Why are there both PC and Mac licenses?

[VisperCon]

Well it's still a separate software license and if I remember right software providers actually have to use the same price across all distribution platforms which the regulation stating so probably makes no differentiation between PC and Mac in that regard. At the same time they probably cannot offer a discounted price for a mac key for people that have the pc version because it would likely cause problems with the number of people that purchased keys for PC and Playstation.

Apologies, but this is 100% incorrect (in the States). This would be almost the opposite of regulation and could be considered price fixing which is extremely illegal.

The simple truth is they're not the same product. I understand that it's frustrating that the Mac version isn't well optimised but it doesn't change the fact that it's not the same product as the PC or console versions.

When you pay for FFXIV the game you're not paying for the game as a whole, you're paying for a specific version of a client that runs that game.

Your account however is a single product that can access all versions of the game client which is why you do not need to pay separate sub fees to play on multiple platforms.

I understand that different platforms have different requirements and meeting those requirements costs time and money to develop for each platform, but it does suck that you have to pay full price if you want to have multiple clients of the game. It would be nice if you at least got a discount if you already own one version of the game client. And to prevent people from repeatedly reselling cheaper versions of the client SE could only allow the discount if it's bought through your Mog Station account so that each account could access the discount only once per version of the client.

I guess I just have a sour taste with this because the game is not designed for MacOS much less M1 Macs; conversely if someone looks at WoW not only is the game now native for M1 processors but you only need one copy of the game and no multiple copies of multiple expansions. They both have monthly fees and in-store cosmetics but for WoW the players only need one copy, one sub, one account, and can play on multiple platforms. I probably wouldn't be so vexed if it was a better company that did this but to see ActivisionBlizzard of all companies offer this while a far superior one (IMO) forces multiple purchases for a worse experience is frustrating.