2009 lawsuit against Final Fantasy XI dismissed

@Furdinand

I don't think you've ever dealt with SE's horrid billing system, then. Someone noted this in the very first comment of the source article too:

Basically, if you start your sub on the 31st of December, you'll pay 12.95 for the month of December. That's fine. However, the next day you're charged 12.95 again for the month of January. Both of those charges will be processed on Jan 1, or whenever their "billing maintenance" occurs. It really is deceptive and honestly shouldn't be allowed to function like that. Should be 12.95 for Dec 31 - Jan 30 (if it's true monthly, or Jan 29 if 30-day), processed on Dec 31, like every other subscription in the world.

When coming back from breaks, I was partially-double-charged like this twice before I realized what they were doing.

It's been like this since the game's inception, and I don't think their new billing system changed it... although I could be wrong there. I've only paid for one month since it went into place. Regardless, I'm surprised it took until 2009 for a suit to get filed, and I'm highly disappointed in the legal system for throwing it out.

@myr
The new Square Enix account system did away with the static billing date (first of each month) in lieu of normal cyclic billing.

@myr

That's just plain not true.

You reactivate account on Dec 31. You do not get billed at all on the 31st. On Jan 1 you get partial bill for 1 day of Dec. plus full bill for entire of Jan. On Feb 1 you get bill for Feb.

You do not get billed immediately when you reactivate and you do not get billed full for partial months.

@ImperialPanda

Eh...

You get billed partial for time after the 30 free days on a new account. But you get billed full if you're re-activating. Didn't know that because when I restarted playing after I quit, I bought a new copy. And I distinctly remembered partial payments.

@ImperialPanda

Sorry, but my old credit card statements say otherwise.

Still, it's good that it was fixed with the new system. Shame it took them 8 years to sort it out though.

@ImperialPanda

Er, yeah. You get it. I'd pay 1m gil for an edit button.

@JohnD212 What does Sony have to do with this?

@h4ngedm4n

I know what you mean, I learned that the hard way at one time. If a player takes a break say for a month and reactivate the very last week or last few days or day of the current month, the player would be charged as if they played two months worth. Thus having to wait till the first of the next month to reactivate once billing maintenance was over.

@JohnD212

It's actually nicer IMO. Considering you can swap "classes" you really don't have a need for multiple characters for any reason other than aesthetic value. It's cheaper with just one character than a normal subscription is.

Different monetization schemes are different.

@Nenene
Heh. Thing is good DRGs were actually good since TOAU (lolibri piercing bonus Drakesbane/Pentastrike spam anyone), it's just nobody realized it until a bit into its life. Before that though.. yeah. Especially when call wyvern was on a 2 hour cooldown...

I still lol at puppetmasters though. Even if they are more useful now, they still look ridiculous to me. lolpup forever!

@mattwo Well, to start there's the fact that this was an appeals court, meaning it's been to trial at least once before at a lower court. For a federal court to go to trial, have a verdict, get appealed, then get dismissed, 2 years isn't half bad. I don't know enough about the suit to really take a side (if it really was just "I didn't know there were FEEEEEES!" then it deserved dismissal; if it was about the screwy and non-standard billing practices of S-E it may not've) but the fact that it took two years is not a reflection of the merits of the case.