FFXIV on Mac and Steam account linking

[Sove92]

are we gonna have to input our cd keys again? which should already be put into mogstation showing what version we have already, i think this is a little heavy handed, i know why they are doing this, its trying to make the new housing coming in 6.1 more fair, but even so

Why would you have to? The only thing that is changing is that when you launch the game via Steam, details about the Steam account being used to launch the game are sent to the game servers. If the sent data does not match what SE has registered, the login is refused.

What happens right now with steam version is:
- You launch the game via Steam
- The launcher starts with an extra argument that tells the program that it was launched via Steam
- When the client is started, the same steam argument is given to it
- When you login to datacenter, if the -issteam argument is present, the game will ask for service accounts that have a Windows (Steam) license attached to them. If it doesn't find one, because for example, your Windows copy is not the Steam version, you will get an error.
- If the -issteam argument is not present, the game will ask for service accounts that have a non-Steam Windows license attached to them. If it doesn't find one, because for example, your Windows copy is the Steam version, you will get an error.

As a result, it is impossible to launch the game via Steam, if you have a non-Steam Windows copy. In theory, it is also not possible to launch the game without doing so via Steam, if you have a Steam copy, but this has so far been trivial to bypass by starting the launcher by manually adding the -issteam argument when executing the launcher.

What SE is gonna do is that when the game is launched via Steam, some Steam token is also sent to the launcher and passed to the server on login. If this token is not what it should be (the Steam account used to buy the game), the server will not allow the login to proceed.

This has nothing to do with 6.1 housing. What it does is make it impossible to login to the PC version if you are not logged in to the buyer's Steam account, if your PC version is the Steam version. It has no effect on other platforms or the non-Steam Windows version.

If you have the Steam version of the game and you fell for one of the giveaway scams etc. the scammer will not be able to login to your character with just your SE account details, they need your Steam details too. Sure, they will start asking for those too, but it increases suspicion and people are less likely to fall for it. They could also still login on PS or Mac, if you have the license, but that's not how these scammers operate, it's just too slow.