Curse

Loviatar · Aug 15, 2007, 10:39 PM // 22:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tijger

Korea? I think you're look at the wrong continent. See how many German districts there were during the Dragon Festival? They far outnumbered the Common and the French districts easily equaled the Common numbers.

GW has long ceased to be an American game, the old favor system exemplified the difference in numbers between the US and the EU.

what is more important really?

the number of German districts during a festival?

who holds favor?

or who supports them with sales?

remember it was a German server problem?......hummm.....maybe they were making up for the fact they were cut out the first time?

here are the numbers that count as europe has always seemed to have an ego problem.

from the NCsoft latest quarterly financial statement.

Quote:

By region, the percentage breakdown of sales for the second quarter shows 59% in Korea (US$ 52.5 million), and 41% from overseas entities and royalty income: US$13.9 million in North America, US$4.9 million in Europe, US$8.3 million in Japan, US$2.5 million in Taiwan, and royalty income of US$3.9 million.

lets see now

US$13.9 million in North America

US$4.9 million in Europe

yes europe is really showing GW is europe territory where it counts which is in sales

sure

Vlatro · Aug 16, 2007, 01:28 AM // 01:28

[QUOTE=X Ice Man X]
VAT 17.5% in the UK
.../QUOTE]

Point taken, but you are also forgetting about import/export tariffs (which in the UK also apply to "virtual commodities"), licensing fees, taxes imposed on distributors, taxes imposed on retailers etc. If they undercut the prices of traditional brick & mortar stores, few distributors would carry the product. I offered up VAT tax as an example simply because it's one most people outside of the UK are familiar with. I never intended to imply that there was only one tax in play. Even here in the US we have taxes on our taxes, so I don't imagine you're much better off.

We can also assume that AreaNet IS taking more money. While the profits are the same, the cost of doing business in that area of the world is much higher, even with internet sales. I sell to European customers every day. I object as much as you do. These taxes hurt my business. AreaNet is in the same position.

Just consider this: AreaNet is providing you with a service at a fixed price. No one is forcing you to use the service or buy their products. I hope, as I'm sure they do, that you will continue to use that service. You claim that the pricing is unfair and I agree, but life is unfair. It would be ignorant to assume that greed is the underlying cause of this issue. If you honestly believe that it is all a matter of greed, you can choose not to support it by not buying the product. While I would disagree with your reasoning, at least then I could respect your chosen course of action.

If I were in your position, I wouldn't deprive my self the entertainment value of their games, just so I could stand on principal over a difference in price that amounts to less money than most impoverished people have buried in their couch cushions. But that's just me. I mean come on, we're talking about less than the cost of 3 First class stamps here.

Mordakai · Aug 16, 2007, 02:46 AM // 02:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Loviatar

from the NCsoft latest quarterly financial statement.

lets see now

US$13.9 million in North America

US$4.9 million in Europe

yes europe is really showing GW is europe territory where it counts which is in sales

sure

Lov, can you provide a link for that? Thanks!

Sue I Sidel · Aug 16, 2007, 03:01 AM // 03:01

The recipient of a shipment is the importer of record in the destination country and is responsible for all Import Fees, NOT the seller

Nevin · Aug 16, 2007, 03:48 AM // 03:48

I believe its because, Europe and UK aren't as big of a market for anet. So for them to give Europe/UK the same amount of attention they give to the US, they need to charge extra to compensate for the lack of popularity.

Simple example:
100 US players, each pay 1 dollar
75 UK players, each will have to pay 1.35

There are less players out there, and less inflation as well. In my opinion Anet is simply making money where they can. But the logical reason would be that they're just funding their support for those areas, ever hear of the prices for GW games in Australia? They're outlandish, I heard that GW:EN would cost 55 USD in Australia apparently.

Hyper.nl · Aug 16, 2007, 07:14 AM // 07:14

When ANet is scamming, you can report it to police.

But this is not scamming but bad pricing policy. And I think it should be changed.

Shakkara · Aug 16, 2007, 09:06 AM // 09:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Loviatar

lets see now

US$13.9 million in North America

US$4.9 million in Europe

yes europe is really showing GW is europe territory where it counts which is in sales

sure

Thats total sales, not just guildwars sales.

In Europe, the other games besides guildwars simply arent that popular. So your data is not proving anything.

X Ice Man X · Aug 16, 2007, 04:47 PM // 16:47

Thats in the 2nd quater? Of What year?

What about the other Quaters?

Are you talking recent sales in this year? Or old sales?

Your data in incomplete. If we assume that it is the 2nd quater of this year. Then that just means that more americans are buying the game now. It doesn't mean that more Americans have the game... The fact that less Europeans are buying the game suggests that most of us already have it?

But if we follow you logic and say there are 3 times as many American players as there were European why did you not have favor more on the old system? Surely with the more players you should have, simply by numbers of people in HA.

Next time there is a special event somewhere count the number of American districts. The Common, French and German all reach over 60-70 Districts on the large events. So do the American servers get over 200 Districts? If not then I think you assume there is a larger European Market.

AW Lore · Aug 16, 2007, 07:00 PM // 19:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by X Ice Man X

Thats in the 2nd quater? Of What year?

What about the other Quaters?

Are you talking recent sales in this year? Or old sales?

Your data in incomplete. If we assume that it is the 2nd quater of this year. Then that just means that more americans are buying the game now. It doesn't mean that more Americans have the game... The fact that less Europeans are buying the game suggests that most of us already have it?

But if we follow you logic and say there are 3 times as many American players as there were European why did you not have favor more on the old system? Surely with the more players you should have, simply by numbers of people in HA.

Next time there is a special event somewhere count the number of American districts. The Common, French and German all reach over 60-70 Districts on the large events. So do the American servers get over 200 Districts? If not then I think you assume there is a larger European Market.

there was a time, where the roles where inversed, and america had favor more often than europe, europe players would come here "whine" about it. now the roles got inversed and europe got favor most of the times and american players began to whine about it.

regarding the event districts i have seen anywhere from 70 to 100 american districts, on one of the first shing jea dragon events i think i even saw 170 districts.

Nuclfus · Aug 17, 2007, 04:51 AM // 04:51

Think it's unfair? Well if you want to vent your frustration and really just have something to blame without any constructive intentions, whine to Anet. If you want to try and influence the issue and help resolve the problem, whine to your government.

captain_carter · Aug 17, 2007, 11:25 AM // 11:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nuclfus

Think it's unfair? Well if you want to vent your frustration and really just have something to blame without any constructive intentions, whine to Anet. If you want to try and influence the issue and help resolve the problem, whine to your government.

unfortunately that would be an even bigger waste of time

oracleofwoe · Aug 17, 2007, 12:00 PM // 12:00

you think this is bad? How about this...

Price of standard petrol in a Shell garage this morning in Washington D.C $2.69 a gallon.

Price of standard petrol in a Shell garage this morning in Washington Tyne and Wear, England 91p a LITRE. that works out under current exchange as $6.87 a gallon.

Now THATS unfair

Loviatar · Aug 17, 2007, 04:54 PM // 16:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by oracleofwoe

you think this is bad? How about this...

Price of standard petrol in a Shell garage this morning in Washington D.C $2.69 a gallon.

Price of standard petrol in a Shell garage this morning in Washington Tyne and Wear, England 91p a LITRE. that works out under current exchange as $6.87 a gallon.

Now THATS unfair

at that price i would have spent over 50 cents a mile on gas

it got between 8-14 MPG depending on how hard i jumped on it

2 four barrel carbs do get thirsty but i was paying 35 cents a gallon for hi test back then

X Ice Man X · Aug 17, 2007, 08:17 PM // 20:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by AW Lore

there was a time, where the roles where inversed, and america had favor more often than europe, europe players would come here "whine" about it. now the roles got inversed and europe got favor most of the times and american players began to whine about it.

regarding the event districts i have seen anywhere from 70 to 100 american districts, on one of the first shing jea dragon events i think i even saw 170 districts.

If there is more Americans then fair enough. I was asking. I don't know whats the most European Districts there has been in total.

captain_carter · Aug 17, 2007, 08:54 PM // 20:54

Can we really use the number of districts during festivals as a reliable measure? There's always a lot of International districts which I expect lots of players from both continents go to.

bilateralrope · Aug 17, 2007, 11:02 PM // 23:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by oracleofwoe

you think this is bad? How about this...

Price of standard petrol in a Shell garage this morning in Washington D.C $2.69 a gallon.

Price of standard petrol in a Shell garage this morning in Washington Tyne and Wear, England 91p a LITRE. that works out under current exchange as $6.87 a gallon.

Now THATS unfair

Except that you ignored differences in transport costs. Which don't apply here.

Since we will be downloading the GW:EN content even if we don't buy it, I'll be ignoring the cost of that data transfer.

So the only cost involved is changing a few pieces of data on your account, which is residing on their servers. So maybe a difference of a few cents depending on where the server that handles your account and the server that handles the purchase are.

Another question, has anyone tried lying about their address to see if that allows them to be charged in $US ?

Drag0noX · Aug 19, 2007, 01:55 AM // 01:55

I have a few words for the guy who started this thread

1. TAXES
2. CONVERSIONS
3. LOCATIONS

1. Some countries include taxes, others dont

E.g. Australian prices have tax included, Canadian, American and British Don't

2. Countries have different currencies, see

For example

Australia=Aud Britain=Pounds

the conversion rates are different

i think its something like .6 pounds to the australian dollar

3. The closer you are to where the product is made, the cheaper it will be

for example

I went to malaysia, and i needed headphones for my sony ericsson k610i

They were 140 ringgit, which is about $46 australian
in australia, they were $60

It all depends where you are and where the product is made

headphones=made in china
malaysia=close to china=lower prices

they turned out to be crap, but that's beside the point

Drag0noX · Aug 19, 2007, 02:00 AM // 02:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by oracleofwoe

you think this is bad? How about this...

Price of standard petrol in a Shell garage this morning in Washington D.C $2.69 a gallon.

Price of standard petrol in a Shell garage this morning in Washington Tyne and Wear, England 91p a LITRE. that works out under current exchange as $6.87 a gallon.

Now THATS unfair

all the more reason for you to get off your ass and walk or take the bus/train

the london underground is excellent, trains are always on time

bilateralrope · Aug 19, 2007, 05:17 AM // 05:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drag0noX

I have a few words for the guy who started this thread

1. TAXES
2. CONVERSIONS
3. LOCATIONS

1. Some countries include taxes, others dont

E.g. Australian prices have tax included, Canadian, American and British Don't

The problem for us down here in Austraila and NZ is that we are taxed at a different rate to Europe (12.5% GST in NZ) and our governments don't care about purchases as small as the guild wars purchases are. But we have no choice but to pay the European tax for a product that can be imported directly from the US which is both where it is produced and where the servers we use are located.

Quote:

2. Countries have different currencies, see

For example

Australia=Aud Britain=Pounds

the conversion rates are different

i think its something like .6 pounds to the australian dollar

And here I thought that the OP did take exchange rates into account. Anyway using my banks exchange rate calculator here are the prices I'd have to pay for any pvp edition based on current exchange rates :

Currency I pay in (price in that currency) | Amount I pay in $NZ
Euro (35.99) | $65.89
$US (39.99) | $54.95
British pounds (23.29) | $63.43

So paying in euros is approximately 20% more expensive for me than paying in $US. Sure its not much when we are just talking about one item, but when we start talking about buying other things (eg. extra character slots) it adds up.

Quote:

3. The closer you are to where the product is made, the cheaper it will be

We are talking about goods that are simply data. All ANET does is change a few pieces of data on our account and the data we need on our computers is downloaded directly. And we can ignore the cost of downloading the GW:EN specific client side data because the download occurs before you reach the login screen it must decide which server to grab the data from based on your IP address, not the currency you paid them in.

So the only cost difference between paying in $US and euros here is the cost of communication between the server that handles the transaction and the server where my account is stored.

This is assuming that either the servers for account storage and transactions are either on the same LAN if they are on the same continent (so they don't need the internet to talk to each other) or that ANET gets charged more for international traffic than national traffic. This is also assuming that they have multiple transaction servers and that my account is closest to the one which handles transactions in euros (but my account is on the American servers).

But even if those assumptions hold up we are still talking at less than one cent per account.

OlMurraniKasale · Aug 19, 2007, 06:53 AM // 06:53

Dear lord, let this thing die off already. It's a game. Pay the buck fifty and play or go to 9Dragons or something. Sheesh.

Oh wait, my posting made it bump up again. Damn!