 600 roubles more per month.

With that in mind, it should be clear why users got infuriated with this change.

A bit of information so you can understand the whole picture with the subscription price in Russia for other MMOs.
WoW - 550р (~9,5$ Big player base kudos to blizzard for regional servers)
SWTOR - 300р (~5$ It's EA,shouldn't they be greedy?)
ESO - 1k (~16$ not a lot of players here from Russia you can guess why *wink*)
FFXIV - was 289р, now 890р (~15$)
The world of warcraft is the most affordable price of all, I was waiting for a price increase for Final Fantasy, because it was very low, but raising the price without warning and explanation is simply unacceptable.

Wow after the SB launch I did see how bad their communication was but if this was done intentionally than this is even sadder. Thats not how you should treat customers, especially after they bought SB.

Wish you all good luck that this might just be a mistake.

Quick update. Just received message from SE.

Quote:

---

Thank you for contacting the Square Enix Support Centre.

Our apologises that you are having issues with your subscription renewal. We will escalate your case for further investigation. We will contact you via email with regards to your case.

If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact us.

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Chekir

Quick update. Just received message from SE.

---

Glad to see you are moving along the ladder.

thats all i get

Dear Customer,
Thank you for contacting the Square Enix Support Centre.
We are sorry to hear that you are having issues with optional items for FINAL FANTASY XIV: Online.
Generally prices for optional items in FFXIV have not been increased recently.
Please advise if prices for other games have also increased when using your Steam wallet.
Please also let us know which currency you are paying in.
We apologize for any inconvenience caused.
Kind regards,
The Square Enix Support Centre team
Thank you for contacting us and for your interest in Square Enix products!
More help and information is available at the Square Enix Support Centre website.
http://support.eu.square-enix.com/

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dragvon

That's the corect price with the actual conversion rate.

---

i think the point is the price being changed without any prior warning,instead of if its the exact value of the currency conversion or not.
but yeah,it might be near on the point thats unafordable for a good chunck of players that dont have dollar as its national currency.

Steam says that these are not their changes with the prices, so apparently these were changes from SE. So we need more clarification from Enkrateia.

The funny thing about all this is that in Russia now the base game costs less than 1 month of the subscription(Afaik in NA the base game costs 19$ and subscription is at 13$ vs 700P for base game and 900P+ monthly in Russia). And another funny thing is that it only affected the one-time-payment method, if you are on an auto-renewal the price is almost 3 times less than that(About 330P, it's still higher than before but this is a more reasonable price increase). The raise in price is tremendous, i can tolerate 40-50%, but not TRIPLE increase. And all this without any warning. And at the start of the expansion.

According to Google:
41.99 Brazilian Real equals
13.31 US Dollar

Assuming you have the cheap one character per world sub, that's only 32 cents more than US players pay.

Of course they could not give anyone a warning .
How many would have passed on the expansion if they knew there were such a price increase on the way and they would not be able to continue to subscribe ?
Can not loose those Storm Blood sales !

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Chekir

Steam says that these are not their changes with the prices, so apparently these were changes from SE. So we need more clarification from Enkrateia.

---

Confirm! Steam says the same to me too.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nixxe

According to Google:
41.99 Brazilian Real equals
13.31 US Dollar

Assuming you have the cheap one character per world sub, that's only 32 cents more than US players pay.

---

Again, this isn't just about the subscription fee going up, it's about it happening out of the blue with no previous warning a month after Stormblood launched, when many of us are about to renew our subscription. Also, Steam uses a different exchange rate so that people in countries such as Brazil/Russia/etc. can actually buy games without having to pay a small fortune for them (they wouldn't be able to get many sales in these countries otherwise).

Steam prices has an real conversion rate and a "adjusted/suggested" conversion rate. This is for countries that are quite less monetarily developed than most.

The currency conversion is set by the publisher, in this case, SQEX itself.

Since two years ago,the rate was 1:2, 1 usd = 2 brl. So, 12.99 USD was in fact 24.99 BRL (Brazillian Real) for the entry subscription.
Now that the switch has been flipped, the current cost is 41.23 BRL, an astonishing 67% increase. On Russia it was quite more worse, as it seems it doubled(almost triplied?).

Well, for me it also was quite bad, because i have three extra retainers. Now the cost went from 45 BRL to 70~ BRL.
There's no way i can afford this, with minimum wages here being 680~ BRL.
I'd have to commit 11% of my monthly earnings only to ffxiv, and even with the updates and new expansion, i wasn't playing it that much.
I was around and paying the subscription because of my friends that play here too, so i was hopping in sometimes to help.


Well, i hope they revert this decision soon, and if not, it was a fun ride. I'm glad for the many friends i have made over the years, and all the enjoyment i got from this game.
I've made good and bad decisions over the course too. Some of which i regret, some of whom i don't. Anyway it all boils down to a single word: "Enjoy".

I understand the decision to flip the switch, but i hope you understand why i'd leave too.

In worst case scenario, farewell, and may all have great adventures. It was fun while it lasted. In best case scenario, see you all in Eorzea!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by aekh

Again, this isn't just about the subscription fee going up, it's about it happening out of the blue with no previous warning a month after Stormblood launched, when many of us are about to renew our subscription. Also, Steam uses a different exchange rate so that people in countries such as Brazil/Russia/etc. can actually buy games without having to pay a small fortune for them (they wouldn't be able to get many sales in these countries otherwise).

---

Many people are about to renew their subs literally every day. There's no point in time during the month when that isn't the case.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nixxe

Many people are about to renew their subs literally every day. There's no point in time during the month when that isn't the case.

---

A lot of people came back to the game because of Stormblood's launch. And it still doesn't change the fact that we weren't warned about such a big change at any point.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nixxe

According to Google:
41.99 Brazilian Real equals
13.31 US Dollar

Assuming you have the cheap one character per world sub, that's only 32 cents more than US players pay.

---

We already discussed stuff like this, and mentioned a bit of economics to counter these arguments. But half the thread got deleted by a moderator because:
'However, the discussion should likely focus around the change in price, instead of more subjective terms like "fairness" and "entitlement", since those discussions can be very inflammatory.'

So whether you feel it's fair or not it's not up for discussion.
The fact remains that the change was sudden with no previous warning or notification.

I got a response from SE support

https://image.ibb.co/jjnZ25/2.jpg