Steam payment HUGE price increase!

[Ronivan]

Got a different answer from my ticket:

Thank you for contacting SQUARE ENIX Support,

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Thank you for contacting the SQUARE ENIX Support Center.

Really? Now they are not even trying to copy and paste anymore the same mechanic answer?

[Duolks]

Writing bad reviews to tank a games "score" just because you are upset it costs too much after a price change, though, is in my mind just as ridiculous as SE changing pricing without notice.

In this particular case they are right with the reviews, this is not a "one time buy" like a GTA, or a normal RPG, you buy the game and the playing experience is still heavily linked with the services of Square, so someone who as being cheated with this change of prices just after the time to get a refund is passed, and with the change of DC sendind the ping to 300 or more and not being adressed in any way... well... this player will be having a bad experience with the game and that's equal to a bad review.

[Niwashi]

I disagree with your interpretation (for NA ONLY...so the BRL change)- if you are not agreeing to auto renewal you are NOT incurring recurring fees...you have the choice every 30 days to purchase another product aka 30 day subscription.

I could certainly see someone, or some company, using that interpretation of the term "renewing" (even though that would more commonly be clearly spelled out as "automatically renewing"), but SE explicitly defined the term for this instance. By their own definition, as well as their own usage in that same paragraph, renewing just means that you have to keep paying it as long as you want to keep your subscription active and maintain your access to the game. There's nothing in that definition about whether the payment of that charge happens automatically or not.

[Takamorisan]

Really lousy, they broke their own contract by not giving a 30 day warning. First the servers, now this.

[Ashbury]

You misunderstood what I'm saying. I see many comparisons to north America being better off than south America. While this is true financially (at least for some) it has nothing at all to do with this situation. I also watched the youtube video about this and again all the comparisons are to north America. SE is not an American company, it's Japanese.

It doesn't really matter what the target of the comparison is since SA still has less purchasing power than Japan anyway. The end resuit is the same.

I'm pretty sure the subscripton price is based having NA in mind though, being the same as WoW and all. I doubt SE looked at JP market when deciding how to price their sub model.

[Drakanoth]

I think people are being a little ridiculous...Yes, it was bad business practice for SE to raise prices without notice. Yes, it is very poor (and very suspect to be honest) timing being one month after an Expansion launch (aka 30+ days which is a standard return policy for goods - though software tends to be shorter.)

People making bad reviews on Steam aren't talking about the game, though. If you ever go and check it out you'll see, most, if not all of them warn the reader beforehand:"The game is good, we're not giving bad reviews because of it." I'd agree with you if people were tanking down the game itself, but they aren't. And reviews shouldn't talk about the game only, especially because decisions like Square Enix just did can happen again, people should be warned, especially if they are from our countries to which Square Enix seems to care little.

[Rofel]

What makes me really upset is that we had no warning before buying the expac. People already had to adapt paying more with VPN services, so knowing beforehand that the price would change so much after one single month, I would have reconsider my purchase. Feeling played like a fiddle rn.

[Furious]

I think people are being a little ridiculous...Yes, it was bad business practice for SE to raise prices without notice. Yes, it is very poor (and very suspect to be honest) timing being one month after an Expansion launch (aka 30+ days which is a standard return policy for goods - though software tends to be shorter.) However, in the end no matter how horrible the situation was handled with lack of communication before any changes occurred - it is in their right to change prices. It sucks and you have your right to voice your opinion in forums and on Steam, but it is what it is. Writing bad reviews to tank a games "score" just because you are upset it costs too much after a price change, though, is in my mind just as ridiculous as SE changing pricing without notice. If the reasoning for a low score was changing prices without notice, that is a little more reasonable though that is more of a reflection on a corporations pricing policies and NOT the actual end product (not to say those policies have no relevance.) This is basically the equivalent of people protesting in front of a store...99% of the time I find those people are best ignored.

Increasing the price by 40% with no pre-warning is an absolute joke and deserves every ounce of pushback it gets.

We should all tank the score in solidarity with people affected by the change. It's pure greed. There are very few ways in which people can actually enact change upon a company to force its hand in a direction other than what it takes; this is one of them.

Increasing the monthly price of a product by 40% with no pre-warning, one month after selling an expansion to that product, is beyond reprehensible. There is no action that can be taken to reverse the damage done by it. There is no chance that SE didn't know this change was on the cards when they sold people stormblood, and thus they have absolutely taken complete advantage of their users.

[colnix]

So, here is the answer from my ticket:

Unfortunately, it would not be possible for us to provide a refund or to transfer any data between accounts. We are very sorry for any confusion or disappointment these changes may have caused.

In other words:
- U have old account with FF XIV
- U decide to comeback in SB, see that steam has region prices, think what will get/ lose, buy all pack in steam
- U buy all potions with lvl up and main scenario in order not to play classic once more when no1 is playing it
- Play FF XIV
- ???
- SE change prices to normal in steam and cant refund and change service accounts. Just because.

Dear SE. Am i correct? Ur support said to ask here. Im waiting for official answer. Thank you.

[polyphonica]

The EU version is not as clean and they screwed themselves on that one - it can not be interpreted the same and they INDEED did not follow their own ToS/U. EU has a case...NA I do not believe does - at least imo.

For what it's worth, the EU one is clean for the other reason you went on to say -- they say in the agreement where the prices are posted, and that they'll provide notification if they change "those rates." But the prices on the official site are only in Euros/Pounds, not in any other currency, and when you subscribe directly through Square Enix, you pay those prices (even in Russia, etc.). It was only Steam that was different. They would argue that it was always their intention that everyone around the world pay the same subscription fees, but only Steam had manually set currency rates that were outdated, and they only made the change in two countries where the rates were significantly outdated.

Doesn't make things better for the people impacted, of course. As we see, a lot of people joined the game specifically because they could afford the Steam-adjusted local rates, so the decision (even if it was some sort of unintended loophole) will cause them to lose business. I am guessing they decided it would be unfair for only Steam players in those two countries to get regional pricing. Perhaps the reason for the lack of notice was because they didn't want a rush of people quickly going to Steam to take advantage of the "cheap prices" before they changed, but it's still a mess.