About the EU campaign for maid outfit and fat chocobo

[Saphinara]

I am very disappointed in this promotion. The main reasons are and I'm not going to start bashing either side of this are.

Accessibility
Purchasability
Time- Scale

Accessibility ~ While I admit the site is easy enough to navigate and it's easy to find the purchase area, it takes at least a good minute of reading to realize that you do not need to subscribe but can wait the 3 months and "Back Buy" as needed however this is something that is not as easy as say buying something from Amazon game department or walking into 7/11 in Japan and buying a few cans of drink~ It feels as if we're getting rather pushed aside with this, who knows what the deal will be for the other countries. "Angry magazine customers" aside, how did they think we would receive this campaign honestly?

Purchasability ~ I have not seen this magazine in stores? Is it sold in specialist newsagents because it doesn't seem to be around? I live in Sheffield in England (Or the UK to those not familiar) It's a pretty large city, certainly not somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Now I'll admit sure it's there online but is there any guarantee that if we back order instead of subscribe that we will DEFINITELY receive a copy, will they print one specifically for us who order or will we have to succumb to supply and demand? I want my items as much as anyone else, I will likely still go through with this promotion regardless of me voicing my negative opinion on it.

Time - Scale ~ America got their promotion deal 74 days? I think give or take a couple after Japan, now YES America did try to cheat their codes but this was fixed with only giving out the codes when the order got shipped. Now I don't know about you guys but my average shop on Amazon.co.uk does not take a whole 3 months to ship items, however if you are to without subscribing (Which you can only subscribe for the October issue not the August or September ones) you must wait until whatever release day you can back order from, which yes means the whole 3 months basically, while you can probably buy them one month at a time that's still a HUGE gap between codes.

I'm going to go into a final couple of points which are more my opinion or personal grievance with this campaign. First of all, to those of us who do not purchase this magazine anyway, why should we suddenly have to buy it now? What use do we have for it if we're not going to read it. Why not simply put the codes on the cash shop instead, this is literally all we are doing, paying for codes. Those of us who really want these items and I mean REALLY want (I've been waiting months for maid attire) will likely do it anyway and I really, really have to point out the grudge we're going to hold against you Yoshida-san for making us jump through hoops to get these items.

Finally, I really dislike the idea of using a photo to authenticate the Chocobo promotion, I am very self-conscious about my appearance, even my passport/drivers license was a huge ordeal for me, I don't have to provide photo ID to Paypal when registering my debit card details. I don't have to provide a photo to Amazon when presenting my delivery address instructions, why is it not possible to break up parts of the Chocobo code in each of the 3 magazines and have them fit together to form a whole? Or send the serial code of your receipt with the ISBN number of each magazine/barcode. I'm going to probably not do the picture part as I'm really hesitant about sending it via email to a company I've never used before but maybe that is just myself. Like I said, these are personal things.

[Skivvy]

I feel bad for EU, SE really need to stop with all these promotional in game items and just mogstation everything worldwide... Or better yet put bonus items back to special seasonal/holiday quest in game, not like we get very many of those anymore it seems.

Yes, please! This is a subscription game, most items should be obtainable in game vs. cash shop only or promotion.

With that said, I do get promotions, but if you're going to go that route, make sure your requirements are the same for all regions. -.-

[NoctisXV]

Lame idea and bad promotion.
We had to wait longer than JP and the US and now we got this, really ?
SE why you do not do the same thing with amazon EU ? It's the best so we can buy useful stuff we like and then having the codes sent directly to our emails.
Personnaly I'd rather have to have to buy for a 20€ amount on amazon in order to get all my items than having to pay in the mogstation (because for the same amount you got your amazon order compared to mogstation).
Well now seeing all the bad critics about this bad promotion SE maybe you should do something nice in order to please your EU fanbase customers but please do not ask to the same person who was in charge of this promotion this time...

[Skivvy]

I tried to write a big post about how I'm disappointed about this, I set aside some very valid and objective points as to why this is wrong and can't even post it due to the forum's 1000 character limit. Now my hand hurts. So yeah. I can't even express my concerns on this properly.

Post a post that says;

"Edit incoming"

then edit it with however long a post you want. No character limit then.

I always type my message in full, copy it, then do as above. That way you only have a few moments where you have a placeholder post showing, vs. waiting for you to type up the whole message.

[EU_Community_Team]

Greetings,
Thank you for all your feedback. We would like to take this opportunity to clarify some points about the in-game item campaign with GamesMaster magazine.

• Sending in a photo of yourself in order to obtain the Original Fat Chocobo Mount
  
  First and foremost, you do not need to send a selfie to be eligible. Photos will be needed solely to verify that you own all three copies of the magazine as part of this campaign.
  While your photo must feature yourself holding the printed bonus item codes, you do not need to feature your face. As long as the player submitting the photo is visible in the image in some way, and the team can verify that you possess the item code print-outs from all 3 magazines, you will be awarded the in-game item mount.
  
  In addition, GamesMaster will not use the photos provided for anything other than verification for the in-game mount item code. They will not, under any circumstances, be used in any public way or form and will be destroyed after being confirmed by the GamesMaster team.
  
  
  
• Campaigns planned for other territories
  
  In the Lodestone post, it was stated that:
  

  Note: Separate campaigns offering the same in-game items are currently being planned for those residing in: France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Australia, New Zealand and Nordic territories. Further details on these campaigns will be posted at a later date.
  The campaigns for other countries will be independent and won’t be tied to GamesMaster magazine. Distribution methods and campaign content will vary per country/campaign, but the same range of in-game items will be available through these campaigns. We will follow up with further announcements on promotions for other territories as soon as information is available.
  
  Although GamesMaster is a UK-based magazine, non-UK residents can take part in this campaign by ordering the printed magazines online as they can be shipped to over 100 countries globally (a list of these 100 countries can be found here).
  If you possess a European service account and would like to take part in the campaign, you can order printed copies of the magazine to obtain the in-game item codes.
  
  
  
• Magazine subscription
  
  You do not need to subscribe to GamesMaster magazine in order to take part in this campaign; you can purchase each issue separately and still acquire the Original Fat Chocobo Mount.
  The first issue with FFXIV in-game item codes will be available here from Thursday 14th July. We will update the Lodestone post accordingly to make that clearer, and update when each issue becomes available for purchase through the coming months.

[Saphinara]

Yeah thanks to both of you for your help. I just took an extra minute because I hurt my hand while typing. It's up there though.

[Odessium]

snip

So you're sticking with 3 months...okay. That will apply to the rest of Europe aswell even if we get domestic campaigns. Otherwise people will just ignore that magazine. GG.

[Riusvell]

While I refrained from posting initially, as I was waiting for a community representative post, I don't think the outrage is understood.
People now have to wait three months, in order to get their items. NA/JP got their items fairly quickly.

Yes, we can get 1 set per month. But I'm talking here about all the items, that includes the Chocobo mount.
Not to mention that it is fairly expensive for people outside of the UK that do not have special promotions coming up for their country as prices do differ because of the economy.

This doesn't exactly clear up much and in all honesty, this promotion was not thought through properly. I get that Square Enix is doing their best to prevent another code-scamming from happening and I can respect this. But this is not the way to go at it. Especially using a dying medium for a promotion.

[Lone-wolfe-02]

It's nice a rep responded but why did you choose to do it this way to begin with? it's still incredibly inconvenient.

[Stumble]

Greetings,
Thank you for all your feedback. We would like to take this opportunity to clarify some points about the in-game item campaign with GamesMaster magazine.

Wow, I wasn't expecting a Team member to respond to this with all the negative feedback they're getting. Just because you're clarifying things in this post doesn't mean that this promotion isn't still awful, just put them on the mogstation and stop beating around the bush. (◕‿◕✿)