Steam codes vs. PC codes

[cactusking]

Dear Square-Enix,

I just got off the phone with customer support for the third time. They've been nothing but helpful, at least as helpful as they can be without any real decision making power. You see, I purchased the Heavensward collector's edition from your website, without thinking for even a second that the game code would be incompatible with the version of ARR I bought on Steam forever ago. I'm sure some research beforehand would have let me know this, but I was too distracted by the statue and the art book.

Now customer service tells me that this is a pretty widespread issue, and that a solution is being investigated. They say there's a tiny possibility that we'll be given usable codes for the game that we've purchased, which is an entirely reasonable outcome for this situation. Now I'm obviously very much in favor of this outcome, so I might be a little biased. I assure you, this is a tremendous opportunity to step up and provide excellent customer service to your players. This is your chance to stand out from not only companies that run MMOs, but game companies in general that barely provide adequate service to their customers. In no way is this a sign of weakness, or caving in to groups trying to exploit you. I'm sure I can speak for most, if not all, of us with this problem when I say that what we want isn't malicious in nature. No matter what the verdict ends up being, people will talk about this. Reactions will get posted on reddit, and possibly twitter, and I'm sure we'd all prefer to say good things about the games we play and the companies that make them, rather than vent our frustrations to the internet. When my friends see me playing FFXIV and ask me why I bother playing MMOs anymore, I want to be able to say, 'well this one's different, and here's why.'

[Assirra]

I got a similar but completely opposite issue.

I got 2 versions of FFXIV. A square store version i bought first and the steam version later when it was on sale for the steam overlay. Now when i went to buy Heavensward i thought it would be best to buy the steam version since i had zero issues with it so far.
However, now that i actually finished the story and the game said i didn't have HW installed some alarm was going on. I checked steam and it said it was installed so did some research and found out that you have to activate on mog station as well on your account. So i thought ok let's do this and tried 3 times but my steam HW key got refused. Big alarm in my head and did some more research and it seems that if you bought a mog station account first you cannot add the steam HW code on it. So i essentially bought 35euro of useless code.
I am not requesting a steam refund but you can be sure if i don't get it, i will straight up quit this game. The 2 versions are not compatible even tough on the site it saids they are identical.

[worldofneil]

A square store version i bought first and the steam version later when it was on sale for the steam overlay.

You could have just added FFXIV to Steam as a non-Steam game if you only wanted the overlay, but basically when you bought it the second time they gave you a code for the Steam version, but you never used it (that was for creating a new account, but you continued to use your old non-Steam account). The game installation is exactly the same for Steam and non-Steam (both update directly with SE), the only difference is the code that you use to register the game defines whether it is Steam based or not.

I am not requesting a steam refund but you can be sure if i don't get it, i will straight up quit this game.

I honestly wish you luck with that, but I think you should be prepared that you probably won't get it. HW is categorised as a DLC on the Steam store and the Steam refunds say you can only get a refund on DLC if you've played the underlying game for less than 2 hours since your bought the DLC. I don't know what your playtime is like, but from what you've said it suggests you've played for a lot more than 2 hours since you bought HW.

You can read the Steam refund policy at: http://store.steampowered.com/steam_refunds/