Cant buy crystals

Prev1
Antario
996 posts Member
edited May 2020
7e0pymfx2fdr.png

They don’t want my money :D
Post edited by Kyno on

Replies

  • Antario
    996 posts Member
    edited May 2020
    Sorry, maybe this sounds like a joke, but it is actually a serious issue. Starting May 28th, all players, who have created the game acount in China, have received a game update, which removed the in-game purchase option (see screenshot above).

    I know there was a post created by another chinese player on this forum already:
    https://forums.galaxy-of-heroes.starwars.ea.com/discussion/230087/swgoh-will-be-banned-in-my-country/p1

    That post was a bit misleading because actually you can still download the game from any overeas app stores and continue playing on your chinese phone. However, even if you do that the in game purchase options remain empty. Essentially, it means you have to start a new account if you want to spend money on this game. Your old game account is castrated and for most Chinese P2P players it means a big disadvantage.

    The other post got closed because the discussion went sideway and mod intervented. But this post here is not about politics and why the game got banned from the app store in China. Therefore, I hope it stays open.

    This post is about the following problem:

    Obviously, the censoring update was installed on May 28th to all player accounts, which were created using a version of this game downloaded from a Chinese app store. That chinese version is ruled as illegal in China as EA did not apply for a Chinese ISBN for this game. I don't know if all existing chinese game accounts are now considered illegal as per Chinese law at this point, but:

    Imaging playing this game for years and then you are exluded from an important game feature with just a short pop-up. Sure, F2P players problably won't care much now. But I think even they should care. All of a sudden, we are all being down-graded to second-class players without any contribution to the company revenue. What guarantee do we have that EA does not shutdown all player accounts from China with blink of an eye next week?

    There was ZERO communication except a short ingame notification in Chinese about this upcoming restriction. That notification was issue only days before the update. No other communication channels have been opened since then to elaborate the consequences and solutions for the affected players.

    As part of the world-wide player base, we feel completely ignored by EA/CG. All the contribution to this game for years and that's how they treat loyal players. Many people have no choice but thinking about abandoning this game. There are plenty of players, who made recent investments in this game (also because of the Galactic legends) in order to stay competitive. They now got their money cheated as they are forced to go f2p for the rest of their play time.
  • Antario
    996 posts Member
    Btw, the removal of the ingame purchase option is not device specific. Regardless if you are using an iOS or Andriod device, logged in with Apple ID or Google Play, as long as your game account is created in China, there is no option to spend money on this game anymore.
  • Rath_Tarr
    4944 posts Member
    edited May 2020
    Interesting that blame is being assigned to EA/CG but not to the Chinese government who created these rules.
  • vincentlondon
    4527 posts Member
    edited May 2020
    I have heard also of indian trend to boycott and delete all chinese app but it is maybe a different topic

    It s just things related to China doesnt seem to go well lately
  • Antario
    996 posts Member
    edited May 2020
    Rath_Tarr wrote: »
    Interesting that blame is being assigned to EA/CG but not to the Chinese government who created these rules.

    Come on, let's not pretend EA/CG were surprised by the fact this game needs the Chinese ISBN when they woke up one day. There is an official application process for this. And I'm not blaming EA/CG for failing the application. What I critize is the lack of transparency towards the players.

    Why do you think they announced and implemented the restrictions just days apart? I can't help to believe they are afraid players would instantly stop spending money on this game once they got notion of the truth too early.

    Sorry, the chinese government played dirty here for sure. But that does not mean I can't blame EA/CG for not being transparent.

  • Damodamo
    1574 posts Member
    edited May 2020
    Ea/cg are not responsible for Chinese internal political decisions, made in response to a worldwide (mainly usa) outcry over the alleged handling of the initial covid19 outbreak.

    Trump criticised China (the China virus) and China responded by flexing its political muscle and being obstructive to any non China based businesses. Hence the ban.

    /thread

    *edit* USA/trump have been the most directly vocal country to express blame/reparation claims towards China.
  • kello_511
    1648 posts Member
    Damodamo wrote: »
    Ea/cg are not responsible for Chinese internal political decisions, made in response to a worldwide (mainly usa) outcry over the alleged handling of the initial covid19 outbreak.

    Trump criticised China (the China virus) and China responded by flexing its political muscle and being obstructive to any non China based businesses. Hence the ban.

    /thread

    *edit* USA/trump have been the most directly vocal country to express blame/reparation claims towards China.

    Let’s try not to dig into politics a this time.

    Did you know a week ago that these issues were brewing, and that a special license would be required for all mobile games to be available to Chinese players?
    Maybe you did. I didn’t, and I’m sure a lot of others players didn’t either (regardless of where they are from).

    Did CG know? I’d suggest that they were totally aware of the issues.

    The OP is blaming CG for not communicating the fact earlier. It’s not an unreasonable complaint. Players in China may have been spending huge amounts of money on this game up until a few days ago, when they logged in to suddenly find out that these issues existed. I’d be upset about that too.
  • Antario
    996 posts Member
    kello_511 wrote: »

    Let’s try not to dig into politics a this time.

    Did you know a week ago that these issues were brewing, and that a special license would be required for all mobile games to be available to Chinese players?
    Maybe you did. I didn’t, and I’m sure a lot of others players didn’t either (regardless of where they are from).

    Did CG know? I’d suggest that they were totally aware of the issues.

    The OP is blaming CG for not communicating the fact earlier. It’s not an unreasonable complaint. Players in China may have been spending huge amounts of money on this game up until a few days ago, when they logged in to suddenly find out that these issues existed. I’d be upset about that too.

    Thank you. That's exactly my point. I'm not a whale but I know plenty of Chinese players, who are whaling in this game. And now all their investments are useless over night. It will be hard for these top players to stay competitive without a constant pay stream.

    As far as I know many of these players are planning to file complaints to Apple to get their money back they spent the last three months. Not sure if they will be successful.
  • ssj4tim
    135 posts Member
    Would a VPN work? I mean you shouldn't have to buy something extra to play a game, just curious if that would allow you to "set your location" to outside of China and continue playing?
  • Antario
    996 posts Member
    ssj4tim wrote: »
    Would a VPN work? I mean you shouldn't have to buy something extra to play a game, just curious if that would allow you to "set your location" to outside of China and continue playing?

    No it seems like if the account was created in china they are unable to buy anything from now on, which means even if they moved out to a different country they will still not be able to purchase anything

    That's right. It's a direct censoring of the accounts regardless from which country you are logging in.

    However, there seems to be a glitch in consistency of the censorship. Yesterday night, the in-game purchase options reappeared for couple of minutes before it's gone again after relog. Maybe CG is trying out something...let's see.
  • It’s not the time for blaming whom, and we just want to find out a solution for keeping playing with our pace. That’s annoying enough for Chinese players( including me).
  • The ISBN is stupid enough yet EA CG chose the worst option in dealing with it
    I got emails from EA help today indicated the issue we encounted was purly a bug
    Lol i do hope CG dev is going to fix this bug soon or at least provide us a walk around. If we are using another countries Id now and playing a game downloaded from other countries app store on an device purchased in other countries and paying CG with dollars yet we are still banned to pay and regulated by Chinese ISBN, Then i m forced to say goodbye to my 6.4m GP

    May the force be with you all
  • jedibaer71
    575 posts Member
    edited June 2020
    @Antario
    your screenshot above is in german language.
    may i ask, if you are a European player? (perhaps from germany/austria/switzerland)
    Post edited by jedibaer71 on
  • Antario
    996 posts Member
    edited June 2020
    jedibaer71 wrote: »
    @Antario
    your screenshot above is in german language.
    may i ask, if you are a European player? (perhaps from germany/austria/switzerland)

    Yes, I have both a German Apple ID and a Chinese Apple ID. And I play the game in German language.

    Unfortunately, I downloaded and created my game account using the Chinese Apple ID. That's why I'm affected by the censorship as well.
  • Antario
    996 posts Member
    What's the big deal? I thought all the Chinese players just bought discounted crystals from 3rd party sites anyway....

    There are black sheep everywhere. But labeling all players from a specific country just because some players did wrong in the past is very ignorant, not to say downright insulting.



  • Antario
    996 posts Member
    DreamEvill wrote: »
    The ISBN is stupid enough yet EA CG chose the worst option in dealing with it
    I got emails from EA help today indicated the issue we encounted was purly a bug
    Lol i do hope CG dev is going to fix this bug soon or at least provide us a walk around. If we are using another countries Id now and playing a game downloaded from other countries app store on an device purchased in other countries and paying CG with dollars yet we are still banned to pay and regulated by Chinese ISBN, Then i m forced to say goodbye to my 6.4m GP

    May the force be with you all

    If it's a bug then it is actually good news. It would mean there is a chance the issue gets fixed.

    Thank you for sharing the information!
  • Monel
    2776 posts Member
    What's the big deal? I thought all the Chinese players just bought discounted crystals from 3rd party sites anyway....

    Shame!
  • Antario wrote: »
    What's the big deal? I thought all the Chinese players just bought discounted crystals from 3rd party sites anyway....

    There are black sheep everywhere. But labeling all players from a specific country just because some players did wrong in the past is very ignorant, not to say downright insulting.



    It was meant to be a joke, since, you know, it has actually happened (twice) to a large number of players from the region.

    I can however see it being insulting, so I apologize.

    In all honesty, I'm just jealous you aren't allowed to buy crystals.

  • Guess you are just going to have to adopt the free-to-play lifestyle. It's not that bad. You will have more money and time available for other activities!
  • Guess you are just going to have to adopt the free-to-play lifestyle. It's not that bad. You will have more money and time available for other activities!

    Preach!
  • Antario
    996 posts Member
    Guess you are just going to have to adopt the free-to-play lifestyle. It's not that bad. You will have more money and time available for other activities!

    Sorry, but your logic is so wrong.

    As I mentioned before, I‘m not a whale. But I do enjoy making tactical investments in this game exactly for the reason of saving my precious time. Sometimes it is just one missing gear piece. Instead of spending days grinding for it, buying it saves me time for real live obligations. Now with the purchase option gone, I have to spend more time on this game than I can afford.

    What you are asking me to do is basically to lay back and become a casual player and that is not how I play and enjoy this game. I would rather opt to quit if I have to.

    Forcing someone to be F2P is as wrong as forcing someone to P2P!
  • It really is annoying that CG didn't inform the players earlier about this issue. If this really is not a bug, then I'd just try to refund what's possible from the last few months. Since it seems to be a new law, I don't think anything will change anytime soon so you won't be able to spend on the game anymore unfortunately. So you'll either have to go f2p or quit. I'd try to at least save as much as possible if I were you.
  • Have tried putting a ticket in to EA and talking to a customer service or representative? Asking whether or not they filed for the ISBN or going to?
  • Antario
    996 posts Member
    Have tried putting a ticket in to EA and talking to a customer service or representative? Asking whether or not they filed for the ISBN or going to?

    I did and got the standard reply to clean the cache...got the feeling their own support team does not even know about the background of the issue...

    I also work in software support and the support quality of EA is really hilarious.
  • Ya they probally don't know what to do either so they'll give the standard EA reply. Sorry to hear about this, hope things get worked out between the parties
  • Antario
    996 posts Member
    Ya they probally don't know what to do either so they'll give the standard EA reply. Sorry to hear about this, hope things get worked out between the parties

    Many Chinese players already applied for refund at Apple and got their money back. I'm hesitating. Not sure if CG will ban all players who claimed their money back...not sure about anything at the moment.
  • Antario
    996 posts Member
    Latest update and correction.

    Apple refused to refund to affected Chinese players saying they have to sort it out with EA by themselves.

    I got reply from EA customer service that they are not going to reactivate the in-game purchase option for Chinese player accounts.

    And they are not able to transfer Chinese player accounts to an overseas account. It only option would be to start from scratch again with a completely new account.

    Guess that‘s it. Please be kind to any Chinese swgoh players in future. They will be a rare species in swgoh and they are all 100% F2P.

    I will continue playing because I love this game like many Chinese players. No more blames.
Sign In or Register to comment.