Hating the new mog station restrictions.

[Rieze_Xeero]

FC events took a big hit with this. Time to change rewards to non FFXIV related items, probably steam gift cards to so can play another game

[Amarande]

Edited to add: I can't help but feel like this is yet another massive blow to our attempts at community building on OCE. Our members of the FC there are more casual and gil purchases for gifts aren't an option for everyone. Plus it signifcantly hinders our prizes from events, obviously.

RIP first Christmas.

Yeah, that's an oof (and it doesn't really help that I often get the anxious feeling that online venues really don't want "communities" in the old social sense anymore, either ... I'm probably overthinking it, but there's a pretty logical seeming case for it, too. See some of my comments about Discord for the likely problem, or all the heat being thrown around towards Zuckerberg in recent years, etc.).

Sadly even not counting the chargeback problems, I'm also not surprised RMT is getting put under the "hyper priority we don't care what gets dinged up in the fight" lens again, given the general scrutiny digital goods have come under lately for various reasons (money laundering, taxes, etc) thanks in large part to NFTs and recent cryptocoin shenanigans. The kind of thing that seems silly for players to care about but likely is something that big business is basically having their arm twisted to.

Wouldn't be the first time I've seen heartless seeming game changes made that seem enough in the face of RL policy shifts to make you at least wonder, either - e.g., Diablo 3 ending its real money auction house feature conspicuously around the time US tax officials were putting "virtual currencies" under the lens (targeting things like Bitcoin of course, but there wasn't any logical reason that D3 gold wouldn't have been covered as well, if Blizzard had continued to officially support its exchange for real money ... indeed, one has to wonder in that light if an insufficiently tough stance against RMT could even get one's ingame currency considered "money." Possibly an overthink there, but could you imagine if it did happen and you did have to pay tax on ingame currency earnings? Active players could basically be forced to become vendors to afford it, seeing that you can't exactly remit taxes in gil or gold ... LOL).

Or WoW reforming its skill system in late BC to always prioritize PvP over PvE needs and heavily mute the effect of RNG, which was right around the time that they were introducing PvP as an esport with cash prize tournaments - and, quite notably, right around the same time US officials were cracking down on those online poker rooms. Possibly a business risk concern as to whether or not WoW was strictly enough a game of skill to avoid becoming collateral damage under such scrutiny?

[TheSankaku]

While I would agree that the entire points made in this thread are all valid, I would be surprised if Square Enix actually didn't consider other options. This is one that makes an overall to the company, for a company that actually cares a lot about their own profits.

I do think that the code removal from the store is fine, but I also think that the reality of the situation is that items should not be removed from the giftable options. While it is true that mount codes are most purchased by scammers, it is plain obvious that the fear of being banned (because now gifts are tied to the player) would mean that players wanting to buy "cheaper" mounts would actually think twice since there is now a reason to not do so.

This is probably just them just hamming down, and loosening up once the dust eventually settles.

[Iscah]

Right there with you. My FC has events that had always given away mounts and minions.. And now one of the leaders is stuck with stuff they bought for a halloween party and can't gift now.=

If you've already bought the codes, I'm pretty sure they're still going to be valid. You just can't buy new ones.

[VelKallor]

Mounts and emotes were my favorite thing to gift.

Which is why they were prime targets for theft using stolen credit cards.

[hynaku]

I only see it causing them loss profits that they could have earned.

[EaMett]

I wanted to gift a friend a leveling boost for an alt. Went from me being able to do that anonymously through the mog station to me needing to send the money over PayPal which really sucks and isn't anonymous at all.
I wish they at least allowed players who've had long-lasting subscriptions to use the same CC they use on the sub to send people gifts. Not a perfect situation, but it should at least provide a workaround for some of us.

That being said. Their making store items harder to obtain without a care in the world is oddly refreshing in this microtransaction gaming era. It's unfortunate that it's also incredibly frustrating.

[Shibi]

I wanted to gift a friend a leveling boost for an alt.

Level and story skips are both giftable. You just need to be friends with them.

[EaMett]

Snip

Nice!! That definitely wasn't there when we were trying to do it. 3 of us looked everywhere. Maybe it was just too close to the announcement and things weren't set up just yet. It's good to know that at least these ones are still giftable.

[Xelanar]

Square Enix: a gazzillion dollar company incapable of checking if a character being gifted a mount or emote already posesses the corresponding action prior to the purchase.
Sounds like an unsolvable problem to me. If only the required information was stored somewhere accessible. Like in a database...