Steam payment HUGE price increase!

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Originally Posted by Texa

There have been a multitude of identical responses from customer support tickets that also state it was intentional. Please don't blame the mod for doing their job and posting what they were told by their superiors.

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I just think its very strange that only entry subscription price has been adjusted. Also now its one and only steam purchase in Euro not Rubles in entire russian Steam shop, at least i never saw another.

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Originally Posted by tetsuo666

That's of course very sad and i really feel for you guys but a lot of country's in the world are far worse off then yours and they didn't get any special treatment only your 2 country's where affected and only payment's through steam wallet, so in fact even people from your own country's which payed directly through Mogstation or on the PS4 allrdy had to pay the correct fees, i don't really see why you guys deserve any special treatment you had it good for a few years and now it's over, be happy it lasted as long as it did.

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Dude, what if u wake up tomorrow and your sub goes up with no warning? Start placing yourself on other's shoes, cmon. I could be paying 200 USD for this idc, but they didn't warn us that's all. How hard is it to understand?

OK English lesson now. Recurring means repeating or occur again. The sub has to be repeated in order to continue playing, hence recurring. The ToS itself also mentions you need a recurring sub to keep playing, so how am I playing if it's not a recurring sub.?That would only apply, if anything, to 60 days game time card. Those are the One Time only subscriptions.

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Originally Posted by gustavray

OK English lesson now. Recurring means repeating or occur again. The sub has to be repeated in order to continue playing, hence recurring. The ToS itself also mentions you need a recurring sub to keep playing, so how am I playing if it's not a recurring sub.?That would only apply, if anything, to 60 days game time card. Those are the One Time only subscriptions.

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One is recurring in the system and the other is recurring in your own end, if you are going to try to bend terms to favor you at least put some more effort.
The exact definition means nothing without the proper context to apply.

Not that i have anything against you, but bending terms to fulfill your agenda irks me for some reason.

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Originally Posted by Aronys

I am from Croatia. Our average monthly income is around 600-700€. According to Google, that's similar to Brazil.

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Idk many ppl who make that much money a month. That's more like a whole family's income, assuming the parents and owner or two sons work and have a decent salary

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Originally Posted by Sinistral

One is recurring in the system and the other is recurring in your own end, if you are going to try to bend terms to favor you at least put some more effort.
The exact definition means nothing without the proper context to apply.

Not that i have anything against you, but bending terms to fulfill your agenda irks me for some reason.

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I'm not bending anything. They say u need a recurring sub to pay. So explain that. Also the EU terms don't even mention the word recurring. So no I don't see your point there.

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Originally Posted by AdrikRuk

I just think its very strange that only entry subscription price has been adjusted. Also now its one and only steam purchase in Euro not Rubles in entire russian Steam shop, at least i never saw another.

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Because there's some kind of contract involved with changing the price for the other ones that they can't just do a facepull on.

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Originally Posted by gustavray

I'm not bending anything. They say u need a recurring sub to pay. So explain that. Also the EU terms don't even mention the word recurring. So no I don't see your point there.

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It's all about context here, doing one time payment during a period of time is recurring on your end. Setting a sub plan is recurring on the system and falls under the "recurring fee".

If you're from brazil the EU tos doesnt apply to you, it has nothing to do with your problem or anything. If you're russian then due to how it's written you can still salvage something and take legal action if you want.

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Originally Posted by Aronys

Also, upon checking, it dawned on me why people insist on one time payments via steam. A recurring payment links your card and is always the same amount, and does not allow Steam Wallet to integrate itself, so your Steam Wallet funds can't go towards your subscription. But with one time payments, people can resell Steam cards and get funds into their Steam Wallets and then use that money to pay for game time. In other words, if they sell enough of cards via Steam, they can get free monthly game time. Now that the prices for that are higher, people are angry as it's harder to get free or even cheaper game time.

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Seriously? Is that what you're gonna say? Why can't you just ask for fairness for all countries, instead of whining that you didn't get lower prices before?
It's like you're just below the age to play ffxiv and is blaming the sibling for something u did. Jeez

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Originally Posted by Aronys

Because I checked it with a friend who uses Steam to sub and that's his only option. He doesn't get an option to use the Steam Wallet. And Steam throws cards at us every sale and you can earn several months worth of game time via them.

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Also excuse me? I use steam wallet. I always have. Unless he doesn't have a credit card that is accepted on steam. But even then he can buy steam gift cards and top up the wallet.

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Originally Posted by tetsuo666

Exactly just stop playing if you don't like how they do their business, you only have yourself to blame if you are still here, they don't have any obligation to inform you of a price change beforehand according to their own TOS, complaining from you will not change anything like it or not.

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You also don't have to be here trolling ppl so, pls, stop. Unless you are the person who changed prices on steam and is here now just trying to force your weird point of view that us ppl have any rights.

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Originally Posted by Aronys

I am from Croatia. Our average monthly income is around 600-700€. According to Google, that's similar to Brazil.

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Whitout a college degree the monthly income for a average brazilian working around 48h per week will be around a 250$/260€ so isn't "similar".
If wanna do the calcule 1 € = 3,663 brl and the average mothly income is 900 brl.

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Originally Posted by Zarabeth

One thing. SE did not break it\\'s ToS as the price didn\\'t change. Please stop spreading this misinformation. All that changed was bringing the steam version up to the price everyone else is paying. Basically, SE is now using the normal conversion rate as opposed to regional pricing.
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So you\\'re saying SE didn\\'t change the price but they changed the steam price. I\\'m sorry? That sounds a bit confusing. They didn\\'t change but they did. What is it then? O.o
So let\\'s say my credit card issuer has a different rate. Maybe SE has to pay more for using that payment method. Then after 3 years SE increases the prices I pay on that credit card, doubling the price I pay for my sub. Their excuse is that they had to pay more taxes if I use that credit card. What you\\'re saying is they didn\\'t change the price. But I\\'m still paying more. A different price than before.
Yeah nah I know it doesn\\'t make sense ^^

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Originally Posted by Airget

What changed is the conversion rate, nothing more. SE didn\\\\'t increase the price of the game, they corrected the pricing on Steam because while the Mog station had the correct price Steam didn\\\\'t and the players using Rupee and BRL used that loophole to pay a cheaper sub.

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OK then, we're still paying more than 12,99. Fix that pls. Also its not 41,9 everyday. It'd gonna change Everyday. I won't even be able to risk topping up one day before paying. Plus, entry can't be renewed before it runs out, so if next day it costs one cent more than I have, i'll have to top up another 10 BRL which is the minimum allowed.

Greetings, everyone!

I once again want to thank you for keeping the thread civil, which has allowed it to stay open. However, I would like to point out that some of the arguments and explanations have become cyclical, and are continuing to go over the same points. For example, equality versus equity, which has been raised several times. While I can understand the desire to bring people over to your way of viewing the situation, this has become more aggressive as the thread has progressed, and new topics and points of view are not being raised. This may be in part that most of these points of view have fully explored and explained.

Should this aggressiveness become the tone of the discussion, the thread would need to be closed, since further discussions are not occurring. This would likely involve a locking of the thread. We have come this far into the discussion without needing to take a heavy hand at moderation, so the extreme violations that would require the Game Masters to remove the thread seems unlikely.

Please keep this in mind when continuing to post in this thread, so it can remain open as a way to further raise concerns about this change that you may have.

LGM Enkrateia

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Originally Posted by Sinistral

It's all about context here, doing one time payment during a period of time is recurring on your end. Setting a sub plan is recurring on the system and falls under the "recurring fee".

If you're from brazil the EU tos doesnt apply to you, it has nothing to do with your problem or anything. If you're russian then due to how it's written you can still salvage something and take legal action if you want.

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Yes it does because it specifies that I nerd a recurring sub to play. I've been playing for 3 years. Was it magic, you'd say? And idc at this point if it won't apply for Brazil. I'm in this for BR, RU players, and any other developing or 3rd world countries that should get regional pricing.

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Originally Posted by gustavray

Yes it does because it specifies that I nerd a recurring sub to play. I've been playing for 3 years. Was it magic, you'd say? And idc at this point if it won't apply for Brazil. I'm in this for BR, RU players, and any other developing or 3rd world countries that should get regional pricing.

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All I want is an explanation and a warning before it happens. Why were the prices not changed for 3 years? Why was HW do expensive in Brazil? Why do that one month after releasing an expansion? And if anything, a refund coz it was really expensive.

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Originally Posted by gustavray

Omg no it's the developer who sets the prices. Ppl have said that so many times now...

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Yes. They do. They set the price at $12/15 US, but Steam chose to charge you an unequivalent amount for years, which has now been rectified. SE cost has not changed... your issue lies with Steam.

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Originally Posted by Aramina

Yes. They do. They set the price at $12/15 US, but Steam chose to charge you an unequivalent amount for years, but have now rectified it. SE cost has not changed... your issue lies with Steam.

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Well, it was SE you decided to bring back the exchange rate to this era, but the price of the sub is still the same in US wich is the set price for NA based services.

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Originally Posted by Aramina

Yes. They do. They set the price at $12/15 US, but Steam chose to charge you an unequivalent amount for years, but have now rectified it. SE cost has not changed... your issue lies with Steam.

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What I'm saying is SE set those prices on Steam, before and now. Wether they were equivalent to 12/15 USD or not. Prices never changed and we all thought if US economy ever broke down to the point it'd be 2 USD for 1 BRL we'd stil pay the same. Because it was a FIXED price set on Steam BY the developper or publisher or whoever it was who decided to contact steam and sell it there

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Originally Posted by gustavray

Yes it does because it specifies that I nerd a recurring sub to play. I've been playing for 3 years. Was it magic, you'd say? And idc at this point if it won't apply for Brazil. I'm in this for BR, RU players, and any other developing or 3rd world countries that should get regional pricing.

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You should really read why i posted again. You don't seem to understand that a "recurring fee" plan in the system is not the same as YOU paying month by month.

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Originally Posted by Aramina

Yes. They do. They set the price at $12/15 US, but Steam chose to charge you an unequivalent amount for years, which has now been rectified. SE cost has not changed... your issue lies with Steam.

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The pricing on steam was chosen by SE, steam is unrelated. All prices at steam are chosen by the developer

@gustavray
I understand you're upset dude, I'm also pretty down about this whole situation, but please calm down. It sounds like you're ready to point fingers at anyone crossing your path, and that's just not what we need right now.
Also, Sinistral is correct. The recurring fee is solely about recurring subs, so the fact that you chose to pay the one time sub every month is unrelated. And the EU ToS does not apply to you because you're playing in the NA servers and using the NA services. And you're in Brazil!

Getting angry will get you nowhere. In fact, as we just saw from Enkrateia, it might actually contribute to this thread being closed. So calm. down.

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Originally Posted by Sinistral

You should really read why i posted again. You don't seem to understand that a "recurring fee" plan in the system is not the same as YOU paying month by month.

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Recurring subscription fee in the EU ToS doesn't make any distinction between the payment method, it is defined solely as what you pay to play, there is no difference between manual payment and automatic payment of game time written in the EU ToS.

The NA ToS makes a difference between the manual payment and the automatic payment and don't require a 30 days notice for price changes for the manual payment

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Originally Posted by Sinistral

You should really read why i posted again. You don't seem to understand that a "recurring fee" plan in the system is not the same as YOU paying month by month.

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And what do you think? Even if they don't apply to Brazilian players at all, (they still do for Russians) is it right for them to not announce adjustments? Maybe on Lodestone. It was during "Mog Station maintenance" that this happened. Even after it happened, they still havent pronounced about the changes. A lot of ppl are expecting Lodestone announcements on things, and next time they try to sub they'll think why is it so expensive now? Nobody ever mentioned anything. Yet all we have is the response of a forum moderator here. This isn't even linked in the lodestation. I wouldn't have found this forum if I hadn't tried to make a purchase 2 days ago

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Originally Posted by Enkrateia

Greetings, everyone!

I once again want to thank you for keeping the thread civil, which has allowed it to stay open. However, I would like to point out that some of the arguments and explanations have become cyclical, and are continuing to go over the same points. For example, equality versus equity, which has been raised several times. While I can understand the desire to bring people over to your way of viewing the situation, this has become more aggressive as the thread has progressed, and new topics and points of view are not being raised. This may be in part that most of these points of view have fully explored and explained.

Should this aggressiveness become the tone of the discussion, the thread would need to be closed, since further discussions are not occurring. This would likely involve a locking of the thread. We have come this far into the discussion without needing to take a heavy hand at moderation, so the extreme violations that would require the Game Masters to remove the thread seems unlikely.

Please keep this in mind when continuing to post in this thread, so it can remain open as a way to further raise concerns about this change that you may have.

LGM Enkrateia

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Hey everyone. Please calm yourselves down a bit, some of you just missed a moderator warning us that this thread is getting a bit more inflamed than ideal. If we keep at this and the thread gets locked, that would be a step backwards for us. So please, let's take a minute to breath in, aight?

Sorry, and thank you. Cheers~

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Originally Posted by Aramina

Yes. They do. They set the price at $12/15 US, but Steam chose to charge you an unequivalent amount for years, which has now been rectified. SE cost has not changed... your issue lies with Steam.

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Enkrateia's reply has already confirmed that our problem is not related to Steam and that it was, indeed, SE's decision. Also Steam itself does not set prices for things. The company is responsible for the prices on its products, and Steam has nothing to do with it as long as it's getting its own profits.
The price did change. The regional prices stablished by SE itself were kept to maintain customer loyalty in countries where the currency conversion was too high for the players to follow. After all, a lower margin of profit is still better than no profit at all, or at least that's what I had been taught.
I agree adjustments were in need, but this wasn't an adjustment. This was the removal of regional pricing without a warning or a proper explanation.

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Originally Posted by Boreowl

@gustavray
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I apologise. The previous pages in this thread are rather triggering. Reading all of this is indeed making me angry. I don't really mean to point fingers at others, and as I tried to tell @Sinistral, even if it doesn't apply to me, idc, i want an answer, because RU players are also affected. And I'd like any other places to have regional pricings too. In fact, I was told by an Australian dude on Tonberry that he paid much less by using Steam Wallet, and so, I thought a lot of other places would too. I even recommended some friends in other countries to buy the game through Steam to play with me, since they'll pay in their local currencies. But apparently the change was only in Russia and Brazil.

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Originally Posted by Boreowl

Enkrateia's reply has already confirmed that our problem is not related to Steam and that it was, indeed, SE's decision. Also Steam itself does not set prices for things. The company is responsible for the prices on its products, and Steam has nothing to do with it as long as it's getting its own profits.
The price did change. The regional prices stablished by SE itself were kept to maintain customer loyalty in countries where the currency conversion was too high for the players to follow. After all, a lower margin of profit is still better than no profit at all, or at least that's what I had been taught.
I agree adjustments were in need, but this wasn't an adjustment. This was the removal of regional pricing without a warning or a proper explanation.

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Indeed it is more profit for them. And subscription isn't the only way they make money through this game. Aside from that and expansions, there are also Optional Items, which ppl buy very frequently. I'd buy them myself sometimes if I saw myself with a few extra bucks on me.

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Originally Posted by Legewiel

Believe me, it's not a special treatment, this weights a lot on my wallet, other games are a lot cheaper. And instead of wanting Brazil and Russia to pay more, we should be wanting for other poor countries to pay less too if possible. like the Croatian guy on this thread.

That is why it would be awesome if square talked with us, instead of ignoring this thread. And what is sad is that seems to be their normal behavior with everything, they just stay quiet and let others fight on threads cause there will always be someone against it anyway. It's like when someone reported the trade bug while teleporting and there were still people defending that it was fine this way.

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It would be good, but EU's fat politics is against it and did forbid regional pricing in the EU.

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Originally Posted by IncogniJM

I would really like if the prices were changed back to how they were once.

I will only give my brief opinion on all of this:
https://fatpastor.files.wordpress.co...ty-justice.jpg

Every region has a different economy. So 15 USD in US has a different weight than 15 USD in Brazil. Some companies understand that. Blizzard for example, gives a different price for the monthly subscription for brazilians, because most of us can't afford to pay near 50 reais each month for a game. I think the same principle can be applied to russians.

I know that for most outsiders and even SQEX this may be unfair, but I honestly don't think it is.

Please, change back the prices.

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And what about people from other countries that can't afford XXX amount? Why should some receive a discount solely based on where they live while others are denied based solely on where they live?

edit: I feel I should reiterate: People have every right to be upset about the lack of advance warning/timing. My reply is only meant to address the "our people are poor so we should get a cheaper price" because believe me, Brazil and Russia do not have a monopoly on poor people.

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Originally Posted by gustavray

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It's alright! I feel pretty triggered by some of the stuff I read too, but try to focus on the people willing to help. It's hard, but it's better than getting angry, because that can also give people reason to discredit our complaints.
Thank you for understanding though!

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Originally Posted by Aramina

And what about people from other countries that can't afford XXX amount? Why should some receive a discount solely based on where they live while others are denied based solely on where they live?

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Maybe they were basing it on the number of ppl who actively play MMOs or games in general in those countries? Politics? (as stated previously, the EU agreement wont allow regional pricings) some countries might have similar laws or something. And they also don't have to implement it in the WHOLE world at the same time. "No one" would do that. I'm certain there is someone who would try, but it's much easier if you run a test in a few places first

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Originally Posted by Vizu00

Recurring subscription fee in the EU ToS doesn't make any distinction between the payment method, it is defined solely as what you pay to play, there is no difference between manual payment and automatic payment of game time written in the EU ToS.

The NA ToS makes a difference between the manual payment and the automatic payment and don't require a 30 days notice for price changes for the manual payment

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Totally agree with that, i was refering to the NA description.

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Originally Posted by tetsuo666

How does this not affect me if you demand a better treatment then me or everyone else in the world for no reason at all.

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For your money you are having:
- server in your region;
- game on your language;
- support in your region and on your language.

For our money we have:
- well... acess to the game. With high latency, no localisation and no support.

And now SE want us to pay the same amount as you, but without all your bonuses.

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Originally Posted by Silingfasi

For your money you are having:
- server in your region;
- game on your language;
- support in your region and on your language.

For our money we have:
- well... acess to the game. With high latency, no localisation and no support.

And now SE want us to pay the same amount as you, but without all your bonuses.

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I live in Chile, pay the full price with the current exchange rate at the time. Speaking english solve all your problems except for the server one, maybe i just lucky here we start to learn english as soon as we enter school.

Localization of games is a huge sink of money and need a considerable player base to be viable and with continuous development the cost is even higher. That's why most of mmo's just are in english, french and german (France and Germany have a requirement to be localized to even sell the game there).
Before someone start WoW is a really special case in the aspect of localization (Localization is really one of their key features), but Latam server are still in the US.

Blizzard support, moderation and store teams are all in-house departments of blizzard, meanwhile here is almost all outsourced.

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Originally Posted by Sinistral

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Originally Posted by Silingfasi

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I'll have to agree with that. Localization or translation isn't something we can really argue because there are games in Portuguese, but we chose and agreed on playing one that doesnt. The server move to the West Coast was a bad choice, though, and people still complain and post on the forum about it. They said 'they will look into the discussions' Most games won't have servers physically in Brazil due to taxes. i.e. WoW and Black Desert Online (Redfox version)

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Originally Posted by Aramina

And what about people from other countries that can't afford XXX amount? Why should some receive a discount solely based on where they live while others are denied based solely on where they live?

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This isn't the topic, I bet that everyone here would agree that a poor country should have a "discount", and I can relate very much with people that don't have this privilege, but what is being discussed is that they took away this "discount" from us without warning or a proper explanation, and from the most people that I play they indeed need this "discount".

Again, I think that every poor country should have this "discount", but you can not complain about people that are asking this "discount" back just because not everyone have it.

I expect a lot of angry comments and controversy from this post, but it's what's on the mind of many non Russian and Brazilian players.
"Why should Russia and Brazil pay less compared to the rest of the world?" I do NOT think that poor countries deserve a discount, business is business, either you can afford it or not. Square Enix doesn't operate for free or intentionally sabotages themselves to lose money.
SE sets ffxiv servers in regions and languages that it's most profitable to them. I get ripped off over currency conversion when I pay my sub because I don't live in north america, europe or japan, but its fair game, my region apparently isn't profitable for them.
While i'd love the idea of a ffxiv fillipino language server for the phillipines, only an idiot businessperson would set up their business at a loss on purpose.

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Originally Posted by Esrain

I expect a lot of angry comments and controversy from this post, but it's what's on the mind of many non Russian and Brazilian players.
"Why should Russia and Brazil pay less compared to the rest of the world?".

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Because Russia and Brazil are two of the largest countries in the entire world (Brazil is #5 and Russia is #9) with enough of a middle class to engage in gaming and cultures tolerant enough to not demand censorship in order for them to be marketed in those regions. Offering subs to their regions at a fair price based on their own earned monthly income has the potential to tremendously expand the playerbase. When offering a global product to a fiscally diverse population it's not very smart business to demand them to pay the exact same price as America.

Ignoring that, the main issue at hand is that they didn't warn anyone about the change beforehand and made the move at a super bad time.

I don't think companies like Blizzard and EA loose money because of regional prices. They actually profit from them, because large playerbase is very important for every mmo. There may be some rich russian guy spending a lot of money on glamour every month, but if his not so rich friends will leave the game he will eventually leave too. Just making price bigger doesn't guarantee you more money in the end.
The hit from russian and brazillian players leaving may not be this big, but it will be noticeble when game will stop being new and shiny because of new addon release.
It's not like Square was spending a lot of money on localization and local servers, they just used default steam tools, so i doubt they had any losses because of regional price.