Do you need a subscription to play FF14?

The game comes with 30 days of play included, and after that you need a subscription. The free trial is a separate thing that you get without buying, so with a Steam copy you're straight onto the included month. Steam versions are tied to Steam, so you pay the subscription through your Steam wallet, not with a card on the Square Enix site. People mix this up all the time. If you already have a Square Enix account from another platform, Steam copies are fussy about that, so it's usually easiest to create the account through the launcher when you first start it.