Steam payment HUGE price increase!

[Edduard]

A basic salary in Brazil is around 280 USD, how much is in a rich country?

[Ckrownz]

The Steam store page for FFXIV is already being bombarded with negative reviews, and their score is indeed being affected (it dropped from an average 85% to a 72% "recent" average -- and then it dropped to 71% as I was writing this). Still could use some more momentum, though.

Some people already contacted journalists about this and the word is spreading.

Let's see who will react first: Square Enix to plug this potential PR nightmare, or the megaphones that are shouting about SE's poorly chosen business decisions.

Any journalists have given an answer ?

[DoppelShifter]

A basic salary in Brazil is around 280 USD, how much is in a rich country?

In the US, it's 7.25 USD per hour (multiplying a 40h workweek by 4 weeks, we have 1160 USD).

And if a quick Google and Wikipedia search are to be believed, it's a almost 1400 EUR in the UK and almost 1500 EUR in Germany.

That kind of disparity is one of the reasons why games like WoW and Warframe (and a good chunk of the Steam library) have different prices per region, so they can charge an optimal amount that will get them good profits and still fit the pockets of the average player of that country (which increases the player base, and thus the number of active subscriptions, and thus the total revenue).

Matter of comparison, the very same 15USD subscription for World of Warcraft costs, in Brazil, 23,90BRL (by Blizzard's own updated price table). Square is charging over double that with the updated prices for Brazil, and it might be even worse for the Russian players.

[Duolks]

Matter of comparison, the very same 15USD subscription for World of Warcraft costs, in Brazil, 23,90BRL (by Blizzard's own updated price table). Square is charging over double that with the updated prices for Brazil, and it might be even worse for the Russian players.

And we have a server with 20 ping not 320.

[DoppelShifter]

Any journalists have given an answer ?

I've heard that some people contacted Kotaku, Jim Sterling, Sid Alpha and some others. Might as well keep contacting them, with more and more people, as the volume of people will basically prove it's a story worth mentioning (*politely*, please. We don't need a voiceless angry mob).

And an update on the Steam store page, the score dropped some more and now it's almost falling from "Mostly Positive" to "Mixed" (this might happen in the next few hours if the reviews keep comming).

[MelvinK]

While im sympathetize with the situation here, please also bear in mind there are russians site actually making profit off this region pricing adjustment thingy. This is probably an attempt to curb the russian website. What they do is use the gift function to deliver stuff at way cheaper price.

[DoppelShifter]

While im sympathetize with the situation here, please also bear in mind there are russians site actually making profit off this region pricing adjustment thingy. This is probably an attempt to curb the russian website. What they do is use the gift function to deliver stuff at way cheaper price.

Even if this issue is real, this "solution" was extremely harmful for *all* legitimate players from those regions, which makes it a terribly shortsighted decision. They're losing subscribers, getting lots of negative atention and negative press... over what? Poorly handled microtransactions?

There are multiple other games that also practice differential pricing (and in a much broader implementation than what Square Enix did for FFXIV) and do not suffer with issues like the one you mentioned (or when they do, it doesn't affect their bottom line enough to justify removing the differential prices, and all the benefits that come with it).

[Ckrownz]

While im sympathetize with the situation here, please also bear in mind there are russians site actually making profit off this region pricing adjustment thingy. This is probably an attempt to curb the russian website. What they do is use the gift function to deliver stuff at way cheaper price.

Actually this is kinda impossible for many reasons, this is not the reason why they increased the fee.

[Ayerinn]

Even if this issue is real, this "solution" was extremely harmful for *all* legitimate players from those regions, which makes it a terribly shortsighted decision. They're losing subscribers, getting lots of negative atention and negative press... over what? Poorly handled microtransactions?

It most likely is real. Heck, it was apparently a "well known" practice for individual NA WoW players to pay for their sub in BRL...Blizzard nipped it in the bud years ago though (that is how I even found out about people doing it.) I wouldn't be surprised if some FF14 players are doing just that as well through Steam...could be at least one of the reasons for the change.

[Yshnal]

Just dropping by to show my support. What SE has done is completely unethical (even if I think that they should've adjusted the prices a bit anyway, like to WoW's ones), as at the very least they should've warned you of the change beforehand. As it stands, they played bait and switch due to the timing in regards to the expansion launch, and I can't agree with that. It's a clear lack of respect towards their customers, and every single one of us should be alarmed about this happening, even if it doesn't effect us this time. On top of that they haven't even apologised about how they've handled it, as you just got a "yeah, we changed it" and that's all. This is setting a very bad precedent.

I hope that they do something about this. Moreover, at this point I think that Yoshida himself should take a step forward and talk about it.