Steam payment HUGE price increase!

[Texa]

So the average person there can't even rent an apartment?!? That's so awful

Families usually live together. Kids tend to stay with their parents until they marry which can be well after they start working. So everyone contributes.

[aekh]

Does the price increase hurt? You bet it does! Is this going to cause players to stop playing? I'm sure it will. I may actually lose a friend by this, I'll have to talk to them and see if they can still pay/play. Should players request a refund from Steam or SE? If you feel like you have been taken advantage of you should absolutely request a refund. I wish you all luck.

Like it's been said a lot of times in this thread, the main issue here is the fact that this change happened without any previous warning. We do understand why it happened. All of this does not change the fact a company cannot simply make such a huge change a month after many people bought Stormblood without even letting these customers know they won't be paying the usual price for their subscription.

[Velxeor]

The decision can be considered final and unconstrained

Dear Ekaterina,

Thank you for contacting the Square Enix Support Centre.


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.

Please go to the following link for our official post on the matter:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post4320604

If you wish to leave further feedback on these changes ? we would recommend that you do so on this thread. We are very sorry for any confusion or disappointment these changes may have caused.


Kind regards,

The Square Enix Support Centre team

[ShenHeavyaxe]

I stand the flag where SE should have noticed beforehand.

About pricing it's understandable they change for whatever reason.

We need an official statement about how they will compensate us, this was too shady.

[Bloodmiracle]

Well, what can I say ... I thought I would stay in the game for a long time, but not for that kind of money and not with such an attitude towards myself. You feel like a third-class person. Now we will be looking for friends with another game. And yes, if the company did this to us now, then where is the guarantee that it will not do the same to players from other countries who pay in dollars and euros. So, I think this situation with players from Russia and Brazil is an occasion to think for all players.

[DoppelShifter]

[snip]

They don't disclose actual values, but we can infer that from the data we have from other games.

- 13USD is probably far, far, *far* more than what each active character costs to them. Numbers from World of Warcraft from years ago point that back in 2008, only 4 years after release, what they got in revenue from subs every 2 months was more than all of their expensives with servers, staff and development *for the whole 4 years*. Keep in mind that currently they not only have different regional prices, how they also foster a degree of free-to-play, in a sense (using the Token economy).
- There are multiple MMORPGs that are also huge and don't rely on subscriptions. They rely mostly on microtransactions and/or a flat initial price, plus external merch. Do mind that FFXIV does all four.
- FFXIV itself is sold through regional prices. FFXIV+Stormblood costs 105,99BRL on Steam, instead of ~200BRL (60USD).

[Texa]

"If you wish to leave further feedback on these changes?"

[DoppelShifter]

Funny how their "official response on the matter" is a measly forum post buried in the middle of a 45-page (and expanding) thread that is almost entirely against the decision, with strong arguments against either the decision itself, the handling of its player base while implementing this decision, or both.

[Xandos]

Like it's been said a lot of times in this thread, the main issue here is the fact that this change happened without any previous warning. We do understand why it happened. All of this does not change the fact a company cannot simply make such a huge change a month after many people bought Stormblood without even letting these customers know they won't be paying the usual price for their subscription.

The price change is what I am trying to determine. Was there previously a price discrepancy between the Mogstation and Steam, with Steam being cheaper? Did this change correct that discrepancy? Or was this just a flat increase across both platforms? If this change just fixed the discrepancy and the Mogstation price never changed, then this was not a price increase and SE is under no obligation to inform their users as per the EULA. If this was a flat increase across the board then they totally owed people fair notice before the change and should honor requests for refunds.

[Rymm]

I'm really curious now, I like to learn about other countries.

The most illustrative example of the differences of the realities between US and BR I can give is this-
I am American and my husband is Brazilian. When I first met him I was going to college in a tiny city (~25,000 pop) in the rural midwestern US and working just under 40 hours per week as a cashier at Walmart. He was the head of I.T. for a decently sized tax agency located in the largest (and one of the wealthiest) cities in the entirety of South America, let alone his country.

Converted to raw USD, I was making about $200 more per month than he was. And this was ten years ago when the dollar was about x2 real, now it is x3.

I'm not even going to get into the argument of whether or not it's "fair" that the two countries should pay the same in USD but it really torques me off that they 1- never bothered to announce the change, 2- it took them two days to even acknowledge it to the community, and 3- dropped this on us immediately after the timer to refund the DLC expired. All this is especially galling coming on the heels of the debacle from a couple of weeks ago where there was a week+ where all non-NA players trying to log on to NA servers couldn't stay connected without a VPN. We got absolutely no customer support during that time and even getting SE to acknowledge us in the tech support forums was like pulling teeth.

I love this game, really I do, but my husband and I are going to have to sit down and think long and hard if we really want to give R$100 a month to a company that continually treats us like something they stepped in.