Steam payment HUGE price increase!

[aekh]

The question on this thread has been more about why there was no announcement than why change but Ok.

And I can question the logic when you see the argument behind the question. But yeah sure.

If you read most of the thread, it's already assumed it's from SE.

Judging by the responses people have gotten from SE after sending them tickets, it's actually still pretty unclear if it was a deliberate decision or a random error. There's no way for us to know until SE oficially speaks about the matter. Right now, the only thing people affected by it (like myself and many others in this thread) can do is voice their opinions and hope they'll listen to us. Which is why we're still here.

[Melorie]

I hope that this is an error, and even if it turns out it is not, any kind of announcement - either by steam or square enix - would have been much appreciated. People might have to cancel the formation of statics and even disband FCs because of such price increase. I'm not even going to try the auto-renewal method until we're certain if this change is for real.

I'm a middle-class brazilian, and even the current price is way too much for me, or any sub-based mmo, honestly. I wouldn't even have bought stormblood expansion if I knew this was coming, sigh.

[Whutharth]

The game is worth its money - 13 euros.

[Indefiinable]

I think I am being a bit thick
Let me just clarify. The new price now falls in line with the price in other countries but that is a huge problem because the average disposable income in Brazil is much lower?

But that is how exchange rates work isn't it? They look at a countries average income, levels of unemployment, cost of living, GDP and many many other economic factors and say OK my 1 USD is the relative value of your 3.15 BRL.

So while I appreciate that an anoucement would have been courteous if not required by the ToS I must be missing something if this has suddenly become totally unaffordable when the relative value in real terms is now the same as in every other country

[Ckrownz]

So... any news about the price increased ?
I can afford to pay, but my friends not, what is a MMORPG without people that you care ?

[Zeonsilt]

I should also note that the price change applies to Mogstation itself in general, not only subscription.

I.e. Brazil players got a +70-80%~ increase and Russian players got +300% (lol, wut? it's first time i see something like this) increase in pricing of Mogstation items. (aka glams, emotes, dye's, etcwhatever)
p.s. I'd say with +300% increase forget about anything from it, it's outrageous at this point.

[Melorie]

But that is how exchange rates work isn't it?

Read the thread, since this point has already been discussed.

p.s. I'd say with +300% increase forget about anything from it, it's outrageous at this point.

If it's kinda hard on brazilian players (that decided to play the game only because of steam currency system), I can't even imagine what it is for our fellow russians. We deserved at least a warning, honestly.

[Texa]

So while I appreciate that an anoucement would have been courteous if not required by the ToS I must be missing something if this has suddenly become totally unaffordable when the relative value in real terms is now the same as in every other country

A big concern with brazillian players is that they don't have voice acting, translations, official webpages, data centers, forums, or customer support in their native language. But with this very sudden no-warning update they are being charged the same price as all of the people who do get those things.

I think it wouldn't be as big of a deal if they got even the fraction of support that people who are fluent in English, German, French, and Japanese do. Like, just bare bones a general for people who don't speak those languages would be nice so people who can't speak English to complain about this won't get their posts deleted for not speaking English.
(just to note, I'm from Texas)

[EriShvakh]

I think I am being a bit thick

You are, yes. Let me explain this to you really simply. Tomorrow when you decide to pay your sub, you suddenly discover that it costs you 35$ instead of 15$. What's the big deal, it's just 20$ more, who cares!

[Legewiel]

I think I am being a bit thick
But that is how exchange rates work isn't it? They look at a countries average income, levels of unemployment, cost of living, GDP and many many other economic factors and say OK my 1 USD is the relative value of your 3.15 BRL.

So while I appreciate that an announcement would have been courteous if not required by the ToS I must be missing something if this has suddenly become totally unaffordable when the relative value in real terms is now the same as in every other country

I'm not an economist, but i doubt that exchange rates are calculated on the way you said. Japanese's Yen have an exchange rate even worse than Brazilian's Real and Japan is a first world country and in a way better shape than Brazil, but it's interesting for Japan to keep yen cheaper so they can export more products than importing and they do produce a lot of things, unlike Brazil. So yeah it's not that easy. Best way to compare this things would be to check the monthly minimum wage on each country and convert it to dollar so you'd discover how much that person can buy in dollar.

About it being interesting or not for square to have different prices in different regions of the world, it's probably all about the potencial of each market. Russia and Brazil (among some other countries) have a lower incoming but they can potentially have a lot of customers for square cause their population is huge (Brazil is the 5th biggest country in population, Russia the 9th) and on top of that most of them can't afford high spec computers to run other games so an MMO is a good alternative as they normally require lower specs like ffxiv. And with square having no cost with servers in this regions (that is why we play with 200~300ms latency) and not even with translation costs (have you noticed that this game only have translations on rich countries?) it ends up being a good deal for them.

So that is probably why we had a different deal. To accommodate the reality of the country vs getting a lot of paying customers. This is actually pretty standard nowadays most games have a cheaper price on poor markets that have a huge sale potential so they can inflate their numbers (having a game that sells a lot is good for their business cause it brings even more attention to the game, people get attracted by this numbers and also selling it cheaper on this countries but selling more means more incoming).

Another good example is China, it's not a rich country but it's the biggest country of the world in population. They have so much potential that they have their own ffxiv server, with exclusive itens that we don't even have on NA or get it months later after much crying, Windows is a lot cheaper there and I dunno if you noticed but a lot of blockbuster movie's are being co-produced with China, cause China have a law that only allows a small number of foreign movies per year to be exhibited there unless they're co-produced. and their market is so huge that it's interesting for movie producers cause even if the movie don't go so well in the US it gets saved by the Chinese box office.