Expansion price $ vs € vs £
They have to make up for taxes and stuff I guess. It seems that you can’t pay with US dollars for an EU account. They refuse to accept that if you don’t have kitten creditcard. The UK is worse off, they pay quite a bit more.
-edit- the kitten is a credit card from the US. Get it, Annnnnn US creditcard. Sight, these filters.
I think if you’re in EU you’ll get charged in euros. It’s always been this way, and not just here. I don’t know if they hand out codes to activate the expansion, then you might be able to get someone in NA to buy and give you the code, but it’s a pretty long shot. As I recall base GW2 had unique activation click/link in mail on the e-mail address used to purchase, not a code you could paste in your account details.
Ok thanks alot, yeah poked around a bit more and saw the whole post about taxes and stuff, and it wasn’t that much differens between € and $, I feel bad for UKs >.<
I did the maths on this a while ago, and I’ll repeat it here:
okay, base price in US is $50/$75/$100
if we remove the 5.45% sales tax that the US has, we get a base price of:
$47.41/$71.12/$94.83
we then add european taxes. (Note: VAT – the european equivalent of Sales tax – varies across europe. I assume Anet factors this in, and averages it out. I’m going for a rough average of 20% (europe range is 15-27%, with 20% being the UK level.))
so we multiply these values by 1.2 (adding 20% tax)
$56.89/$85.34/$113.79
we can then convert this into the relevant currencies – £ and €
we get
£35.83/£53.75/£71.67
and
€50.03/€75.05/€100.07
the euro conversion is pretty much spot on – the main discrepency here comes from the tax differences, and you can’t really blame Anet there.
the british prices,however, are another story. while the standard edition comes out right, the deluxe and ultimate editions are a little overpriced. in fact, the price progression is even different.
in US:
Standard = $50
Deluxe = $50 + $25
Ultimate = $50 + $25 + $25
in EU:
Standard = €50
Deluxe = €50 + €25
Ultimate = €50 + €25 + €25
in both these cases, the price difference between Standard and Deluxe and Deluxe and Ultimate is the same.
in the UK, however, we have
Standard = £35
Deluxe = £35 + £25
Ultimate = £35 + £25 + £20
realistically, in terms of conversion and price increases, a much better pricing for the UK would be £35/£55/£75, since this would increase by £20 at each step, and more closely reflect the prices paid by other players.
(I’m not asking anyone to change the pricing, or saying that this is unfair. it is entirely possible that there are other factors that I don’t know about. I’m just throwing out the maths I’ve been able to do,make your own conclusions)
(EDIT: I just want to point out that while I think the UK pricing could be more in line with the other prices, I don’t think the difference is hugely significant. despite any issues I have with the way the pre-purchases are being handled, I still love this game and have no objections to the british prices)
(edited by Gray.9041)
if we remove the 5.45% sales tax that the US has,
This is wrong.
Sales tax varies by state in the US. Some states don’t have one. My own state has one higher than 5.45%
But in most cases, we’re not actually charged any taxes for buying digital goods online. Some websites like amazon will charge the sales tax according to the buyer’s state though.
Also, our prices NEVER NEVER NEVER include the sales tax, we always have to add it on ourselves. So if we DID pay sales tax on HoT by buying it in a store, it would cost around $53-$58 for standard with tax. So when running your math against US prices, just use the advertised base prices, you don’t subtract the taxes from them.
(edited by Arioso.8519)
if we remove the 5.45% sales tax that the US has,
This is wrong.
Sales tax varies by state in the US. Some states don’t have one. My own state has one higher than 5.45%
But in most cases, we’re not actually charged any taxes for buying digital goods online. Some websites like amazon will charge the sales tax according to the buyer’s state though.
Also, our prices NEVER NEVER NEVER include the sales tax, we always have to add it on ourselves. So if we DID pay sales tax on HoT by buying it in a store, it would cost around $55-$60 for standard with tax.
as with europe, the US is a group of states with varying taxes. and like europe, I took the average. as of January this year, the average sales tax across all states is 5.45%
Since both europe and america are sold to on the whole, and not state-by-state, I assume that the cost in tax to Anet is roughly the average.
as with europe, the US is a group of states with varying taxes. and like europe, I took the average. as of January this year, the average sales tax across all states is 5.45%
Since both europe and america are sold to on the whole, and not state-by-state, I assume that the cost in tax to Anet is roughly the average.
US sales tax is payed by the customer.
Anet pays ZERO.
US sales tax should not factor into price comparison.
(Retailers reselling Guild Wars 2 collect sales tax, but that has nothing to do with Anets revenues and payments)
Granted, the company as a whole needs to pay other corperate taxes, but sales tax has nothing to do with cost conversions.
All I’m saying is don’t do this:
if we remove the 5.45% sales tax that the US has, we get a base price of:
$47.41/$71.12/$94.83
The base price is the base price. You basically factored a 5% discount that does not exist to the US prices. Everything else is right, though.
(edited by Arioso.8519)
so, you’re saying that if you bought HoT, you’d be paying 52.27 for the standard version?
108.72$ for the HOT ultimate edition where i live in the US.
The pvp community reminds me of what Obi-kittenenobi describes Mos Eisley as from star wars.
so, you’re saying that if you bought HoT, you’d be paying 52.27 for the standard version?
Yeah, that’s more or less how the tax works.
Unless I manage to buy it through an online retailer that doesn’t charge sales tax.
But either way, Anet/retailers are getting exactly $50/$75/$100 and the government gets that 2.27.
So I think for price comparisons it’ll be easier just to use the base price.
huh. in which case my understanding of american taxation appears to be flawed.
that said, I still object to the variance in price differences between deluxe and ultimate. in every other currency the price difference between standard and deluxe is the same as the price difference between deluxe and standard (this is more me being picky though.)