Quote Originally Posted by worldofneil View Post
It's not anything to do with Steam though. The Steam Subscriber Agreement still says:



Back in March SE originally said "In order to align even more closely with Steam policies...". I then asked Steam about it and they had no knowledge of what was going on. After I posted that information in the big thread Square Enix quietly updated the post to the current "As part of our fraud prevention measures..."

Steam aren't enforcing this change, Square Enix are.

So you can say it's our own fault for buying it on Steam, but if Steam didn't require us to run their client when we bought the game and they still don't require it now... how are we not supposed to be upset that SE is selectively penalising users who bought it on that platform?
I don't believe this is true, because it would be completely counter to Square Enix's ability to make as much money off their expansion sales and subscription sales as they possibly could.

Here's the reality: By doing this, Valve gets to start forcing collection of its 30% cut on not just expansion sales, but subscription fees. A friend of mine who's account was through Steam, but had been paying for his sub through Square, recently returned and found that Valve is now requiring him to pay his subscription through Steam Wallet, not Square's Mog Station.

Translation? Steam gets a cut.

If what you say is true, that would be Square pushing this through to only lose 30% of all revenues on subs for any copy sold through Steam. That would be the most blundering business move ever, and I doubt they're that stupid. If anything, they'd want to keep that for themselves.

This is what happens when you have a Marketplace Monopoly like Valve has; they can pull off anti-consumer moves like this and get away with it. I'd agree with the notion that if things go sideways, there should at least be an option to purchase a second license through SE itself.