The Key to Return Business: Don't Shut Out Your Buyers

I'm a bit obsessive with most things. I'll immerse myself in something, and ignore all else until I've had my fill. This is especially true of video games, and no other genre lends its self better to obsession than MMOs.

Recently I've felt the urge to go back to Final Fantasy XI, and was thrilled that despite their threats to delete account information after 3 months of inactivity, that they were offering what they call, the Return Home to Vana'diel campaign. This alluring concept got me excited, but eventually let me down.

The problem is that they require you either to have a still active PlayOnline account. Which still only services 2 games, FFXI and Tetramaster. Who on earth actually kept thier PlayOnline account active after quitting FFXI? Since I did not, I would need my original FFXI booklet with the registration code on the inside. Sorry, Sqeenix, but I lost that years ago.

I have to wonder how much money they are missing out on because they can't seem to see the value in what every other MMO seems to already know. If you leave your user's data alone, eventually a lot of them will spend more money with you.

I can't count the number of times I've let my World of Warcraft account expire only to play again a few months later. If there is a model for success worth trying to copy out there, it certainly is WoW.

It must be a slow month, this is my second post about a company that just doesn't seem to want my money in recent memory.