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Quelque Chose
New Eden Roller Disco Supply
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Posted - 2008.05.25 23:31:00 -
[1]
 Originally by: IonKnight
Edited by: IonKnight on 25/05/2008 23:07:04
Well looks like the forums trolls are about i was hoping for an actual intelligent answer guess thats too hard.
OK, here are the real answers for about the 500 godzillionth time:
1. Crazy European taxes. Because of these taxes, when Europeans pay the same amount as Americans, CCP actually receives less from Europeans.
2. The US, being a huge and insular video game market, has a certain amount of market clout. Americans (right or wrong) inherently have a mistrust of "crazy moon money" (ie, the Euro, the Pound, the Peso, the Yen, you name it) and any effort to charge Americans in straight Euros will inevitably cost you a chunk of the oodles of money to be made here, falling dollar or no. Welcome to capitalism.
3. You could work around item 2 by having the subscription rate fluctuate with currency conversion rates, but that's just going to **** off customers in the same way. "OMG subscription increases every month! Screw that I'ma play WoW instead." Or conversely, if the dollar rebounds US rates would apparently need to be reduced; who the hell does that? Nobody, that's who.
Eventually if the dollar continues to suck eggs (as seems likely) CCP will probably have to do something like raise US rates. Every time you do that though, you lose a certain amount of business. So what you have to do is figure out the magic rate at which lost business doesn't outweigh increased revenue and stick to it; that rate varies depending on the product, but generally speaking once a month isn't it. For a completely discretionary item like a video game, that rate almost certainly isn't more than about once per year.
In short, CCP will make precisely as much money as they can (as modified by how good they are at figuring out how much that is). If the current scheme of things is keeping them fat and happy I'm sure they'll gladly suffer through any number of broken english tirades from you.
If it's any comfort to you (and I'm sure it isn't) CCP is far from being the only European company with worries from the falling dollar. A weak dollar makes it more difficult for anybody to make money exporting to the US, but there's still that pesky business of us being hopelessly addicted to fueling the consumer goods market by buying as much useless plastic crap as we can get our hands on -- that amount still being roughly describable as "a lot" but unfortunately also falling under the purview of "not as much as previously" thanks to rising fuel and food prices and the specter of a recession on the horizon. So basically these companies are damned if they do and damned if they don't right now, and are just going to have to suck it up until things improve. So much so that there are vast legions of people who don't live in the US or even want to trying to figure out how to get the dollar back on its feet.
There. All that stuff is true. Feel better now? I bet not. So keep paying your sub or gimme your stuff. 
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Quelque Chose
New Eden Roller Disco Supply
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Posted - 2008.05.26 02:22:00 -
[2]
Just for kicks I looked up the single month WoW subscription rates. Here's the skinny:
USD 14.99/ month
EUR 12.99/ month
EUR 12.99 = USD 20.48 per today's exchange rate.
You guys also pay more for petroleum products, cigarettes, alcohol and electric guitars... which, when piled onto video games pretty much accounts for everything that makes life worth living doesn't it? Sucks to be you. But hey, look at it this way: you're not neurotic about sex, your beer isn't "like making love in a canoe," relatively few of you think the Earth is only 6000 years old and Germany has no speed limit (assuming you can actually afford a license). Isn't that worth a little extra? 
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Quelque Chose
New Eden Roller Disco Supply
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Posted - 2008.05.26 02:30:00 -
[3]
Originally by: Celeste Coeval
enjoy your recession
Man, I even counted your blessings for you and this is the thanks I get? Bitter, bitter Europe...
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Quelque Chose
New Eden Roller Disco Supply
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Posted - 2008.05.26 04:04:00 -
[4]
Originally by: Tellenta
Originally by: Lorieen
Just do what we did... just vote in leaders that will flush your economy down the toliet and tank you currency and they when it drops to 50% the worth of the dollar you will be paying less.
you speak insanity.
Discount Eve, bro. You know you want it... join us, it's bliss. 
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Quelque Chose
New Eden Roller Disco Supply
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Posted - 2008.05.26 12:03:00 -
[5]
Originally by: Celeste Coeval
Europe will be fine.
Well then what's all the ruckus about?
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Quelque Chose
New Eden Roller Disco Supply
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Posted - 2008.05.26 14:07:00 -
[6]
Here's a nice ingame example, true story too.
I had a manufacturing run finish up this morning and I just dropped it off at a couple of my favorite retail locations. Being a clever little weasel, I build in an area that's close to about 4 regional borders -- I'm literally an international businessman in this game.
I'm selling that product at a 50% markup over mineral cost in Region A, but at about a 25% markup in Region B -- three jumps away. Three jumps. Exact same product. In Region A my sale price is one of the lowest in the region but in Region B I'm cutting pretty close to the point where I'd have to fly way out into the sticks to get a better price and it would probably take me forever to sell out of that stock.
Is that fair? Hell no it's not. But that's what the market is telling me I can get away with doing, so I'm sure as hell doing it. Is the Eve economy a complex, accurate simulation of the real economy? Nope. But the principle is roughly the same here inasmuch as people will sell **** to other people for what they can get for it. I'm sure if CCP thought they could claw 20 bones/ month out of multiple busloads of Americans they'd do it in a heartbeat.
Why won't a lot of us pay that much? Same reason the people in Region B won't pay me as much for my crappy module as the people in Region A will: because for whatever reason we don't have to. If CCP won't sell us our MMO grind for $15 somebody else will. Hell, if this gets too expensive for me I'll just go back to playing shooters... for $0/ month.
Again, it's not fair, it's global capitalism. Those two concepts are mutually exclusive so stop asking about it.
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Quelque Chose
New Eden Roller Disco Supply
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Posted - 2008.05.26 14:35:00 -
[7]
Edited by: Quelque Chose on 26/05/2008 14:36:53
Originally by: Malachon Draco
Now if you take all these 3 things into account with the price of Eve, none of them apply. Information on pricing is readily available. Transport costs are zero. And its a subscription, so the repeat buy is also pretty evident I think.
I'm not saying it's a perfect example, but just to spar with you here:
1. Pricing information. Knowing the price of something isn't worth much if you don't have access to the different prices... which is precisely where the griping is coming from here. Europeans know Eve is available for less elsewhere in the world, but that's kind of useless to them if CCP won't sell it to them locally at that price. Meanwhile the Region A folks almost certainly know that stuff is expensive where they live (how the hell could they not? lol) but they'll still pay the premium rather than make 3 - 6 jumps for a bargain. Ironically this compares well to Region C, where stuff is so absolutely outrageously priced that nobody buys anything but necessities there and if they need other things they'll travel up to 12 jumps one way to buy them in Region B or Region D. True fact and amusing as well -- but it's a digression because these people have options that our Euros just don't at the moment.
2. Transport costs. In my case it's three jumps (or six round trip), which is something I'm willing to call negligible. I certainly don't have to pay fuel for it, nor is there any difference in regional tax rates.
3. Repeat use. Just so happens that the item in question (and I know I'm being vague, sorry but I value a certain amount of anonymity) is more commonly used for PvP than for PvE, so I'd imagine the turnover rate is pretty good there. It's also a T1 item with a high T2 skill requirement so I'd guess that a certain amount of it is simply discarded when the skills get trained. Either way, yeah, it's not as much turnover as a subscription service but neither is it as low as you'd see with, for instance, Hulks.
And anyway, all that stuff is ultimately built into the market conditions before you ever click "Sell." And it's the same thing here: CCP will get what it thinks it can get out of any market it sells to.
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Quelque Chose
New Eden Roller Disco Supply
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Posted - 2008.05.26 16:42:00 -
[8]
Originally by: Malcanis
Good point. the proper comparison is vs the ISK (Icelandic Kroner). This has appreciated over 30% against the US dollar since EvE started.
Right. Now figure in the taxation differences the OP claims don't matter. Just as a simplified example, if I pay CCP $1.50 taxed at 33% and you pay them $2.00 taxed at 50%, who's paying CCP more? Obviously nobody, they get a buck from each of us even though it costs you more to give it to them.
Given that CCP's EUR income allegedly gets taxed higher than their USD income, there's obviously some point at which the following conditions are met: the USD is worth less than one EUR but a payment of one USD still nets CCP more than a payment of one EUR. Depending on how those taxes finally and actually pan out, it could well be the case that Euros didn't start being worth more to CCP than Dollars until possibly even a couple of years into Eve's run.
And if that's the case, well, there's your "fair" right there.
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Quelque Chose
New Eden Roller Disco Supply
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Posted - 2008.05.26 17:00:00 -
[9]
Originally by: Malachon Draco
The difference between US and EU prices are greater than VAT can explain.
Right now, that's true. Has it always been that way though? Say, when the Euro was only worth 15% more than the Dollar (as recently as late 2005)?
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Quelque Chose
New Eden Roller Disco Supply
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Posted - 2008.05.26 17:38:00 -
[10]
Originally by: IonKnight
Edited by: IonKnight on 26/05/2008 17:04:26
Edited by: IonKnight on 26/05/2008 17:03:11
Quelque Chose yes we do get taxed more but what we have been trying to get at is that the taxation is alot less than what were actually paying. Atm we have to pay 37% more for eve it's that simple. I was simply curious where the 13% goes (24% of that is iceland tax cheers 3card). However out of that 13 % tax there is no import tax nothing so its not a case of whos pay more it's more a case of why is anyone having to pay more than anyone else at anytime. E.g i hear some of u saying at some point u paid more due to the influx of the exchange rate (icelandic to us). Well wouldn't this have happened if they used one currency we would never of had either problem.
Well, it's true that if there was one standard currency this whole thing would be much easier. Funny how the internet has in just a few years both shrunk the world a whole lot and also made its vastness more apparent, isn't it?
But as of this decade, you're just not going to get a big bite of the US market by charging in foreign currency. Americans don't see much of it so it confuses some of them, meanwhile others are actively paranoid about it, and then there's just the tendency to assume that if it's not available for US greenbacks then it's just not available to yanks. Could that change? Maybe. Probably depends on how far into the toilet the dollar manages to go. But right now I just don't see it happening, and if it does happen it'll take a bigger company than CCP to break it open.
And in my country's defense it's not just us who are like that, either... I understand the Japanese market is also chock full of bizarre etiquette, and then there's the Chinese whom we've been yelling at for years now because they apparently deliberately keep their Yuan devalued as a means of boosting their exports.
So that's why CCP charges two rates, or part of it. Another part could well have been that by taking in dollars in the US they hoped to dodge some of your egregious European taxes; in which case the joke's certainly on them.
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Quelque Chose
New Eden Roller Disco Supply
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Posted - 2008.05.26 17:54:00 -
[11]
Originally by: IonKnight
Hehe yea its quite funny i don't even know how i got anything done before then :D
So would u mind if we paid our sub in USD also ? That would remove American's fear of monolopy money :D
Well me personally I kind of get into the whole international community of the internet thing; I used to rent a gameserver in London for pounds and some time this year I'll probably buy a japanese guitar in Yen. The only gripe I'd have about paying a regular subscription in foreign currency would be if my monthly fee started going up significantly every month, that's no fun; however the fact that you can buy up to a year at a time helps take some of the sting out of that so who knows? I might do it. But that's just me.
As for what you guys pay, honestly I don't care even a little bit. As long as I'm satisfied with the product I'm getting and the price I'm paying for it why would I care if some guy in East Cheapistan gets the same thing for half what I pay but I don't get that deal? Beer probably still goes for about a third per bottle in Mexico compared to what it costs here, but I don't expect I'll lose any sleep over it.
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Quelque Chose
New Eden Roller Disco Supply
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Posted - 2008.05.26 23:24:00 -
[12]
Originally by: Lorieen
Kinda off topic but dear god where the hell do you live? I have friends from many places around the US and none of the pay less then $4.00 for a pack and most are around $4.50 to $4.85 in most states.
I live in a bassackwards tobacco- producing state. 
"SMOKE UP, JOHNNY!!"
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