Steam payment HUGE price increase!

[EkaterinaMikota]

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

[Zeonsilt]

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/

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).

[EndarionSunseeker]

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

[EkaterinaMikota]

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).

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!

[Velxeor]

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.

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*

[colnix]

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*

ive created the ticket and waiting for reply

[Argantaelle]

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?

[osataya]

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)

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.

[HangoY]

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

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".

[KisaiTenshi]

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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'.

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?

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.

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'?

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.