Square Enix Can Kiss My Pale. Hairy. Arse.
Posted by Stropp on September 3, 2010Despite the recent fuss about some of the systems that were being used in Final Fantasy XIV, and the rather large system requirements, I’ve been kind of interested in having a look at this game since it came to my attention a while back.
But the latest tidbit of info to come across my browser has me seeing red. (See video below.)
It’s inexcusable in this day and age of borderless Internet to completely cut entire chunks of the world out of accessing your product. It’s one thing to have different distribution agreements with various companies and restrict access based on those, at least a player can still access the game just in their own region, and in any case I think that is bad business too. However, it’s a whole other thing to deny access because a player doesn’t live in Japan, North America, or Europe.
For one thing, you’ve just spent millions creating a product and you don’t want to take my money just because I’m in Oz? Huh. Dumb.
Then of course there is the region lock-in. Will this mean that when I can play your game, I won’t be able to choose the region to play in? I kinda like playing with folks across the world, and the fact is I belong to two multi-national guilds. The Halasian Empire in EQ2, and the multi-game Casualties of War. Not being allowed to play with friends because you live somewhere else sucks.
So Square Enix, when you do eventually allow ‘other’ regions to play your game, guess what, I won’t be interested. I’ll be playing a game where the developers don’t lock players out based on regions.
You can kiss my pale, hairy, arse Square Enix.
Heyo.
I’ve been doing a bit more digging after my initial blogging outburst about being alienated, so allow me to add some info.
Let’s see… for all intents and purposes, I do believe the Account Management System of Square Enix wants people to choose their regions based on where you live so you can buy region specific products. The thing is, if you’re not in any of the listed regions, you can (PROBABLY) choose the region where you’re likely to buy the game from.
example: I live in the Philippines, but I’m planning to buy FFXIV through Play-Asia, which supplies North American versions of the client. I’d have to connect my Square Enix account to North America when the time comes.
This is annoying, but doable.
The second wrinkle, however, is in how they’ll implement their billing system. If they, like in FFXI, require credit cards to use a second layer of security (Mastercard SecureCode or Verified by Visa), and your country doesn’t support that option, then you’re kinda out of luck.
That is, unless they allow you to purchase that online currency they have, Square Enix Crysta, and use it to pay for your subscription.
All in all, it’s still a sucky process, mind you.
Hi Victor — It may be true that it’s as simple as choosing a region and being able to use a credit card from a different region, but the webpage says, Square Enix accounts are region specific (Japan, North America, Europe) and service accounts cannot be added for other regions.”
I guess there is some wiggle room there for interpretation, but it still sounds fairly closed (and hostile.)
It will be interesting to see if they do allow credit cards from non-allowed regions, or if they even implement IP region blocking as some other services do (Hulu for example.)
I’ve said it before, the best way to make money is to let people buy your product/service and not make it difficult to do so. It doesn’t seem like S-E understand that principle.
The region names are fairly abstract . ‘Europe’ includes much of the rest of the world. After you select a region you then get to select which country. Australia, and the rest of Oceania, being options within Europe.
That threw me for a little while as typically Oceania is linked in with North America or Asia.
yeah this sucks. i thought this game would be region free as most PC games are. but i was wrong. why didnt they announce it in the first place. i just bought 2 sets of FF XIV CE here in Australia hoping i will be able to play it too in the philipines but i guess i wont be able too. i dont want this BS and later on i’ll be ban for being in a place that they dont support. so i’ll just return the 2 sets of my CE. maybe this is what SE like. too bad i cant play the game but screw SE i hope this game gets beaten by WoW.
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