Please allow Steam License holders to buy a standalone PC License.

[Kes13a]

I don't think it's a falsehood when we cannot do it. Period. Especially without losing our characters and accounts.

Nothing you said, changes what the people in this thread want. Nothing you said doesn't change the fact that this needs to be fixed.

It's a long shot, yes, but I wont stop asking. It's been a thing a lot of steam users have wanted since 3 or so years ago when they started changing how we needed to access the game. Heck issues go all the way back to HW really.

not to put too fine a point on it but..

even if you had a "PC" account and you wanted to move your character to another "PC" account... they either will not, or cannot do it.

this has NOTHING to do with it being a steam account, it has to do with you cannot switch characters from one account to another. THAT's where the problem is. has zero to do with the fact that its steam. if you are going to complain about a problem, at least complain about the right problem.

[Youkulm]

I'm not sure were asking for the same thing. So not sure why you're pointing out my posts specifically? Perhaps you need another thread?

This thread is about Steam users wanting to be able to be able to buy PC Keys the same way we can buy MAC and PS Keys. Period.

[fxmaxximus]

And you are (Kes13a)? Square Enix allows only a minute amount of employment to Final Fantasy 14. There are games 100X less profitable with 100X more employment and 100X more malleability. That is the facts. Your delusions of facts are NOT. What Square Enix is limited by is their own capacity for capability. BUT, they had the time to patch for STEAM who, by the way, DIDN'T pay for a damn thing. No, the player who bought the game and purchases crap IN THE GAME did.

[Diplopod]

Took me 10 minutes to log in today, because Steam runs like garbage. So looking forward to having to deal with that every single day, every time I log in.

Also great "security" update. Now instead of only having one account that could be compromised, I have two that could be and block me from playing the game. Because having a OTP was not enough apparently.

This isn't for security, it's poorly disguised DRM, which I did not agree to when I bought this on Steam 4 years ago. Just let us buy a Windows version without having to start over.

[Diplopod]

this has NOTHING to do with it being a steam account, it has to do with you cannot switch characters from one account to another. THAT's where the problem is. has zero to do with the fact that its steam. if you are going to complain about a problem, at least complain about the right problem.

No one's asking for their characters to be moved to another account. Do you have any idea how the console lisences work? They can all go on the same account. Same characters, regardless of what you're playing on.

People are literally asking to be able to use the normal launcher over the Steam one (whether they need to buy a separate license or not). That is it. The account would not need to change, no character data would need to be moved.

Please stop acting like you're an authority on this when you have no idea what you're talking about.

[Jin-]

Over 8 years ago i bought the game on Steam, never had any issues with it and now out of blue Square decided to ruin it all for giggles.

[BillyKaplan]

The new steam linking system does not look for product keys, I'm happy to announce
It only seeks that the steam account has the base game

Even if it's not the cd key that's registered to the account you linked, it'll link and launch with no problem

Hope everyone has no problems with their linking

Can anyone else confirm this? Since it's a bit expensive to even test ha...

[Johners]

Look, I've been playing Final Fantasy since 1990. I do not give a crap about Steam. I only used steam to begin with because I had issues with Square Enix online store for Final Fantasy. I live in the U.S.A. and we live in a free market system. I DO NOT GIVE A RATS BUNGHOLE about STEAM! Please, just give me copies of the standalone PC version and remove all STEAM access. I do NOT even understand the logic behind this change at all. Thank you! I was here when Final Fantasy had this mess of a login system and was a beta tester; Although not on this account but an actual Final Fantasy account. I'll go back to the old Final Fantasy 11 login if thats what you wish but don't integrate a damn thing with Steam. I do not care about Steam.

If you don't care about Steam, why did you buy it on Steam? Steam isn't a random license key website, it's a fully fledged platforms with games designed around its feature set. FFXIV is no different in this regard and the fact you could launch FFXIV in this way for so long is a mistake on behalf of Square Enix as the publisher. If you went through the process of selling a game on Steam and actually looked at the agreement between publisher and Valve (the platform holder and distributer), you'd have to deal with the same thing.

It's highly likely that SQUARE ENIX can't just provide a non-Steam alternative based on how these platforms operate. The game licence and any accounts under that will always "belong" to Steam in that regard and thus you will always have to use it to play FFXIV unless you want to start again which you're welcome to do.

There's so much COPIUM on this forum of people that don't understand how Valve/Steam operates as a platform like the other major platforms. It's pretty standard for a game purchase on a major platform to also tie progress to that platform and in situations where things can be transferred, limitations apply and/or the publisher pays for the right to do that (why do you think it took so long for online games like Fortnite or Destiny to actually implement cross-platform multiplayer).

SE aren't just going to barge in and tell Valve no, it simply doesn't work like that. Not to mention all the people, myself included, that like using Steam and would like to see SE actually use more of the platform's feature set in the distribution of FFXIV. I'd love to see the Steam version not require the extra launcher and use Steam's CDNs for distributing the game and updates. It could also be like Destiny 2 in having it's own account but doing all the setup and linking in-game directly so pressing play on Steam takes me straight into the game, not another launcher (not to mention never having to enter your username/password because it authenticates via the linked Steam account) that you'll already be signed into).

[Ivtrix]

If you don't care about Steam, why did you buy it on Steam? Steam isn't a random license key website, it's a fully fledged platforms with games designed around its feature set. FFXIV is no different in this regard and the fact you could launch FFXIV in this way for so long is a mistake on behalf of Square Enix as the publisher. If you went through the process of selling a game on Steam and actually looked at the agreement between publisher and Valve (the platform holder and distributer), you'd have to deal with the same thing.

It's highly likely that SQUARE ENIX can't just provide a non-Steam alternative based on how these platforms operate. The game licence and any accounts under that will always "belong" to Steam in that regard and thus you will always have to use it to play FFXIV unless you want to start again which you're welcome to do.

This is victim blaming. If steam users had been made well aware they would be signing up for extra DRM they would have avoided it entirely. Besides, the same is fucking hard enough to purchase on its own. Am i supposed to perform research on how to buy the game before even buying it?

The smug holier than thou attitude is palpable.

[Arccharger]

I dislike posting publicly about this sort of thing but honestly I hope they here this.

This is not a good change. It's increasing the points of failure in the product. It's already impacting users. Even if it worked as intended it's extra steps in the user experience.
This affects users that may not have known about other options to purchase the game. It leads to regret from the people that have actually purchased the game on steam.
If I had known it would affect me the way it has before I purchased the game I would have 100% used their website instead. However I purchased the game on steam because of the ease of access and the local currency.

For those saying this is how it has to be due to user agreement I direct you to look at games with similar launchers on steam. Warframe for example doesn't have this sort of DRM and it uses a very similar style of launcher.
I would also like to point out this also impacts users on non-windows platforms.

While I don't expect anything to come from posting this, I do help that is lets SE hear the community.