Australia & EU Region Subscription Costs

[Stargazer1]

The prices you pay are in line with the current exchange rate. The AUD to Euro conversion or British pound has never been good. Its the same when you travel overseas. Just be thankful were not paying in Yen.

[Helli]

In this respect I am ever so glad that Square Enix screwed my EU account over because I had had a previous NA account for FFXI, and forced me to get an NA gamecode to play. This means I get to pay in USD for months subs.
My son though is stuck with Euro as his copy was registered EU. That I will be paying two completely different prices monthly so we can both play is just stupid.

[ToraFomalhaut]

The prices you pay are in line with the current exchange rate. The AUD to Euro conversion or British pound has never been good. Its the same when you travel overseas. Just be thankful were not paying in Yen.

I just don't quite understand the logic behind forcing players to use the most expensive currency (EUR) to convert to, when there are other currencies (GBP, USD) available to players that don't cost nearly as much. I mean I'll admit I'm no student of economics so maybe I'm missing something here? As long as SE is receiving one of their set subscription costs, why is there any need to lock players without a native currency subscription to choose from into using the one that costs more to convert to?

[Kraun]

We euros ALWAYS pay more than anyone else on subs, i don't see a problem here.

[Intrinsic]

If you look at the conversion rates from the available subscription costs into the yen (JPY) it is as follows:

1480 JPY is the standard 30 day subscription fee for Japan.
(taken from here: http://jp.finalfantasyxiv.com/pr/product/)

8.99 GBP = 1417.97 JPY
12.99 EUR = 1731.90 JPY
14.99 USD = 1502.60 JPY

(taken from current conversion rates, I'm aware it will fluctuate)

It becomes quite apparent why they would go out of their way to make as many people to pay in Euros as possible. While GBP and USD are reasonably close to the monthly JPY subscription cost, everyone else using the Euro is paying more to play a month.

So not only on top of the higher conversion cost from currencies like the AUD, NZD and SGD to the EUR, you are also being charged more per month to play the game than other people fortunate enough to be using an account that can pay in GBP or USD.

Is it ethical? I'm not sure it really depends on the reasoning behind the increased costs. Maybe it has to do with local taxes? But even so, it does seem like they've gone out of their way to try and get the subscription costs as close as possible for currencies other than the EUR.

Ultimately, I personally agree. If you're going to be made to pay in a currency that isn't your own, then you should be able to pick from those available so you can at least pick the cheapest to convert to.

[djrdo]

I don't really understand why can't all be flat USD... Need 3 different currencies

umm if you knew about politics you would know that the american dollor is tanking and proberly going to lose world currency status soon too..
so just useing the USD could just tank the company ...

[ToraFomalhaut]

If you look at the conversion rates from the available subscription costs into the yen (JPY) it is as follows:

1480 JPY is the standard 30 day subscription fee for Japan.
(taken from here: http://jp.finalfantasyxiv.com/pr/product/)

8.99 GBP = 1417.97 JPY
12.99 EUR = 1731.90 JPY
14.99 USD = 1502.60 JPY

(taken from current conversion rates, I'm aware it will fluctuate)

It becomes quite apparent why they would go out of their way to make as many people to pay in Euros as possible. While GBP and USD are reasonably close to the monthly JPY subscription cost, everyone else using the Euro is paying more to play a month.

So not only on top of the higher conversion cost from currencies like the AUD, NZD and SGD to the EUR, you are also being charged more per month to play the game than other people fortunate enough to be using an account that can pay in GBP or USD.

Is it ethical? I'm not sure it really depends on the reasoning behind the increased costs. Maybe it has to do with local taxes? But even so, it does seem like they've gone out of their way to try and get the subscription costs as close as possible for currencies other than the EUR.

Ultimately, I personally agree. If you're going to be made to pay in a currency that isn't your own, then you should be able to pick from those available so you can at least pick the cheapest to convert to.

I stole this and added it to the first post I hope you don't mind, please let me know if you do and I'll remove it.

[CorwinAurilliac]

This sucks. There is nothing right about this. If they listed two currencies in one region you should be able to pick what currency you want to pay with.

What I'm confused is it seems like this affects all EU account's no matter if we are in AU or not.

So here's a question who can pay GBP and how???

[Intrinsic]

I stole this and added it to the first post I hope you don't mind, please let me know if you do and I'll remove it.

No worries that's fine. If you dig a bit further and look at the AUD to JPY conversions it's even more intresting.

8.99 GBP as you said is roughly 15.55 AUD which in turn is equal to roughly 1448.37 JPY. So it's a closer translation of the AUD to the base JPY cost of 1480 per month. Instead of being forced to pay the 19.96 AUD for converting to 12.99 EUR, which then equals 1793.93 JPY. In a prettier and easier to understand format (I hope):

8.99 GBP : 15.55 AUD : 1448.37 JPY
while
12.99 EUR : 19.96 AUD : 1793:93 JPY

For your Singaporean and New Zealand friends:

8.99 GBP : 17.95 SGD : 1418.79 JPY
12.99 GBP : 22.22 SGD : 1756.30 JPY

8.99 GBP : 17.96 NZD : 1448.89 JPY
12.99 GBP : 22.23 NZD : 1798.60 JPY

[ToraFomalhaut]

No worries that's fine. If you dig a bit further and look at the AUD to JPY conversions it's even more intresting.

8.99 GBP as you said is roughly 15.55 AUD which in turn is equal to roughly 1448.37 JPY. So it's a closer translation of the AUD to the base JPY cost of 1480 per month. Instead of being forced to pay the 19.96 AUD for converting to 12.99 EUR, which then equals 1793.93 JPY. In a prettier and easier to understand format (I hope):

8.99 GBP : 15.55 AUD : 1448.37 JPY
while
12.99 EUR : 19.96 AUD : 1793:93 JPY

For your Singaporean and New Zealand friends:

8.99 GBP : 17.95 SGD : 1418.79 JPY
12.99 GBP : 22.22 SGD : 1756.30 JPY

8.99 GBP : 17.96 NZD : 1448.89 JPY
12.99 GBP : 22.23 NZD : 1798.60 JPY

Nabbed and updated the first post again, thanks for taking the time to look all this up.

After all that I'm now, even more than before, hoping for at least some form of explanation or comment for both the pricing mismatch, as well as the reasoning behind the needlessly wasted money most of us are having to pay when converting to a higher costing currency.