Quote Originally Posted by Cranky_Pantaloons View Post
I'll admit that I know little to nothing about Steam, but it sounds like Steam purchases licenses from SE under some type of business-to-business agreement with SE and "resells" them to you, the end-gamer, at a discount under their own umbrella? If that is the case, it seems to me your issue might be with Steam/Valve, not Square Enix. Since you paid Steam for the license and agreed to have that license managed through Steam, whatever software purchase agreement/contract you have is with them, not SE (which is different from the end-user agreement you agree to through logging in and playing the game). Therefore, any licensing issues - such as not being able to register a steam-free version of the game key on PC - would be a Steam issue to handle as your "licensing provider".

If any of the above is remotely accurate, I can pretty much tell you right now that what you are asking for is a pipe dream. Steam is never going to give up their FFXIV revenue stream without a considerable fight - a fight that I highly doubt SE will get into the ring on (assuming they even could depending on their B2B agreement). Square Enix isn't going to jeopardize what I am sure is 100s of thousands of licensing dollars from Steam (money I'm sure they get regardless of if Steam sells the license) for this kind of issue.
This is pretty accurate to the reality. You buy it through Steam, your license is handled by them and is subject to Steam's T&C, including expansions. On the plus side, your steam wallet can be used to pay your sub.