Holygriever
Banned
Aight, first thread in 4 years. *cracks knuckles*
Gonna start with tl;dr version: Square Enix has increased the prices of subscriptions and microtransactions for Final Fantasy 14 players from Brazil and Russia that were using Steam (which so far had lower prices accounting for currency exchange discrepancies via Steam's currency conversion). The price hike came with no warning whatsoever, and only a few weeks after the launch of their latest expansion. Their ToS say they will not hike the prices without a warning, but on a "technicality" they are not increasing anything, just "adjusting" it.
Needless to say, the players are not happy, with many complaining at the forums, trying to reach for refunds or simply just dropping the game.
---------
A more extensive explanation follows:
The Brazilian and Russian players of Final Fantasy XIV were surprised to see increased prices when trying to pay for things on Mogstation (Square Enix FFXIV account management and digital store), including subscriptions.
FFXIV allows PC players to buy the game through Steam, and PC accounts associated with Steam are allowed to pay for things in the Mogstation, from microtransactions to subscription renewals, with their Steam Wallet, using the Steam storefront API. This not only makes things convenient, but also made the prices more fair for certain markets, as Steam applied a different exchange rate, one that accounted for currency value discrepancies, making the prices fall within more reasonable ranges.
The practice of using diferential exchange rates on Steam was not exclusive to Final Fantasy XIV, as other games from other developers (Warframe, for example) also use the differential pricing, allowing players from regions with lower income or unstable economies to still be able to afford the games and/or their associated subscriptions and microtransactions. Other games such as Elite Dangerous only allow the Steam API to use USD in their transactions, which leads to higher prices and possibly taxation (Brazil applies one for "dealing on foreign currency", for example).
Starting from patch 4.05 (effective from july 11th), all prices on Mogstation are now directly converted from USD. This has, of course, balooned prices.
---------
What makes this move particularly insidious is that there was absolutely NO notice of this. Actually, there is still isn't, as SQEX only acknowledge the issue after it was asked. The players had the displeasure of finding this out by themselves, as their subscription prices nearly doubled, in the case of Brazil, going from 27BRL to around 42BRL for the Entry Level Sub (cheapest, with a few restrictions). Russian players got an even shorter stick, as their prices nearly tripled (890RUB) overnight.
And if you take into account that the new expansion (Stormblood) came out about a month ago (June 20th), this becomes increasingly shady.
Of course, there was a huge uproar in the official forums.
After some outcry, a GM answered, and it confirmed everyone's fear. (SQEX is currently pointing to this forum post buried deep in an unofficial thread as their official response.)
Threads on the FFXIV subreddit also popped up. There are other threads on the official forums. There's also this screencap of when a friend contacted Square Enix's support. There's been traction.
The official justification is "These changes were made to bring prices using these currencies in-line with the global pricing structure based on current exchange rates. In addition, these adjustments mean that prices now accurately reflect the pricing provided on our other official channels and currencies." (sic) In other words, they equalized it from their end, so they get the same 13/15USD from each subscription regardless of region, and "fuck you" if that means the new price is completely out of your region's reality.
....But things get a bit shittier. Their Terms of Service specifically state that they would never hike their prices without notifying their players at least 30 days early "under reasonable effort". Some players in the official forum thread did point this out, multiple times. But technically, they can use some legalese and fine print and say "but we didn't technically *increase* the prices. We just equalized them, and that *happened* to change the perceived price for some regions". Or that "they have to make some effort, but can't make guarantees".
(It should be noted, however, that the payment option for "Automatic Renewal" for the Brazilian storefront was *not* changed, sitting at 28,99 BRL instead of the new price of ~42BRL, very likely due to legal reasons.)
Apparently, there was at least one was a well-known Russian reselling website that would buy items from the official microtransactions store at a reduced price and resell it to the players at a profit, but for lower prices than players buying in USD in other regions.
Some people are pointing this as one of the possible reasons for the price hike for BR/RU, but it seems iffy at best, since making a large-scale OP out of this seems unfeasible since it would be easy to detect.
-------
Now lots of players are having to make their plans on how to drop their games. Some will wait until their subscriptions expire, and then will not renew them. Some are trying to get refunds right now for the months of subscription they paid beforehand, since they don't want to face the new price whenever they have to renew it. Some are crying for Valve's help, so they can get refunds for buying the expansion via Steam. Lots of BR and RU players are either crying at the forums or subreddit, or simply abandoning the game. Some, like me, are trying to raise awareness of the issue, reach for loudest megaphones they can. A friend of mine shot an e-mail (which I used to base this thread) to SidAlpha, and got some coverage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXXjJE0kQtY
The steam review page is getting the usual trickle of negativity, as people complain and try to get heard. The recent score went from "Mostly Positive" to "Mixed" (currently at 51%) and it keeps dropping. Lifetime average went from 85% to 82%. The reviews mostly praise the game while denouncing the high price as their reason for not recommending it.
Players from other regions arrived at both "sides" of the matter. Some are supporting the BR/RU players, agreeing that the price hike was absurd, or at the very least agreeing that it sounded opportunistic and shady given its timing. Others, however, decided to either side with Square Enix saying "equal prices means it's fair" and "this is a business, not a charity", or simply to bash the people complaining, either through the "zero-sum game" fallacy (i.e if it's "cheaper" for someone else, it should be "cheaper" for me otherwise it's a scam) or through outright racism against Brazilians and Russians, blatantly ignoring non-BR/RU who are sympathetic to the cause. So, you know. The usual.
---------
I don't think I have anything else to add. Just wanted to put word out there of what's happening, to let SQEX know this is not OK to do. If you read it all the way through to here, thanks for your time.
Cheers~
---------
[UPDATE 23/07/2017]
It's been pointed out by some people that players from the UK pay less: they pay 9 GBP, which equals to 11,70 USD (and 36 BRL). This means that the justification that it was done "in order to equate global prices" was pretty bullshitty from the get-go.
Needless to say, players are again calling foul play more than ever on the official forums.
Gonna start with tl;dr version: Square Enix has increased the prices of subscriptions and microtransactions for Final Fantasy 14 players from Brazil and Russia that were using Steam (which so far had lower prices accounting for currency exchange discrepancies via Steam's currency conversion). The price hike came with no warning whatsoever, and only a few weeks after the launch of their latest expansion. Their ToS say they will not hike the prices without a warning, but on a "technicality" they are not increasing anything, just "adjusting" it.
Needless to say, the players are not happy, with many complaining at the forums, trying to reach for refunds or simply just dropping the game.
---------
A more extensive explanation follows:
The Brazilian and Russian players of Final Fantasy XIV were surprised to see increased prices when trying to pay for things on Mogstation (Square Enix FFXIV account management and digital store), including subscriptions.
FFXIV allows PC players to buy the game through Steam, and PC accounts associated with Steam are allowed to pay for things in the Mogstation, from microtransactions to subscription renewals, with their Steam Wallet, using the Steam storefront API. This not only makes things convenient, but also made the prices more fair for certain markets, as Steam applied a different exchange rate, one that accounted for currency value discrepancies, making the prices fall within more reasonable ranges.
The practice of using diferential exchange rates on Steam was not exclusive to Final Fantasy XIV, as other games from other developers (Warframe, for example) also use the differential pricing, allowing players from regions with lower income or unstable economies to still be able to afford the games and/or their associated subscriptions and microtransactions. Other games such as Elite Dangerous only allow the Steam API to use USD in their transactions, which leads to higher prices and possibly taxation (Brazil applies one for "dealing on foreign currency", for example).
Starting from patch 4.05 (effective from july 11th), all prices on Mogstation are now directly converted from USD. This has, of course, balooned prices.
---------
What makes this move particularly insidious is that there was absolutely NO notice of this. Actually, there is still isn't, as SQEX only acknowledge the issue after it was asked. The players had the displeasure of finding this out by themselves, as their subscription prices nearly doubled, in the case of Brazil, going from 27BRL to around 42BRL for the Entry Level Sub (cheapest, with a few restrictions). Russian players got an even shorter stick, as their prices nearly tripled (890RUB) overnight.
And if you take into account that the new expansion (Stormblood) came out about a month ago (June 20th), this becomes increasingly shady.
Of course, there was a huge uproar in the official forums.
After some outcry, a GM answered, and it confirmed everyone's fear. (SQEX is currently pointing to this forum post buried deep in an unofficial thread as their official response.)
Threads on the FFXIV subreddit also popped up. There are other threads on the official forums. There's also this screencap of when a friend contacted Square Enix's support. There's been traction.
The official justification is "These changes were made to bring prices using these currencies in-line with the global pricing structure based on current exchange rates. In addition, these adjustments mean that prices now accurately reflect the pricing provided on our other official channels and currencies." (sic) In other words, they equalized it from their end, so they get the same 13/15USD from each subscription regardless of region, and "fuck you" if that means the new price is completely out of your region's reality.
....But things get a bit shittier. Their Terms of Service specifically state that they would never hike their prices without notifying their players at least 30 days early "under reasonable effort". Some players in the official forum thread did point this out, multiple times. But technically, they can use some legalese and fine print and say "but we didn't technically *increase* the prices. We just equalized them, and that *happened* to change the perceived price for some regions". Or that "they have to make some effort, but can't make guarantees".
(It should be noted, however, that the payment option for "Automatic Renewal" for the Brazilian storefront was *not* changed, sitting at 28,99 BRL instead of the new price of ~42BRL, very likely due to legal reasons.)
Apparently, there was at least one was a well-known Russian reselling website that would buy items from the official microtransactions store at a reduced price and resell it to the players at a profit, but for lower prices than players buying in USD in other regions.
Some people are pointing this as one of the possible reasons for the price hike for BR/RU, but it seems iffy at best, since making a large-scale OP out of this seems unfeasible since it would be easy to detect.
-------
Now lots of players are having to make their plans on how to drop their games. Some will wait until their subscriptions expire, and then will not renew them. Some are trying to get refunds right now for the months of subscription they paid beforehand, since they don't want to face the new price whenever they have to renew it. Some are crying for Valve's help, so they can get refunds for buying the expansion via Steam. Lots of BR and RU players are either crying at the forums or subreddit, or simply abandoning the game. Some, like me, are trying to raise awareness of the issue, reach for loudest megaphones they can. A friend of mine shot an e-mail (which I used to base this thread) to SidAlpha, and got some coverage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXXjJE0kQtY
The steam review page is getting the usual trickle of negativity, as people complain and try to get heard. The recent score went from "Mostly Positive" to "Mixed" (currently at 51%) and it keeps dropping. Lifetime average went from 85% to 82%. The reviews mostly praise the game while denouncing the high price as their reason for not recommending it.
Players from other regions arrived at both "sides" of the matter. Some are supporting the BR/RU players, agreeing that the price hike was absurd, or at the very least agreeing that it sounded opportunistic and shady given its timing. Others, however, decided to either side with Square Enix saying "equal prices means it's fair" and "this is a business, not a charity", or simply to bash the people complaining, either through the "zero-sum game" fallacy (i.e if it's "cheaper" for someone else, it should be "cheaper" for me otherwise it's a scam) or through outright racism against Brazilians and Russians, blatantly ignoring non-BR/RU who are sympathetic to the cause. So, you know. The usual.
---------
I don't think I have anything else to add. Just wanted to put word out there of what's happening, to let SQEX know this is not OK to do. If you read it all the way through to here, thanks for your time.
Cheers~
---------
[UPDATE 23/07/2017]
It's been pointed out by some people that players from the UK pay less: they pay 9 GBP, which equals to 11,70 USD (and 36 BRL). This means that the justification that it was done "in order to equate global prices" was pretty bullshitty from the get-go.
Needless to say, players are again calling foul play more than ever on the official forums.
