Steam payment HUGE price increase!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0-GMylXLtU

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Originally Posted by YitharV2

In my opinion, this is actually a good way to get SE's attention. A content creator got wrongfully banned for chargeback. And he specifically said he didn't want things to come to this but it ended up working.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ity_organizer/
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...tor_community/

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Oh, i remember that guy.
Glad to hear he was unbanned by SE.

p.s. Edited version:
- Square Enix uses Limit Break
- Mogstation and subscription prices for Russian players increased by 315%
- Mogstation and subscription prices for Brazil players increased by 80%
- Russian playerbase annihilated
- Brazil players barely standing, 95% MIA(missing in action).

I wonder how losing 95% of the playerbase in those areas is going to make them more money :^)

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Originally Posted by Zeonsilt

Oh, i remember that guy.
Glad to hear he was unbanned by SE.

p.s. Edited version:
- Square Enix uses Limit Break
- Mogstation and subscription prices for Russian players increased by 315%
- Mogstation and subscription prices for Brazil players increased by 80%
- Russian playerbase annihilated
- Brazil players barely standing, 95% MIA(missing in action).

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They all will ignore the whole forum, I see only one notification from one moderator of the local forum, I do not see CE unsubscribed to all of which they suddenly decided to adjust regional prices, I play this game for 4 years, I have never seen a normal response and refunding their jambs And problems on the game, because I suffered not only financially, but also morally, I can sue them, their actions have the audacity of violating the user agreement!

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Originally Posted by Ayerinn

First of all, I think it is horrible business practice to have not notified players about this change in pricing. However, "Recurring Fees" would refer to things like Auto Renew NOT one time subscription purchases. You are buying 30 days of game time (essentially a product with a defined length and expiration)but you are not signing up for a recurring fee, technically, unless you choose auto renew. In fact, people have mentioned the auto renew price has not changed...probably not a coincidence.

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It was mentioned above that auto-renewal acts as a contract and upon expiration of this SE contract with Seam, the price for auto-renewal will probably be the same as a one time payment. When the contract ends, who knows?
Okay raised by 50%, well raised by 80%, but not by 350%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Оо *RAGE*

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Originally Posted by Velxeor

It was mentioned above that auto-renewal acts as a contract and upon expiration of this SE contract with Seam, the price for auto-renewal will probably be the same as a one time payment. When the contract ends, who knows?
Okay raised by 50%, well raised by 80%, but not by 350%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Оо *RAGE*

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ive created the ticket and waiting for reply

BTW, isn't FFXIV the one and only P2P game charging for additional bank space? Buying all 6 additional retainers increases monthly subscription by 1.6. Unfortunately buying those retainers is almost mandatory for crafters and glamour set collectors, because bank space in this game is extremely limited.

Before the price change I could afford buying additional retainers, but spending almost 1500 roubles is too much for me. It's like paying for 3(!) WoW monthly subs simultaneously. xD

Isn't SE a little bit greedy?

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Originally Posted by Zeonsilt

EDIT: I checked again, for 6 months sub 1 retainer is still 50r~ per month, making it 300r per 6 months.
Seems alright for now. (old price)

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No, my dear friend (( Yesterday I've ordered a 6-month sub with auto-renewal in Steam (while it's without changes), and tried to pay for 2 additional retainers - Steam showed me the cost for 180 days - 2145 rub., per 1 retainer - 1740. Why so strange differences between 1 and 2 retainers - don't know))) So bb craft and gathering - without retainers it's impossible. But I don't want to pay practically a sub value every month for warehouse rent, rent, CARL, not the warehouse's expansion forever, as in other MMORPGs. It's just a circus of some kind. I loved this game with all my heart, for all 2 years.

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Originally Posted by EndarionSunseeker

I wonder how losing 95% of the playerbase in those areas is going to make them more money :^)

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The whole sad thing that more likely they don't lose that much player base. Even if they lose 70% their money losses would be not that big, I'd even say scantily. I mean if we take 6000 players that paid 300 rubles per month they gained 1 800 000 rubles( about 29 000$) if 70% will be gone the 1800 players will stay and will pay 900 rubles per month, so they will gain 1 620 000 (about 26 130$). The loss will be 2870$. This is very insignificant. Maybe even fewer people will leave, so they even would have a profit.
The main thing that they show HOW they COMPLETELY don't care about us. Russians and Brazils don't worth notifications. And it's ridiculous for the game which shouts on every corner that they "care about their players".

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Originally Posted by Avatre

Even here in Canada, it is SUPER rare to find a company that does that. Even things like a bus pass to get to and from work isn't paid for by the company(for me a monthly pass is $100CAD - ~250BRL) most of the time.

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Only American Companies with an subsidiary (not an oursourced one) do that. At eBay we had a full cafeteria, but if you worked graveyard shift it was closed. Still, unlimited soda >_<, just you don't get to empty the machine into your backpack before you leave.

I'll note that, most companies do this with their Christmas parties too, they start out elaborate suit+tie events and then they turn into a pizza party at the office before they close and move to India.

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Originally Posted by Enkrateia

Greetings, everyone!

First, I would like to thank you all for your patience while I got information that could be provided to you. I understand this is an important concern for many of you, and had hoped I would be able to get back to you yesterday, so you would not have to go so long without an update. I would also like to thank you for keeping the thread civil and informative for each other. While there are certainly different perspectives, your tone with each other has been respectful, which allows this discussion to continue.

As you have pointed out, we recently made adjustments to how prices in Brazilian Real and Russian Rubles are calculated for Steam users. These changes were made to bring prices using these currencies in-line with the global pricing structure based on current exchange rates. In addition, these adjustments mean that prices now accurately reflect the pricing provided on our other official channels and currencies.

Thank you again for your understanding and patience while I worked to get this information for you. If people are finding additional pricing discrepancies outside of what was mentioned, please let me know, so they can be looked into.

LGM Enkrateia

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That's unfortunate, but that kinda tells me that the business people in the NA unit don't care about players outside the US, and Canadians could be next.

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Originally Posted by Rita1989

There is 0 chance of a steam refund at this point, SB basically gave you the full value of a normal game anyways.

Due to the Canadian dollar dropping I have seen the price go up and up and currently and as full time student have a limited disposable income and have had to budget carefully if I wanted to keep playing, even taking a month or 2 off of the game at times.

Brazil and Russia are similar but your currency has dropped even more but had been allowed to pay the same price while SE received less and less so they are 100% justified in asking fair value from you guys.

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I actually get paid in USD, but sometimes I can't buy things in USD (eg Steam) and thus have to do a round-trip currency conversion which results in paying 40% more for things. I currently have Mogstation setup with a USD card, so I'm clear for that. However when I played other MMO games, typically the local price of the time card was cheaper than paying the USD value, and thus it would be a bit of a tossup depending on the exchange rate, when CAD>USD, it was cheaper to just pay in USD. When CAD<USD it's in theory cheaper to buy the time cards, but sometimes the price of the cards is actually more. To that point, most game time cards have disappeared in Canada, at least here. 7-11 used to have like 10' of shelf space for them, now it's down to like 1'.

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Originally Posted by Glan

One question? Do you understand that this is practically a break of FFIV User Agreement from your side, and big fraud with selling expansion. In FFIV User Agreement you can see pargraph 4.1 that says FINAL FANTASY XIV Subscription Fee rates will be posted at http://sqex.to/ffxivfees_eu, and any changes to those rates will be posted with 30 days’ advance notice and notice will be provided to the Game community and by email to User’s registered email addresses. If you think that exchange steam rates it's another deal...sorry but no. Valve assumes no responsibility or liability for such third party content that's written in paragraph 5 Steam subscriber agreement http://store.steampowered.com/subscr...ent/english/#5 And if you want change exhange rate in steam you need posted 30 days advance notice. What you can say about this?:confused:

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The ToS likely is very specific to recurring payments, because the price you agree to is the one you paid for. If you have an auto-renew, they would need to email you in advance that the price is changing, to give you time to cancel without penalty. As it is there is no penalty to cancel, because you pay in advance.

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Originally Posted by Nezia

So... what about the auto renew option on Steam?

At least in Brazil the values of the auto renew did not change, are we to expect these values to be adjusted? Or we just sit and wait for another 'surprise'?

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You likely won't see it change for 30 days, and then it will just change when the auto-renew system detects a mismatch between the price authorized. So if you pay for 180 days in advance before the change, then you will end up with 180 days, but if the price changes before the renewal, they will likely auto-cancel the service rather than charge the new price. You may be required to click a link to accept the price change, or ignore it and get auto canceled.

It may depend really. For example my cell phone bill is on manual pay while my landline DSL is on auto-pay, but I have to approve changes to the value, so when they raise prices, I have to raise the maximum approved amount and re-authorize the card. In theory if the auto-renew price hasn't changed you could cancel it right now and then renew it right away and stack the value on mog station, but I don't think that will work with Steam.

As it is, I would never trust Steam with my card numbers, and part of that comes from the exchange rate fluctuations. I can still buy things on GoG in USD, so if it's cheaper on GoG, then I'm buying stuff on GoG.

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Originally Posted by EndarionSunseeker

I wonder how losing 95% of the playerbase in those areas is going to make them more money :^)

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Players who are going to leave insignificant in the overall playerbase

Square has been doing nothing but terrible decisions lately. I will no longer recommend this game to ANYONE and I used to defend it a lot in different MMO forums, probably convinced a lot of players to try it. Sorry, but Square is indeed terrible. Wtf, seriously?

Brazil might be insignificant for XIV, but not for their games in general, we have a huge player base and this is just bad for their reputation. Disgusting.

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Originally Posted by HangoY

The whole sad thing that more likely they don't lose that much player base. Even if they lose 70% their money losses would be not that big, I'd even say scantily. I mean if we take 6000 players that paid 300 rubles per month they gained 1 800 000 rubles( about 29 000$) if 70% will be gone the 1800 players will stay and will pay 900 rubles per month, so they will gain 1 620 000 (about 26 130$). The loss will be 2870$. This is very insignificant. Maybe even fewer people will leave, so they even would have a profit.
The main thing that they show HOW they COMPLETELY don't care about us. Russians and Brazils don't worth notifications. And it's ridiculous for the game which shouts on every corner that they "care about their players".

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What is the purpose of this act from the SE? To release server space from unnecessary players?

I recommended the game to friends. But now I will not do it exactly.

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Originally Posted by Velxeor

What is the purpose of this act from the SE? To release server space from unnecessary players?

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I'm not an SE employee, so I can only imagine. Perhaps to reduce the load on the servers, perhaps to increase profits, even despite to the outflow of a small number of players, maybe somebody in SE thought that it is fair that everyone pays "the same." Who knows. SE does not bother to answer why they did it and why they did not warn in advance that everything was in a human way with the respect to each other.

Hmm, the previous game I played did something similar to Canadians with their cash shop pricing (it was a F2P MMO), increasing the price of cash shop currency to match US prices after USD to CAD conversion. There was one very powerful argument against that after the fact though - the lower price was what kept the game competitive against other F2P MMOs in Canada. And afterwards, the cash shop spending portion of the Canadian population nearly died out within six months, which likely really hurt the devs' bottom line.

It was known, however, that the main reason the devs did that was because some NA players would find ways to convert their USD to CAD before purchasing the cash shop currency, which allowed them to resell more cash shop currency for regular in-game currency (which was a bannable offense period but pretty much impossible to enforce) compared to buying with USD. And even native Canadians heavily abused this fact too.

Wouldn't this be perhaps have been Valve's responsibility? Seeing as this involves accounts that did go through steam for their subs. SE could have very well notified valve, and somewhere along the way it could have fallen through. I'm saying mistakes can happen. Not trying to excuse this, but just tossing in my thoughts on the matter.

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Originally Posted by Velxeor

What is the purpose of this act from the SE? To release server space from unnecessary players?

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I mean the reason is you guys have been getting a huge break paying at a exchange rate that was set back in 2014, since then then the USD has gotten much stronger and the ruble in particular is much weaker now so they had been getting less and less money from you guys.

They should have given a warning about it but the price should be higher then what it was currently, maybe a middle ground between where it is now and what it was before would have been reasonable based on reactions in this thread.

I hope it helps SE to make the right decision

https://image.ibb.co/ca0qAQ/ffxiv.jpg

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Originally Posted by Velxeor

What is the purpose of this act from the SE? To release server space from unnecessary players?

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Yup.
If 2/3 of players will leave the game they will have the same money but with less complains.

The fact is that salaries in russia are now at the level of 2014, with the dollar rising from 30 rub to $ 57-60rub per $ 1 (1 euro 65-70rub). We did not pay less.
What does the regional subscription take? The level of incomes of citizens in the region, but neither as a currency exchange rate

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Originally Posted by Silingfasi

Yup.
If 2/3 of players will leave the game they will have the same money but with less complains.

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Or just so, -"are you Russian? You do not belong here!" In fact, we often feel this attitude on ourselves

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Originally Posted by Velxeor

Or just so, -"are you Russian? You do not belong here!" In fact, we often feel this attitude on ourselves

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I think you are letting anger take ahold of you too much. Yes, you should be angry this has happened, however, it has only been 2 days since this apparently happened? Perhaps this could also be Valve mistake, in that they were perhaps suppose to notify the players on steam about this, considering this concerns only players that used said system, thus would it by extension be connected to Valve as well responsibility wise?

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Originally Posted by Velxeor

The fact is that salaries in russia are now at the level of 2014, with the dollar rising from 30 rub to $ 57-60rub per $ 1 (1 euro 65-70rub). We did not pay less.
What does the regional subscription take? The level of incomes of citizens in the region, but neither as a currency exchange rate

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In early 2014 1USD was about 30 rub and today it's 58 rub so your money is worth half as much but sub cost was still the same.

It sucks if you can't afford it but it makes sense for SE to be asking for more, what surpises me is it took this long to get adjusted.

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Originally Posted by Adachi_Ame

I think you are letting anger take ahold of you too much. Yes, you should be angry this has happened, however, it has only been 2 days since this apparently happened? Perhaps this could also be Valve mistake, in that they were perhaps suppose to notify the players on steam about this, considering this concerns only players that used said system, thus would it by extension be connected to Valve as well responsibility wise?

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SE has already told that was their decision. They made this change after the patch on 07/18/2017 so it's already 4 days and they said nothing except "Yeah, we did it".

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Originally Posted by HangoY

SE has already told that was their decision. They made this change after the patch on 07/18/2017 so it's already 4 days and they said nothing except "Yeah, we did it".

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But still nothing about auto renewal

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Originally Posted by Rita1989

In early 2014 1USD was about 30 rub and today it's 58 rub so your money is worth half as much but sub cost was still the same.

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M = Math?
The price increased by 300%+, not <200.
It should be increased by 2 times then, not 3.

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Originally Posted by Velxeor

The fact is that salaries in russia are now at the level of 2014, with the dollar rising from 30 rub to $ 57-60rub per $ 1 (1 euro 65-70rub). We did not pay less.
What does the regional subscription take? The level of incomes of citizens in the region, but neither as a currency exchange rate

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Players from Ukraine, for example (I really doubt that salaries there are bigger than Russian ones) were paying the standard cost from the start.
I agree that making such price changes without notification is a bad move, and doing this after SB release is even worse, and not fair at all.
But still.

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Originally Posted by HangoY

SE has already told that was their decision. They made this change after the patch on 07/18/2017 so it's already 4 days and they said nothing except "Yeah, we did it".

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Yes, but you have to realize, Steam is the middle person here, thus carries a decent chunk of responsibility to this.

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Originally Posted by Rita1989

In early 2014 1USD was about 30 rub and today it's 58 rub so your money is worth half as much but sub cost was still the same.

It sucks if you can't afford it but it makes sense for SE to be asking for more, what surpises me is it took this long to get adjusted.

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But they change subs to x3, not x2. If they set price like 550- ok we undestand. but 900 it's crazy.

Final Subsctiption 14.

That means its last month playing for me.

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Originally Posted by Zeonsilt

M = Math?
The price increased by 300%+, not <200.
It should be increased by 2 times then, not 3.

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Remember they are getting paid in Roubles so they actually have to pay more to convert it to USD and they also have to factor for fluctuations in exchange rate so what they are asking is reasonable is they want you guys to pay the full USD value of a sub.

Wait for official SE reply.

We don't have the same rights since we pay can't pay stuff in USD. OK then.

I can't even pay in CAD... have to have a weird exchange rate. -Sighs-

I have yet to confirm sources, but apparently FF14 might have not been the only steam title to get hit buy this. Still waiting on confirmation though.

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Originally Posted by Laertiades

Players from Ukraine, for example (I really doubt that salaries there are bigger than Russian ones) were paying the standard cost from the start.
I agree that making such price changes without notification is a bad move, and doing this after SB release is even worse, and not fair at all.
But still.

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Ukraine is Europe? #trollface
To be serious, the question is not the price itself, the question is they've done it in shadows without a word.

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Originally Posted by Adachi_Ame

Wouldn't this be perhaps have been Valve's responsibility? Seeing as this involves accounts that did go through steam for their subs. SE could have very well notified valve, and somewhere along the way it could have fallen through. I'm saying mistakes can happen. Not trying to excuse this, but just tossing in my thoughts on the matter.

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Someone asked the question in support of Steam. And there they answered that the publisher was setting prices. And that the Steam does not have the right to set a price. How much it can reliably say I can not.

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Originally Posted by Rita1989

Remember they are getting paid in Roubles so they actually have to pay more to convert it to USD and they also have to factor for fluctuations in exchange rate so what they are asking is reasonable is they want you guys to pay the full USD value of a sub.

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Than question- why was creating steam version (and need to buy separate) with regional price. And now set full price. There many ppl like me that buy game second time for regional sub and now they say- ty for buy game 2 times and pay full price in usd sub.