Regional sub prices?

[risefire]

Hello, this is my first time posting here so i am sorry if i am in the wrong section.

My question is, Is SE planning on doing any regional price reductions for some countries? For example my home country, Turkey. Currently due to inflation and stuff, the value of TL is going down which is making the sub prices(euro) increase in my currency. And as the time passes, the subbing is becoming less and less affordable if you are living with minimum wage.

To give a better example with numbers(hopefully).
This month, 1 Euro to TL ratio = 1 : 11,80~
Last month ratio, 1 : 10.85~
Current minimum wage in Turkey is 3577 TL = 302.79~ Euro.
One character only sub is 10.99 euro = 129.79~ TL atm.


Just in a single month, the prices has gone up a lot and the inflation is making the sub prices less affordable for people who are from other countries like mine.

So i would like SE to do a price reduction/discount(?) for certain countries if possible because as the time passes, the local prices will get ridiculous. I love this game and i don't want to not play it.

[Izscha]

i do know that some ppl are using the steam version for this kind of stuff so the price doesn't fluctuate as much, but outside of it i've never seen SE or the devs talking about regional pricing.

PS : And you can be sure the moment they do this ppl will do anything to use cheaper currency to save money on their subs, like they do on a lot of others games too so i do get why it's not really a top priority for most devs / videogames creators.
Making it cheaper for X ou Y reason and you'll see a bunch of ppl crying about it too.
So tbh i would not count on it anytime soon.

[DrWho2010]

They actually used to do this but stopped. So I wouldn't see this coming back anytime soon.

[Jeeqbit]

The reason there are not regional prices is because people may pretend to be from the cheapest country to get a cheaper price.

I think that they want to solve this problem but they may or may not be able to.

[Sotaris]

They used to, people abused it so it had to be removed.
Even if they added it again, we'd see same thing again and even if it would be technically possible to not abuse it, people would feel it not fair.

I'd also like to point out some numbers from my context.

in Sweden we still use our own currency, SEK.

1 Euro is at the moment 10,05 SEK.
Meaning on a base sub I pay 110 SEK for entry or 130 SEK for standard, which is not including additional retainers which most of us uses.

Sweden don't have a legally regulated min wage but if we go by the lowest paying per hour at age of 18 at resturants it's 89 SEK or roughly 9 euros.

Now -- I don't think anyone got the numbers for how many who work with a minimum wage and plays FFXIV with a subscription, so try find a better paying job I guess if you're in that spot.

So in conclusion, the sub even with additional retainers (I have max cause hello hoarder and dedicated crafter) it's about 2 lunches out which is not that much money.

[Bearded]

Regional pricing is hard for any organisation to implement especially when economies are under pressure from inflation and / or extreme fluctuations in exchange rates.

There are also numerous legislative issues to contend with dealing in transactions in differing currencies - some of which may even require an actual corporate presence within the country itself. All of this has to be funded - somehow.

Using Turkey as an example, if a price was set then the chances are the following month inflation would have meant that the sub price was getting cheaper compared to the other prices for goods and services. SE would either have to adjust the price to take this into account on a monthly basis or in effect "make a loss" on subscriptions from Turkey compared to the subscriptions from elsewhere - and no business would do that as it does not make sense.

In real terms the prices are all the same - worldwide. It's just currency conversion rates and local economic circumstances that make them appear to be different. It's not fair yes but until such a time that the world gets its act together and pays everyone the same amount for the same work everywhere then its not likely to change.

[Mardask]

To some people who said that square would be making no money if regional pricing got implemented, Yes they will make money. As thing are atm only fortunate individuals are subbing to ff14, square would be making the choice of getting no money at all from those countries or getting little bit of money from those countries.

Even in our friend group/fc some are thinking about cancelling their resub after the Turkish lira euro conversion rate went from 12.60 to 13.90 within one day.(bare in mind these are people who played all the way until post content ShB and were very hype for EW and love the game.) To put it frankly ff14 simply isnt competing in countries like Turkey and latin American countries, only fortunate enough individuals who have the money to spare are subbing.

[Setesh45]

Why don't you bring up the median wages and the cost of living instead of minimum wages that tell people nothing.
The monthly cost of living for one individual in my country is around 540 EUR, small flat 1-2 rooms and not very pretty in a shady location. The minimum monthly salary is 584 EUR before taxes, 520 after taxes.
I live in the middle of Europe, based on these numbers I'm also not fortunate enough to play FFXIV, I can barely survive. (which is however not true at all...)

[Mardask]

okay ill punch out the numbers for you, the median income for a turkish person atm is around 3500 liras, minimum wage is 2800 (tax included and everyhting) a small flat in a shady location costs between 1800-2200 liras atm lets just take the average and say 2k , add in the electricity gas and water bills which will average around 500 liras and this leaves us with 1k left in the pocket and we still have to keep ourselves fed and have to buy clothes etc. which would mean 250 liras a week for grocery shopping which barely gets you by meaning no ff14 for the average person who live here because an entry level sub costs 11 euros which equals 158 liras(which basically means a person would need to eat nothing for half a week IF they want to sub)

im not pointing this out for myself im lucky enough my family has a stable income but seeing my friends and other people leaving or not beeing able to start at all is kinda sad. I really dont understand why people claim that regional pricing would be ''unfair'', you already are one step ahead by not living in a hellhole resembling ala mhigo basically winning the lottery of geography. As long as square puts some safeguards so people cant spoof their location i see no problem at all with regional pricing.

Im not familiar with the situation in latin america but i would assume it would be pretty much the same or worse for them.

[Catwho]

Long long ago, in the before times, before even Everquest, the first big virtual world (from 1995) on Compuserve charged $2/hour to access. Since that time, I've held that as my standard for "too much for a sub fee." Everquest's flat fee forced them to drop it to $10/month. Thanks, competition!

It is unfortunate that the rampant inflation and currency issues in many countries makes this game's sub fee too much to afford.