We anticipate that even with this update, third parties will continue

[LathyrusLoon]

I too hate this change. minions and emotes were some of my favorite things to give my friends on their birthdays, or for FC events.

and it's a double slap to the face knowing that they KNOW it won't actually help against 3rd parties. So they know all this does is punish those of us tgat do follow the rules. it's so stupid.

[Iscah]

and it's a double slap to the face knowing that they KNOW it won't actually help against 3rd parties. So they know all this does is punish those of us tgat do follow the rules. it's so stupid.

Read the actual article and not the OP's inaccurate summary-by-reaction. They do not say that they "know it won't help", they say that they know the scammers will continue to attempt to get around it, as a step to saying they have processes in place to delete illegally-obtained items from the buyer's account.

It's understandable to be upset, but it's also important to be upset at what they actually did say and not somebody else's claim of what they said.

[SenseiMaria]

Read the actual article and not the OP's inaccurate summary-by-reaction. They do not say that they "know it won't help", they say that they know the scammers will continue to attempt to get around it, as a step to saying they have processes in place to delete illegally-obtained items from the buyer's account.

It's understandable to be upset, but it's also important to be upset at what they actually did say and not somebody else's claim of what they said.

This. RMTers will always try to get around these things, which is what Square is saying. So long as people keep buying this stuff and there's a profit margin for the 3rd parties to keep doing it, they'll keep doing it.

But one look at a very popular item code resale website has shown effectively every mogstation mount listing has been wiped out, and the remaining few have new notices like 'while code supplies last'. This change Impacted them heavily. They'll likely try and figure out how to monetize the remaining options as best they can, but in one decisive strike, Square just crushed 95% of the code relisting sellers. It is working.

This situation is almost completely temporary. You think Square would just leave money on the table for literally no reason? No, thats absurd, they're a capitalist business. This whole situation just screams of 'we needed a solution NOW, we'll implement this and then change it when we get a better one operational' to me.

EDIT: super cropped to not promote said website, but just to showcase:

This guy used to have 150 some odd offerings for basically everything on the mogstation that wasn't already dirt cheap. Today he's down to 18, with the indigo whale & chocobo carriage being the only two remaining, with only 2 & 3 supplies remaining in the listings respectively. His store offerings got annihilated

[Midareyukki]

This. RMTers will always try to get around these things, which is what Square is saying. So long as people keep buying this stuff and there's a profit margin for the 3rd parties to keep doing it, they'll keep doing it.

This is a curious thing that I don't see many people consider all that often.

Okay, so we hammer down on third party tools because they're too easy to add. All it takes is people finding an exploit or workaround, and that will be explored as hard as it can be. And odds are, Square won't be the ones designing this tool themselves, they'll use anti-cheat methods that are out there, which are still just as vulnerable. It'll stop cheating for the first few times, but again, all it takes is people finding a window and they'll squeeze right in.

They can try to make it harder. But obviously, some third party tools are actually helping the game just as much as they're hindering it. And some fall in a gray zone that Square is "okay" with, even if just through word of mouth. Suddenly all of those will be blacklisted, and you don't see Square go out of their way to implement an official version of their own.

And it's not like their decision doesn't harm them. Square Enix isn't stupid. It wasn't Yoshida who randomly came up with the idea, it wasn't even one of their interns. It was a collective decision, and while it likely is the most extreme, it's also the most immediate and guaranteed fix. This is going to hurt Square, this is going to upset quite a lot of people. But this is also going to ensure that the game isn't screwed over in the long term. And if it removes incentives from people taking your account details, then that's a good thing. Maybe in the future they may reconsider it, create a workaround, talk to people and so on. But for now, this is the avenue that they've chosen, and while it's a sucky sacrifice, it's a sacrifice that seems to be paying off as much (if not more) than it's hurting.

[Shibi]

...And it's not like their decision doesn't harm them. Square Enix isn't stupid. It wasn't Yoshida who randomly came up with the idea, it wasn't even one of their interns. It was a collective decision, and while it likely is the most extreme, it's also the most immediate and guaranteed fix. This is going to hurt Square, this is going to upset quite a lot of people. But this is also going to ensure that the game isn't screwed over in the long term. And if it removes incentives from people taking your account details, then that's a good thing. Maybe in the future they may reconsider it, create a workaround, talk to people and so on. But for now, this is the avenue that they've chosen, and while it's a sucky sacrifice, it's a sacrifice that seems to be paying off as much (if not more) than it's hurting.

And it may well be paying off, but unless the playerbase does speak and reasonably says "well this sucks, and we hope you can improve it" then SE will have little impetus for improving it. Gifting of mounts, minions, and emotes is lost to us forever.

I think it's quite reasonable they take their immediate action, for whatever real reason and harsh as it may be, but I do want them to sit down now and put some effort into this still so that things can be improved for us genuine players. Be that an increase in the time a friend needs to be in place, future delivery of an item, requiring OTP, checking IP address history, linking in the lodestone APIs on mount/minion possessions, or whatever it may be. Not that they are addressing a supposed problem, they should be able to work this out.

[Midareyukki]

And it may well be paying off, but unless the playerbase does speak and reasonably says "well this sucks, and we hope you can improve it" then SE will have little impetus for improving it. Gifting of mounts, minions, and emotes is lost to us forever.

I think it's quite reasonable they take their immediate action, for whatever real reason and harsh as it may be, but I do want them to sit down now and put some effort into this still so that things can be improved for us genuine players. Be that an increase in the time a friend needs to be in place, future delivery of an item, requiring OTP, checking IP address history, linking in the lodestone APIs on mount/minion possessions, or whatever it may be. Not that they are addressing a supposed problem, they should be able to work this out.

Yep. Not disputing that. In fact, according to that twitter post, assuming it's true, Square's hands were tied. They likely were forced to go for an extreme measure.

So if people want to change this and have them implement a different method, then we need to make it known. If you understand how finances and how the visa thing works, if you can provide a better way than just "reopen the thing and risk these charlatans coming in and ruining things again", then say something.

Like, yeah, people are upset. Because it is an extreme measure. But it wasn't so hare-brained, they likely are aware of the repercussions. So being angy at the devs over this is a bit... eh? What's important is to now tell the devs to work on a way around this in the future or use a different method. Assuming they want to listen ^^; could also be that they think this is fine and leave it as-is.

[KremlinKOA]

This situation is almost completely temporary. You think Square would just leave money on the table for literally no reason? No, thats absurd, they're a capitalist business. This whole situation just screams of 'we needed a solution NOW, we'll implement this and then change it when we get a better one operational' to me.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Let me tell you about New Coke.

Some decades back, Coke was afraid they would lose market share to Pepsi. Because Pepsi was sweeter and might give a bigger sugar rush.

So they developed a new, sweeter, recipe.
They called it New Coke.
It was a disaster and Coke sales fell through the floor.
Coca Cola Corp responded, a few months later, by bringing back the old recipe under the label 'Classic Coke'.

For a long time afterward, conspiracy theorists claimed it was all part of a secret ploy to make minor changes to the original Coke recipe and have the public accept them.
They claimed there were warehouses full of cans of 'Classic Coke' for a year, ready to go.

These theories were thoroughly debunked (For one, aluminium cans cannot hold Coke for that long without ruining it.) But people kept believing them.
Why?
Because they were under the, false, belief that Capitalist Corporations never make the mistake of leaving money on the table.


Corporations DO make major mistakes.
Square Enix made a few recently, that cost them money.

They badly underestimated the potential sales of Endwalker and had to stop selling the game while trying to upgrade the servers.
They let a major code bug through the QA tests and caused the first Housing Auction to be a disaster.
I can mention a few, minor, story flow errors in Endwalker that have left many streamers emotionally uninvested in *Spoiler Redacted*.

This is, IMHO, another such error. The anger here is a symptom of that mistake.

So in other words:
Stormpeaks: "This negatively affects my experience when using this service."
SassyAssassin: "Well it doesn't affect MINE, so your bad experiences don't matter."

Pretty much says everything we need to know about you.

[Deveryn]

Corporations DO make major mistakes.
Square Enix made a few recently, that cost them money.

They badly underestimated the potential sales of Endwalker and had to stop selling the game while trying to upgrade the servers.
They let a major code bug through the QA tests and caused the first Housing Auction to be a disaster.
I can mention a few, minor, story flow errors in Endwalker that have left many streamers emotionally uninvested in *Spoiler Redacted*.

This is, IMHO, another such error. The anger here is a symptom of that mistake.

It's not looking like an error on their part, but a problem that picked up back in September when they originally announced they were suspending gifting. There was that huge breach elsewhere and a bunch of accounts managed to get compromised, which made more resources available for RMT. A lot of those accounts had saved payment info and you know what happens with that. There's plenty of user fault in this, especially with the people engaging in these transactions thinking they were safe.

[KremlinKOA]

It's not looking like an error on their part, but a problem that picked up back in September when they originally announced they were suspending gifting. There was that huge breach elsewhere and a bunch of accounts managed to get compromised, which made more resources available for RMT. A lot of those accounts had saved payment info and you know what happens with that. There's plenty of user fault in this, especially with the people engaging in these transactions thinking they were safe.

I am saying their error is choosing the wrong solution.

In this case. Consider instead simply restricting the ability to purchase gifts to those accounts that have had a OTP for at least 30 days.

Sure, new accounts are restricted from gifting. But the ability for Streamers, Content Creators, FC leaders and RP social hub operators to continue their prize systems, and other use of gifts, would continue unhindered.

It would also solve the 'account got hacked and used for RMT' issue

As OTP and 2FA have proven the single most effective defense against such things.

SE chose a poor solution that carries negative effects, both for them, and for the players.

[Havenchild]

So in other words:
Stormpeaks: "This negatively affects my experience when using this service."
SassyAssassin: "Well it doesn't affect MINE, so your bad experiences don't matter."

Pretty much says everything we need to know about you.

Except they aren't technically wrong. Your ability to "surprise" someone is in fact seperated from your ability to "gift" someone regardless of what you think it is. These two concepts do not run in tangent with each other. You can still gift someone something and you can still "surprise" them with a gift card. You can't surprise them specifically with a mount.

The entire conversation in this thread is being muddied by two seperate philosophies of people who are saying they can no longer buy someone a mount and others saying they can no longer gift friends period, which are both still technically untrue. You can provide a gift card and people can buy the item (or any item) if they want to.

So yes they are correct in stating that you can easily work around this. You can also say it can be an inconvenience to some. Both are equally right though. This isn't really that much of big deal and I highly doubt this will even be some super hot topic in the coming months. People will adjust to gift cards, for mount gifting specifically, its as simple as that.