Guild Wars 2

Why russian players can buy 800 for 10$ while european players must trade them for 10 €.
It’s ~ 23% more.

what is the minimum wage over there?

I know in the US it is about 7.50-8.00 dollars an hour.

What is it in Euros?

same reason why Aussies have to pay more for most game compared to US. Probably due to trade agreements and/or something else. Why does it even bother you?

Because it is unfair. There are exchange rates that needs to be taken into consideration when doing a transaction such as this. Its not like we are all born with riches!

I agree with the OP this does not make any sense. People that use the Euro pay a lot more then people that use the Dollar. I know this sounds greedy, but the Euro has a higher value then the Dollar so the ones that buy with Euro’s should get more then the one with Dollars.

I originally come from an asian country where the US currency is 3 times as strong as mine…so maybe they should lower it for my home country to be fair? Also, since everything needs to be “fair”, then the price should be adjusted by the Purchasing Power Parity of different country then?

Like I say, it’s probably due to some regional trade policy thing. I don’t think a company would prefer to trade in different currency as it adds complication and currency risk.

EU countries need to add VAT on top of all digital purchases. ANet’s service is in Frankfurt so they probably use Germany’s VAT, which is 19%.

USD prices are generally without sales tax.

Wazabi.1439:

I originally come from an asian country where the US currency is 3 times as strong as mine…so maybe they should lower it for my home country to be fair? Also, since everything needs to be “fair”, then the price should be adjusted by the Purchasing Power Parity of different country then?

Like I say, it’s probably due to some regional trade policy thing. I don’t think a company would prefer to trade in different currency as it adds complication and currency risk.

I didn’t say that they should use the lower currency.

i say : use an accurate exchange rate.

if it’s 10$ for 800 gems it should be 7.7 € for the same amount (or 8, i’m not that greedy) or 1000 gems for 10€

Tom Gore.4035:

EU countries need to add VAT on top of all digital purchases. ANet’s service is in Frankfurt so they probably use Germany’s VAT, which is 19%.

USD prices are generally without sales tax.

Do you have any source to support this ?

VAT is a tax u have to add when chaning from euro to dollars.
no matter what, u have to add to prices showed in $ for find out how much in € costs

Antarion.6230:

Do you have any source to support this ?

http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/taxation/vat/consumers/mail_order_distance/index_en.htm

Official enough for you?

I live in Australia. When I purchase gems, I get charged more than what I should. One example is when I bought 1600 gems for $20USD, I got charged $20.17AUD. I know it’s very little, but because the store lacks a $30 option, I had to buy $10 worth afterwards. I was unable to do so because that 17 cents extra charge from the last purchase left me with $9.83, voiding my ability to purchase the 800 gems. This is rather silly, considering the Australian Dollar is buying more over the US Dollar. So where I was charged $20.17 for 1600, I should have been charged $19.15. Can ArenaNet or NCSoft (whoever is in charge of the gem store) please explain this?

Sources:
http://themoneyconverter.com/AUD/USD.aspx
http://www.xe.com/ucc/convert/?Amount=20&From=USD&To=AUD

you can always just change country’s, or buy things in a differnt currantcy.

10 USD is about 7 euros, so I don’t see the problem with just changing the prices…

It’s literally just integers in the code that need to be changed…

Tom Gore.4035:

EU countries need to add VAT on top of all digital purchases. ANet’s service is in Frankfurt so they probably use Germany’s VAT, which is 19%.

USD prices are generally without sales tax.

This. However that’s not the whole truth. USD sales have a VAT but they usually don’t show them on the price tag.

Prices in the EU have to show this VAT tax already in the price tag, while in the US they get added during the sale itself. So while the gem shop SHOWS a price tag of for example 10$, during the sale itself VAT is added, so that makes for example 13$ depending on the rate of VAT.

I won’t do the math now but the difference after currency exchange between the EU price and the US price is only a few cents.

I believe Brazil should get cheaper gems….

pretty please?

meh 10$ (20 reais) for 800 gems is fine anyways.

Your logic only works if Anet had absolutley no workers or serves in EU territories.

Yes the Eu is stronger than the dollar but the product your are buying comes with costs in Eu.

John Smith.4610:

ZionNow.2138:

I won’t do the math now but the difference after currency exchange between the EU price and the US price is only a few cents.

This is correct. Our publishing is out of England, so we have a 20% VAT across the board on all EU sales. The difference is just inclusive vs exclusive taxation.

Ok can you then explain why the UK pays more than EU….

10 EUR is not 8.50 GBP. Its much nearer to 8 GBP. 8.1 EUR if you want to round to a decent number, really you should be charging us in EUR and letting our banks do the exchange rate for you to save you having to change gem pricing if the EUR:GBP ratio changes drasticly. Charging us 5% extra on gems is a little unfair.

grishnakah.5168:

I live in Australia. When I purchase gems, I get charged more than what I should. One example is when I bought 1600 gems for $20USD, I got charged $20.17AUD. I know it’s very little, but because the store lacks a $30 option, I had to buy $10 worth afterwards. I was unable to do so because that 17 cents extra charge from the last purchase left me with $9.83, voiding my ability to purchase the 800 gems. This is rather silly, considering the Australian Dollar is buying more over the US Dollar. So where I was charged $20.17 for 1600, I should have been charged $19.15. Can ArenaNet or NCSoft (whoever is in charge of the gem store) please explain this?

Sources:
http://themoneyconverter.com/AUD/USD.aspx
http://www.xe.com/ucc/convert/?Amount=20&From=USD&To=AUD

The final amount you get charged in AUD depends on your bank.
I purchased 1600 gems for $20.00 USD, which is exactly what my credit card was charged for. My bank converted this as $19.47 AUD (rate is usually on par with the xe.com rate) and charged me a 2.5% currency conversion fee ($0.49).
Total gem cost = $19.96 AUD.

If your bank is giving a horrible exchange rate don’t blame ANet.

Wazabi.1439:

Why does it even bother you?

people are paying more for the same thing, what an idiotic question

John Smith.4610:

ZionNow.2138:

I won’t do the math now but the difference after currency exchange between the EU price and the US price is only a few cents.

This is correct. Our publishing is out of England, so we have a 20% VAT across the board on all EU sales. The difference is just inclusive vs exclusive taxation.

The exchange rates between Euro and Dollar are always in flow, very unlike to your static 1$ = 1€ interpretation. So even with that inclusive taxation European customers are likely to be on a varying disadvantage most of the time. (Right now, I would have to pay 7,67€, add 1,53€ VAT and we are at 9,20€. So you still gain 80 Eurocents on any sale with your current scheme.)

In these days it is pretty easy to work with a system that uses the same base prices for all your customers and then applies the local taxes based on the location of the account’s owner. Several webshops and gaming sites do it already. There just has to be a will on AreanaNet/NCSoft’s part to do that bit of extra work (setting up the system that way) in order to provide a better, fair service to their customers.

John Smith.4610:

This is correct. Our publishing is out of England, so we have a 20% VAT across the board on all EU sales. The difference is just inclusive vs exclusive taxation.

Sorry to say but this is not correct, we still lose 80 euro cent… when using the 10 euro buy out. I may be a cheapkitten But if I buy for 40 Euro gems I will miss around 3,20 in gems this is not fair.

i agree this is silly.

with current exchange rates paying in dollars will only cost you 7.63 euro if u include any transfer fees (roughly 1-2 %) its still only 7.78 euro.

meaning you would pay over 2 euro more if u paid in your own currency.

so obviously what Anet wants is for all players from euro countries to give a fake billing address and pay in dollars instead, makes sense i guess….

this is the thing that is keeping me from buying any gems for money because i refuse to pay more for anything than anyone else