What is the deal with 30 day game time actually being 29 days? How is this legal?

[Boblawblah]

You didn't read past the first post and if you're going to quit, can I have your stuff?

narrator: She didn't quit.

[Aword3213]

narrator: She didn't quit.

She still need to stay subbed in order to obtain those heavily-modded eye provoking Mare screenshots few are privy to their existence, and parody the group she get her material from on the forum.

[worldofneil]

edit: Original title is based on incorrect information given by chat support. Subs are apparently 30 calendar days, though that's not stated anywhere.
It's still makes no sense that subscription period information is so obfuscated.

There's literally nothing wrong here, just your understanding of how the subscription works. Yes your first subscription will likely be short, because it's 30 calendar days, but how much so depending on what time in the day you started. However, subsequent subscriptions (assuming you don't have a subscription break) are always exactly 30 days. I've been subscribed non-stop for nearly 10 years now, they've always given me exactly what I paid for.

Also your chat support ticket, you say about May 9th being day 29, but it's not. You can literally write it out:

Day 1: April 10
Day 2: April 11
Day 3: April 12
Day 4: April 13
Day 5: April 14
Day 6: April 15
Day 7: April 16
Day 8: April 17
Day 9: April 18
Day 10: April 19
Day 11: April 20
Day 12: April 21
Day 13: April 22
Day 14: April 23
Day 15: April 24
Day 16: April 25
Day 17: April 26
Day 18: April 27
Day 19: April 28
Day 20: April 29
Day 21: April 30
Day 22: May 1
Day 23: May 2
Day 24: May 3
Day 25: May 4
Day 26: May 5
Day 27: May 6
Day 28: May 7
Day 29: May 8
Day 30: May 9

The same can be done for what chat support said about the next 30 days being 10th May to 8th June.

I just wish they would refund time lost because this game surely has a *lot* of maintenance.

Sarcasm...? This game only has a few hours planned maintenance every 4 months...

[Nadie]

There's literally nothing wrong here, just your understanding of how the subscription works. Yes your first subscription will likely be short, because it's 30 calendar days, but how much so depending on what time in the day you started. However, subsequent subscriptions (assuming you don't have a subscription break) are always exactly 30 days. I've been subscribed non-stop for nearly 10 years now, they've always given me exactly what I paid for.

Also your chat support ticket, you say about May 9th being day 29, but it's not. You can literally write it out:

The same can be done for what chat support said about the next 30 days being 10th May to 8th June.

To say there's literally nothing wrong, you've either misread or you're not counting correctly by not taking into account that you're supposed to count starting at the start of the day through the end of that day for a day.
Count again until 00:00 June 8th instead of through June 8th until 23:59:59 and you'll see they were saying it's 29 instead of 30 days by your count. You'll see how CSR was saying that final day is at most one second long, thus one less day than advertised. I'm assuming they're incorrect and that Phone Support is right.

CSR would never clarify it goes by calendar days and not actually 720 hours and it doesn't say that anywhere despite me pointing out that going by hours it doesn't work like that. In WoW, 60 days ends in 1440 hours not 60 calendar days which could be 1426 hours and 1 second instead if you activate it at the "wrong" time.

It's weird to have a system like this that seems designed to cheat people out of time they pay for that no other online game subscription uses, but that isn't the biggest point.

The big issue is where they kept saying was that the automatic renewal that happened would be 29 days instead of 30 which further confuses things since I could understand how the first day was only an hour and a half (even though the CSR wouldn't say that and kept gaslighting instead), but not how the renewal could be 29.
It being calendar days, which is how you're counting correctly there if you are getting the whole 24 hours of that last day you count, you're missing that they however kept saying it's until that day rather than through that day. They said it ends at 00:00 which is the start of a day. This was the big issue. They kept saying it's 29 days, and that that's somehow 30, telling me I'm being scammed and that there's nothing I can do about it and that I'm wrong. I tried so many ways to explain to them that that's 29 days if what they're saying is true and they refused to understand how they must be stating that incorrectly.
Through June 8th 23:59 is correct, which is what Phone Support said. Until June 8th 00:00 is incorrect and missing an entire day. More specifically, the way Phone Support stated it is technically it ends at 00:00 the following day that the website states and that is the day that renewal would be billed which makes perfect sense.
The CSR didn't seem to understand that 00:00 is the start of a day and not the end of it, which makes all of the difference, despite me pointing it out to them repeatedly many different ways.

In other words, to be completely clear: if you stop counting at the start of that day instead of through the end of that day, that's one less day which is how the CSR was counting but insisting it's not.

Sarcasm...? This game only has a few hours planned maintenance every 4 months...

And what about unplanned maintenance? That happens a lot.
Crystal just had another 8 hours of that which can be an entire day most people would play. I know there was maintenance in Feb, April, and May, plus some other emergency ones if I'm not mistaken. That's not every 4 months.
Lots of games compensate for that. Oddly enough, it's mainly f2p games which compensate for standard maintenance.

[worldofneil]

you're supposed to count starting at the start of the day through the end of that day for a day.

Says you... that's not how it works for THIS game. As you already put in your first post, it's calendar days. You might not agree with it, but that's how it works here. Your first month will be less than 24 actual hours depending on what time you start. Automatic renewals going forward won't be affected.

And what about unplanned maintenance? That happens a lot.

Well it is unplanned... and still quite infrequent I think. It's literally a few hours at a time, at most.

It's been this way since 2.0 (2013, longer if you include 1.0 subscriptions) so I can't see it changing.

If you're this upset about it, sorry, but maybe this isn't the game for you.

[Commander_Justitia]

From my experience, this game gives you often more than 720hrs.

They don't refund maintenance hours, as you agree in with the ToS. They sometimes still do refund days, if it is a bigger issue on their side, but that has become very rare.

[Thukoolo]

Good morning! Thank you for posting in the Final Fantasy XIV Technical Support Forums.

We apologize for any inconvenience that has occurred when playing Final Fantasy XIV. Unfortunately, the issue you are describing is not a technical issue. I will be moving this thread to "General Discussion".

Thank you for visiting the Final Fantasy XIV Technical Support Forums!

[Renalt]

I will be moving this thread to "General Discussion".

That's a mods way of saying "Oops it took us 9 days to notice your issue. We plan to bury it in no man's land. Please look forward to it."

[dspguy]

I've played this game since release and have stayed subscribed for much of that time (but not 100%). I checked my email history (FFXIV Notification Payment Complete). My payments have landed on the same day with little drift: (7th or 8th of the month in recent times). Times I've unsubbed and then resubbed, the day is reset and drifts about 1 day, but pretty much stays within that range (22nd or 23rd) for months.

I'm not sure what the OP's issue is exactly. I'm not saying they are wrong. I think if they let it run a few months, they'd see they are billed around the same time every month over the long term.