Steam payment HUGE price increase!

[DoppelShifter]

[...]
There's no question that the situation is dire, but if you're trying to bring attention to "the cause" and get Square Enix to take action, what are your demands? [...]

Well, as much as I half-joked with some revolutionary speeches here... I'm not a revolutionary leader, I'm not the representative of the player base (I'm as much of a representative as any other player), so I can't exactly "list demands".

But I can say what I would like to see Square Enix doing, even though they're very likely to resist that to their last, even if that means keeping their current collision course:


I'd like to see them indeed start moving less "half-assedly" towards true regional pricing. Reinstate the Russian and Brazilian prices and start to actually keep track on the pricing for other regions, and how they could implement better regional alternatives (Canada, Australia and New Zealand are no-brainers when it comes to "next places that need better official regional pricing"). Heck, they could even use Valve's metrics, if they seem so incapable of setting those prices themselves (...even though they already do that for the prices of the base game at Steam).
They would need to change quite a few systems when it comes to pricing, billing and account management, so this transition would probably take months; but if the process was dealt with transparency and information to the players, I'm pretty sure the impact wouldn't be negative.

Over the course of a year or two, most of their major regions could have a regional pricing system slightly akin to World of Warcraft or League of Legends. They'd probably also have a larger player base, which comes as a consequence of this type of price localization. If they manage to use their revenue well and manage their infrastructure without botching anything, we could have a better FFXIV, with fair pricing for more regions, more players and a large and steady revenue for Square Enix.
I don't mind if the solution isn't exactly short term. I'm more than happy to wait a few months in a less-than-optimal situation if that means we're moving towards an optimal one, rather than sticking our feet in the past.

Rose-tinted glasses? Maybe. But there are precedents all around, including their biggest competitor (World of Warcraft). If we don't fight for a decent service, they will never give it to us.