"Square-Enix's Bizarre Billing Practices." or "Ok Squeenix, Have My Money, I Didn't Need it Anyway."
Posted by: schild @ 04:14:37 on 6/13/06
A number of people have slammed Train Wreck for playing along with Square-Enix’s completely unreasonable billing practices, and yes, he should have washed his hands of them at the first sign of foul play. But is it his fault Square-Enix’s policies are completely muddled to the point that you’ll never really know how much you’re going to get billed whenever you resub? This is just another incident in a string of bad practices throughout the industry.
Some have been resolved such as the old City of Heroes naming policy. Others, such as Blizzard’s insistance on using Bittorrent to distribute patches, still run free. Blizzard already has a digital distribution system in place, Battle.net. And I don’t care how many people are playing a game - the current form of patch distribution could never be rationalized. Bandwidth be damned. And those are just the first ones that come to mind.
Squeenix's billing issue is something that no one should have accepted. Hundreds of thousands of people have played FFXI. And somehow I've not seen anyone call them on this crap. As gamers we need to draw the line. Situations like this have to come into the spotlight. This [stuff] is more important than what new MMORPG is going into beta or who's going to be on the cover of Madden or who's going to win the next console war. This is a multibillion dollar industry and there is no reason for any developer, publisher, or retailer to take gamers for a ride (of any sort). My roommates and I had a Squeenix boycott in place for a long time and I'm beginning to regret lifting it after hearing about this. For most gamers I suppose nothing short of getting surprised in the ass is going to make them take a stand. It's sad, really. The industry is filled with assholes and the fanbase is filled with a bunch of pussies. Maybe we're not taken seriously because we don't take ourselves seriously. That needs to change. - schild
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When large corporations unabashedly shaft their customers, at what point should they react? At what point should they protest an exploitive system by “voting with their wallet?” This is the decision I recently was confronted with while dealing with Square-Enix, well known and loved by many for Square's Final Fantasy and Enix's Dragon Quests series. At the behest of many friends, I decided to give Final Fantasy XI Online a try. At the time, I was largely involved in World of Warcraft, especially in their Alterac Valley battleground, not to mention the obligatory guild raids that I liked not nearly so much but were very time consuming nevertheless. I found myself not spending much time in FFXI. After a month went by, I was still of newbie stature and never actually having hooked up with any of my friends that I got the game to play with in the first place, I decided to cancel my account.
Come the month of May, I noticed that FFXI had recently come out with a shiny new expansion pack, Treasures of Aht Urhgan, featuring among other things the edition of three new classes, including the Blue Mage. I remembered them fondly from previous FF titles as the little guys that learn monster attacks. Having not logged into World of Warcraft for several weeks, I decided the time was ripe to give FFXI another look. I purchased the expansion pack, opened the box and installed it.
Upon account reactivation, I received an odd message that I still owed fees for the month of April, and that after I paid those fees, additional fees may be applicable. What? I cancelled my account in March and had not even once logged in during the month of April. On my end, the account was not active. But there it was plain as day, the month of April with a little selection bubble next to it, indicating that I owed for that month. I cancelled the subscription process and found something else to do.
Later that week, I found myself terribly bored. I noticed my Treasures of Aht Urhgan sitting on my desk. Thirty dollars down the drain. "Ah, what the hell", I thought to myself. I've spent money on worse things. I launched Playonline and paid the fee. Things were going well. I found myself a nice circle of friends and made some reasonable progress. I learned how to do a few trade skills to make money, got myself a sub-job, and eventually set out on a quest to become a Summoner (having decided that Blue Mage might not match nearly as well to my Job – as a level 30 white mage). I hung out in the Dunes, waiting for a certain type of weather to break out so I could collect it with my Carb Ruby before moving on to the last effect I needed, Blizzard. Becoming a Summoner was so close I could taste it. However, at 2 AM, June 2nd, my account was promptly disabled. I immediately logged back into PlayOnline and saw the reason was due to "Unpaid fees." I expected not to be charged again until the 15th. I errantly assumed that Square-Enix did business like every online gaming company in America. When the charge was denied, my account was immediately disabled, even though it had been a mere 15 days into the 30-day fee I had already been charged for.
I still have unanswered questions regarding this. Having reviewed my bank statement for the month of May, I see that I was only charged a single fee of $11.10. To this day, I still don’t know where this number came from – a hat? That's not even the stated monthly fee of $12.95. Were they under the impression that I owed them for the month of April though my account was inactive? After all, that's the message I got when I resubscribed, but I was only charged a single fee. So was it for the month of May, then? It was paid on May 15th - any sane company such as Blizzard or SOE would have taken the monthly fee and would charge me again a month from the activation date. That date being the 15th of June. But Square-Enix, they don’t play ball according to the same rules. At best, this can be attributed to a convoluted policy that speaking with an SE Representative should be able to clarify (which I will be doing soon). In the meantime, I did some research into their own terms of agreement to see if they would shed light on my situation, and found things in there that not only stunned me, but disgusted me.
From the Square-Enix Q&A section: "Question: Can I become a PlayOnline member again after canceling the PlayOnline service?”
Answer: You can become a member again after unsubscribing from PlayOnline. If you return to PlayOnline within three months of unsubscribing, you can restart the same service without having to complete the regular registration process. In this case, use the "For PlayOnline Members Only" when launching PlayOnline after a reinstall to log back in using your existing PlayOnline ID and PlayOnline Password. If you return to PlayOnline three months after unsubscribing, you must register a new PlayOnline account. This means you must purchase a new copy of the software to obtain a new set of registration codes."
Yep, that's right, if you cancel and remain inactive for three months, not only do you lose your characters (which is within their right to do, albeit seems that it's a stick in the eye to their customers), but if you wish to resubscribe, you will need to go out and buy the same exact software that you already paid for, just to get a new registration code, which seems to be of dubious legality. Unfortunately, I am in no place to judge legality. I’m not a lawyer and they are Japanese. Those two things might be the two most complicated things in the world.
Having not resolved my question of why I only got 15 days of service when I paid for 30, I turned to the FFXI veteran playerbase to see if they could shine some light on the issue. A helpful admin at a popular FFXI fansite answered my question: “First, SE will charge you the full amount for a month ($12.95) regardless of when you re-subscribed. Thus, it never makes sense to resubscribe/active in the middle of the month.
Second, SE does not bill on 30 day cycles. It bills on a per month basis. Thus, again, it never makes sense to resubscribe/active in the middle of the month because you only actually get to play the remainder of the month before they rebill.
Third, SE will bill for the coming month on the 1st of every month. So June 1st pays for June 1-30. Also any uncollected fees from last month will be billed at this time as well.
Bottom line: Don't resubscribe/reactivate in the middle/end of the month.”
I spent far more time reading over SEs terms of service than I would have liked, and never found a satisfactory statement of this fact. That's just smarmy. And relying on their playerbase to clarify it to each other is lazy, if not dubious. Worst still is their policy of forcing players to purchase another set of software if their account remains inactive for three months.
What surprised me the most was the effort it took to find the answers to these questions. Perhaps no other part of the gaming industry is scrutinized so closely or criticized so loudly as that of massively multiplayer online games. I would have expected shifty business practices as these to be well-known and widely condemned, but even people that have followed the industry for years were surprised by the revelation of Square's policies (though not so much by the fact that Square was the perpetrator).
So now we're shining the light on them. I find FFXI to be a decent game and I enjoyed my few weeks of the foray. But beware that their policies are exploitive to their users. You can follow the advice of the playerbase and make sure if you cancel, to renew within two months, and make sure it is on the 1st of the month.
Or you can ask yourself: "Wait a second, why the hell am I bending over to this assbackwards way of doing business?" It's a tough question for me. I was on the last step of unlocking my Summoning job, and I have friends that no doubt are wondering where I've been since I was unceremoniously dropped. I can re-sub again and view the first week of this month as a minor loss that I will never see. Taking a week's break from a MMORPG is quite common - but will I feel like a dirty whore if I do? Will I be guilty of enabling this to continue? Do I take a stand and wait for my character to be deleted in a few months? But if I want to play again, I have to buy all the software again. Ouch. Shrugging off a week's loss seems minuscule in comparison, and from a rational point of view, makes perfect sense.
If I remain cancelled out of protest, will I take it to the next level and boycott every game Square-Enix releases in the future, including the much anticipated FFXII? Or any future Dragon Quest game? It remains clear that the only reason SE implements their policy... is because they can. The sinister aspect is that they show total contempt for their players, making them bend over more than even SOE ever did when EQ was the shiny. Any MORPG company could easily adopt SE's policy. But they haven't, and that's worth something.
[discuss]
Squeenix's billing issue is something that no one should have accepted. Hundreds of thousands of people have played FFXI. And somehow I've not seen anyone call them on this crap. As gamers we need to draw the line. Situations like this have to come into the spotlight. This [stuff] is more important than what new MMORPG is going into beta or who's going to be on the cover of Madden or who's going to win the next console war. This is a multibillion dollar industry and there is no reason for any developer, publisher, or retailer to take gamers for a ride (of any sort). My roommates and I had a Squeenix boycott in place for a long time and I'm beginning to regret lifting it after hearing about this. For most gamers I suppose nothing short of getting surprised in the ass is going to make them take a stand. It's sad, really. The industry is filled with assholes and the fanbase is filled with a bunch of pussies. Maybe we're not taken seriously because we don't take ourselves seriously. That needs to change. - schild
-
When large corporations unabashedly shaft their customers, at what point should they react? At what point should they protest an exploitive system by “voting with their wallet?” This is the decision I recently was confronted with while dealing with Square-Enix, well known and loved by many for Square's Final Fantasy and Enix's Dragon Quests series. At the behest of many friends, I decided to give Final Fantasy XI Online a try. At the time, I was largely involved in World of Warcraft, especially in their Alterac Valley battleground, not to mention the obligatory guild raids that I liked not nearly so much but were very time consuming nevertheless. I found myself not spending much time in FFXI. After a month went by, I was still of newbie stature and never actually having hooked up with any of my friends that I got the game to play with in the first place, I decided to cancel my account.
Come the month of May, I noticed that FFXI had recently come out with a shiny new expansion pack, Treasures of Aht Urhgan, featuring among other things the edition of three new classes, including the Blue Mage. I remembered them fondly from previous FF titles as the little guys that learn monster attacks. Having not logged into World of Warcraft for several weeks, I decided the time was ripe to give FFXI another look. I purchased the expansion pack, opened the box and installed it.
Upon account reactivation, I received an odd message that I still owed fees for the month of April, and that after I paid those fees, additional fees may be applicable. What? I cancelled my account in March and had not even once logged in during the month of April. On my end, the account was not active. But there it was plain as day, the month of April with a little selection bubble next to it, indicating that I owed for that month. I cancelled the subscription process and found something else to do.
Later that week, I found myself terribly bored. I noticed my Treasures of Aht Urhgan sitting on my desk. Thirty dollars down the drain. "Ah, what the hell", I thought to myself. I've spent money on worse things. I launched Playonline and paid the fee. Things were going well. I found myself a nice circle of friends and made some reasonable progress. I learned how to do a few trade skills to make money, got myself a sub-job, and eventually set out on a quest to become a Summoner (having decided that Blue Mage might not match nearly as well to my Job – as a level 30 white mage). I hung out in the Dunes, waiting for a certain type of weather to break out so I could collect it with my Carb Ruby before moving on to the last effect I needed, Blizzard. Becoming a Summoner was so close I could taste it. However, at 2 AM, June 2nd, my account was promptly disabled. I immediately logged back into PlayOnline and saw the reason was due to "Unpaid fees." I expected not to be charged again until the 15th. I errantly assumed that Square-Enix did business like every online gaming company in America. When the charge was denied, my account was immediately disabled, even though it had been a mere 15 days into the 30-day fee I had already been charged for.
I still have unanswered questions regarding this. Having reviewed my bank statement for the month of May, I see that I was only charged a single fee of $11.10. To this day, I still don’t know where this number came from – a hat? That's not even the stated monthly fee of $12.95. Were they under the impression that I owed them for the month of April though my account was inactive? After all, that's the message I got when I resubscribed, but I was only charged a single fee. So was it for the month of May, then? It was paid on May 15th - any sane company such as Blizzard or SOE would have taken the monthly fee and would charge me again a month from the activation date. That date being the 15th of June. But Square-Enix, they don’t play ball according to the same rules. At best, this can be attributed to a convoluted policy that speaking with an SE Representative should be able to clarify (which I will be doing soon). In the meantime, I did some research into their own terms of agreement to see if they would shed light on my situation, and found things in there that not only stunned me, but disgusted me.
From the Square-Enix Q&A section: "Question: Can I become a PlayOnline member again after canceling the PlayOnline service?”
Answer: You can become a member again after unsubscribing from PlayOnline. If you return to PlayOnline within three months of unsubscribing, you can restart the same service without having to complete the regular registration process. In this case, use the "For PlayOnline Members Only" when launching PlayOnline after a reinstall to log back in using your existing PlayOnline ID and PlayOnline Password. If you return to PlayOnline three months after unsubscribing, you must register a new PlayOnline account. This means you must purchase a new copy of the software to obtain a new set of registration codes."
Yep, that's right, if you cancel and remain inactive for three months, not only do you lose your characters (which is within their right to do, albeit seems that it's a stick in the eye to their customers), but if you wish to resubscribe, you will need to go out and buy the same exact software that you already paid for, just to get a new registration code, which seems to be of dubious legality. Unfortunately, I am in no place to judge legality. I’m not a lawyer and they are Japanese. Those two things might be the two most complicated things in the world.
Having not resolved my question of why I only got 15 days of service when I paid for 30, I turned to the FFXI veteran playerbase to see if they could shine some light on the issue. A helpful admin at a popular FFXI fansite answered my question: “First, SE will charge you the full amount for a month ($12.95) regardless of when you re-subscribed. Thus, it never makes sense to resubscribe/active in the middle of the month.
Second, SE does not bill on 30 day cycles. It bills on a per month basis. Thus, again, it never makes sense to resubscribe/active in the middle of the month because you only actually get to play the remainder of the month before they rebill.
Third, SE will bill for the coming month on the 1st of every month. So June 1st pays for June 1-30. Also any uncollected fees from last month will be billed at this time as well.
Bottom line: Don't resubscribe/reactivate in the middle/end of the month.”
I spent far more time reading over SEs terms of service than I would have liked, and never found a satisfactory statement of this fact. That's just smarmy. And relying on their playerbase to clarify it to each other is lazy, if not dubious. Worst still is their policy of forcing players to purchase another set of software if their account remains inactive for three months.
What surprised me the most was the effort it took to find the answers to these questions. Perhaps no other part of the gaming industry is scrutinized so closely or criticized so loudly as that of massively multiplayer online games. I would have expected shifty business practices as these to be well-known and widely condemned, but even people that have followed the industry for years were surprised by the revelation of Square's policies (though not so much by the fact that Square was the perpetrator).
So now we're shining the light on them. I find FFXI to be a decent game and I enjoyed my few weeks of the foray. But beware that their policies are exploitive to their users. You can follow the advice of the playerbase and make sure if you cancel, to renew within two months, and make sure it is on the 1st of the month.
Or you can ask yourself: "Wait a second, why the hell am I bending over to this assbackwards way of doing business?" It's a tough question for me. I was on the last step of unlocking my Summoning job, and I have friends that no doubt are wondering where I've been since I was unceremoniously dropped. I can re-sub again and view the first week of this month as a minor loss that I will never see. Taking a week's break from a MMORPG is quite common - but will I feel like a dirty whore if I do? Will I be guilty of enabling this to continue? Do I take a stand and wait for my character to be deleted in a few months? But if I want to play again, I have to buy all the software again. Ouch. Shrugging off a week's loss seems minuscule in comparison, and from a rational point of view, makes perfect sense.
If I remain cancelled out of protest, will I take it to the next level and boycott every game Square-Enix releases in the future, including the much anticipated FFXII? Or any future Dragon Quest game? It remains clear that the only reason SE implements their policy... is because they can. The sinister aspect is that they show total contempt for their players, making them bend over more than even SOE ever did when EQ was the shiny. Any MORPG company could easily adopt SE's policy. But they haven't, and that's worth something.
[discuss]
Submitted by Train Wreck