Should I notify my customer protection authorities?

It has now been several days of me and other Xbox users unable to play Dawntrail because of an error saying we have no valid service account. We have moved to Xbox from PS4 and when trying to sign in we receive the error. There is no request to link accounts. We have been mailing and calling back and forth with both square Enix and Xbox customer service. SE says it is not their responsibility, and argues it is perhaps because our sub region is different from our Xbox dawntrail license regions. It is not, one or us has tested and repurchase the game on a whhole different Xbox account, repurchased the game all over again, with a credit card and Xbox region setting that matches their sub, and it still gives the same error, while a friend who is able to play logs in on that same device, with a sub from a region that does not match, yet immediately gets requested to link their account. We have asked Xbox for a refund in the end, but got refused because we had purchased the pre order more than 14 days ago (duh...) and we should ask square Enix for assistance. Then back to square Enix who replied they are not responsible for games not linking to Xbox as this is a supplier issue. We have now collectively spent over 150 euros trying out different combos of accounts, game versions and subs. Nothing works. Do we just get authorities involved at this point? How do we escalate this to a level that resolves this issue? Any more users out their on Xbox with the same issue? I am happy to link up.

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Originally Posted by Korentijn

It has now been several days of me and other Xbox users unable to play Dawntrail because of an error saying we have no valid service account. We have moved to Xbox from PS4 and when trying to sign in we receive the error. There is no request to link accounts. We have been mailing and calling back and forth with both square Enix and Xbox customer service. SE says it is not their responsibility, and argues it is perhaps because our sub region is different from our Xbox dawntrail license regions. It is not, one or us has tested and repurchase the game on a whhole different Xbox account, repurchased the game all over again, with a credit card and Xbox region setting that matches their sub, and it still gives the same error, while a friend who is able to play logs in on that same device, with a sub from a region that does not match, yet immediately gets requested to link their account. We have asked Xbox for a refund in the end, but got refused because we had purchased the pre order more than 14 days ago (duh...) and we should ask square Enix for assistance. Then back to square Enix who replied they are not responsible for games not linking to Xbox as this is a supplier issue. We have now collectively spent over 150 euros trying out different combos of accounts, game versions and subs. Nothing works. Do we just get authorities involved at this point? How do we escalate this to a level that resolves this issue? Any more users out their on Xbox with the same issue? I am happy to link up.

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I highly doubt you can transfer xiv account between ps4 and xbox. Is there somewhere where square enix states that you can?

Yes you can: https://support.na.square-enix.com/f...la=1&kid=67471

As I said, we have been able to have one friend login to one of the xboxes and they receive the request to link their existing account to the Xbox game. Yet several of us keep receiving the error that we have no existing service when we try to log on to this very same Xbox.

Are you using the same Xbox live account? Same Gamertag?

No, we are four users who started our ffxiv sub in the US and have since all moved to Europe. 3 of us come from PS4 and one from an outdated PC. We all bought an Xbox here, we own have our own accounts on Microsoft and we all decided to switch to Xbox to enjoy a smoother gaming experience with the update. None of us are able to get past the error page. We contacted square who says it's a region mismatch. We called Xbox and they say square should change our account regions. Square replies they cannot be responsible for region locks on the supplier side. Microsoft then said as a final solution to create a fifth Xbox account, and make sure region is set to us, credit card is us, billing address is US and purchase a new version. So one of us did and bought today the complete version. Tried to log in with all four accounts, error. Then a friend with an EU account tried to log in and immediately got the request to link up (but did not click confirm as to not lock it in).

Is there any way that despite the cc and the console location being set to US, it still gave us an EU license? So if it really is a region discrepancy, does this mean all of us should have to restart a whole new sub and a story and lose progress (e.g. I have all jobs at LV 80)? One of us will move back to the US after a year, would this mean they would again, have to restart a sub for the next expansion? Are there officials on this Forum? I would love an official confirmation that this is correct.

It seems this is indeed the official policy: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...ebrCdjGPz9xMUf

Square Enix support apparently straight up is telling people who move regions (e.g. for work in our cases) to start a whole new sub and buy skips. On top of this I assume the mounts and emotes we all bought are lost as well. Unless this is debunked here by an official I feel the next course of action is to bring this to the attention of the customer protection authorities (EU) and the national digital consumers ombudsman? Has anyone already tried this before?

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Originally Posted by Korentijn

It seems this is indeed the official policy: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...ebrCdjGPz9xMUf

Square Enix support apparently straight up is telling people who move regions (e.g. for work in our cases) to start a whole new sub and buy skips. On top of this I assume the mounts and emotes we all bought are lost as well. Unless this is debunked here by an official I feel the next course of action is to bring this to the attention of the customer protection authorities (EU) and the national digital consumers ombudsman? Has anyone already tried this before?

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Blizzard games work the same way with not transferring between NA and EU, so I would bank on this being a legal reason and you probably won't get much recourse.

https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/10695

Legal issue because of international law, or company policy? I'm not convinced it's the former but happy to be wrong of someone knows the legal reasons.

I think someone should take them to court for this ridiculousness, honestly.

I don't think any game company lets you transfer regions of an account, due to laws in different counties probably also exchange rates.

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Originally Posted by Zumi

I don't think any game company lets you transfer regions of an account, due to laws in different counties probably also exchange rates.

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Lots of game companies don't even have different regions for accounts. And for those who have, within each region there are already different laws for different countries and different exchange rates.

So unless someone can come up with a concrete example, I claim there are no legal reasons requiring the region bullshit.

I believe it happens for the same reason promos differ by region - Different regulations in each one that can have issues caused if data is transferred thwre even.

(you don't have to be specific, you can even give placeholders like "region A" B or C for these questions) Where did you purchase your game discs or in which region did you originally purchase and download the game files? Which region did you purchase the Xboxes? If SE allows you (which they should), have you considered swapping to the PC version and them swapping from PC to your preferred console?

I understand there's multiple players here trying to all go through the same set of issues, so lets just focus on 1 in hopes that it can be repeated: 1 player should be linking all of their game accounts and console logins to the same Square Enix account. They should also do proper address changes for their console accounts and game accounts. SE controls where the game is allowed to be played at the end of the day (and makes sure that the usage of game abides by the laws of the region) but the idea is that if your console region matches your console account region then you should be able to play the game provided you have a game account that matches that account region. Transfering game regions has been notoriously difficult but that's why I suggest trying to transfer to PC first. PC sort of gives you more flexibility since on this platform we're able to play on most of the unlocked regions without any real issue.

SE accounts, game (service account) accounts, console user (online console subscription[like PSN]) accounts, and console regions. Alot to keep track of in this complex situation you're in.