Lets talk about South East Asia, SE

[Kurando]

Why does anyone pay their sub in Euro's, I'm pretty sure the USD is the go to currency in most places of the world, so surely there is an option to pick what you want to avoid unfriendly exchange rates?

In regards to the SEA region as a whole, we also have to consider that the entire South Asia region is nothing like NA or EU. It's so much easier to do business in the West because said areas have better laws and regulations that cover multiple states. But then we get to something like China which has its own servers and the content in game is edited to fit Government requirements. As South Asia isn't a political entity, it's more difficult to expand in the region, and some countries may benefit whilst others could suffer more as a result. It's pretty normal for a lot of companies so we can't just beat on SE about this.

[alimdia]

Why does anyone pay their sub in Euro's, I'm pretty sure the USD is the go to currency in most places of the world, so surely there is an option to pick what you want to avoid unfriendly exchange rates?

There's no such option, SEA and Oceania game codes are usually EU, so they are forced to pay in euro.

[TinyRedLeaf]

There's no such option, SEA and Oceania game codes are usually EU, so they are forced to pay in euro.

I don't know how it is in other parts of Southeast Asia, but here in Singapore, where the OP claims to be, we can easily find both the European and the North American versions of the game. Mine was North American from the start, and I pay in USD.

Southeast Asia has always been a difficult region in general to market to as a whole, and this does not apply to just video games but also other intellectual property like anime. It's partly a regulatory problem, because unlike in Europe, where there's a single market, there is a mess of different regulations in Southeast Asia, not to mention an endemic lack of enforcement across a region widely known for blatant copyright infringement.

In short, the region has only itself to blame. There's really very little that major IP owners like Square-Enix can do.

[LastFireAce]

I don't know, but hopefully something done about it. I'm no from EU or SEA but US but I don't like my fellow WoL having issues ;-;

[Mendalas]

The conversion rates are really really bad, we have to pay relatively more than the average player in NA/EU.

I hear ya and I live in Canada. We have to pay in USD and the conversion sucks right now. I pay $11.99 (legacy rate and 1 extra retainer) and it comes out to almost $20 CAD per month...

[Neri]

I don't know how it is in other parts of Southeast Asia, but here in Singapore, where the OP claims to be, we can easily find both the European and the North American versions of the game. Mine was North American from the start, and I pay in USD.

yeah, it depends on which version you bought from the start, in this case, the OP bought the Eu version, so he has to pay in Eu.

[uvuvwevwevweonyetenyevweugwemu]

It's nothing to do with the playerbase. SE just doesn't have a representative office for the whole region that manage the whole process (marketing, shipping, etc).
They have for some countries, individually, but that's more for on and off business/subcontract relationship. Think of who will hold fanfests or support for the region.
It's wasted opportunity, true. I'm hoping they will consider it after SB, there's a lot of context in there taking stories and names from Asian native tongues.

[duvvvv]

Pretty much /thread right here.

yep.
sometime back in 2015 I had an issue with my recurring payment, and I learned through CS that it had something to do with my IP. then eventually I learned SEA is technically NOT serviced by SE. this is also apparent with FFXIV not showing up in our local version of the steam store, and why upon account registration SEA countries are not listed (except SG, I think.)
on one hand this may look like SEA is low-key IP banned by SE, on the other, it seems fortunate that the issue was resolved and that I'm "allowed" to continue to play in spite of all this.
what I'm saying is that it seems SE from the beginning has expected SEA population would be low, that they've even put up "safeguards" on transactions coming from certain SEA countries. I do wish someday there will be an SEA data center, but I can't blame them if they think it's bad business. I mean games like Black Desert Online outright IP banned us :/

[Kaethra]

Isn't SE an asian company? (Japan) Why feel the need to ignore us?

Historically they've done worse than ignored you. Unfortunately that bit of xenophobia might be part of it. Is there enough people in the SEA region to have their own server? Blizzard and Daybreak think so. Are enough players going to want to play FFXIV with bad exchange rates? Probably not. But its not a fact of not enough business. SE doesn't WANT their business.

[Rufalus]

Maybe it's just like their internal localisation teams don't do those languages and markets, and they don't think it's viable to promote it there without a proper localised version, and they don't have a 3rd party partner to oversee the region like they have in Korea and China. Most 'global' game companies only do JP, NA, EU/AUS.