I had been eagerly awaiting this game for a long time, but they almost had me lost when they announced the payment methods I think the day of the retail release. I was so turned off from it that despite all my hype and loyalty to the FF series and previous MMO, I would have skipped this one entirely. The only thing that kept me in was the fact that all my friends were also playing, and since we've had a long haitus from billing it's not a current concern but always a looming one.

I remember when I picked up my copy from Gamestop, the clerk naively tried to upsell me some prepaid cards that other MMO's use. When I laughed at him and explained what this game actually requires he, and the other employee were completely dumbfounded. None of us could really fathom why a large company such as SE was going a backdoor route more befitting of an indie title. And all recognized that this game will be extremely difficult to sell to minors ever.

It just adds a whole lot of confusion and a lot of extra time signing up for various other services and accounts to this that and the other, just to be able to start your game play. SE has many other branches within the company that have their own online stores with direct credit card payment set up. I'm not really sure why they decided to go this really uncomfortable route for their gaming branch.

Even if it meant me paying a small processing fee on top of my credit charge, I'd still prefer direct payment over the other options.

I hope a com rep is able to project our concerns to the dev team. Not that I expect they are able to personally do anything about it as that is a different relm, but it would be one more step up the ladder to someone whom could.