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Things that make me sad about the new Expansion announcement


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@Astralporing.1957 said:

That would mean if you ever moved into another country, your game would stop working and you'd need to buy another (and start over). And forget about choosing between EU and NA zones on your own as well, most likely. That's... not an ideal solution, to put it very mildly.

there is current methods of controlling this, when you your country and want to buy the expansion from there, you pay with the billing information from there (bank/credit card), if not you pay the price of your current billing place, again like Steam and every other store does it.

and the serves are no real problem, as influencers to my knowledge can change then at will and we can paying a small fee, so its inconsequential.

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@Karkara.9067 said:But imagine if the expansion is 40 USD, but in the region you live you have to pay 60 (considering that all the other economic variables are the same) that’s the level of disparity we are talking here.Imagine, yes...

My country has a 25% tax on most things. It's a 3rd world country called Sweden. You dont even want to know the gasoline taxes. An American would literally have a heart attack hearing it.

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@Karkara.9067 said:

@"Dawdler.8521" said:

I honestly dont even understand what OP is talking about. Why would the game be "5x more expensive"? That's not how currency conversion works. If the expansion cost $40... it's gonna cost around 200 reais + if there is any local taxes added. Because that's $40. The simplest way is obviously to check what PoF cost today and slap another $10 on it because that's most likely what a new expansion will cost unless Anet do something really, really fancy.

No friend, in a direct conversion, yes, 40USD= 200 BZR, but, that doesn’t mean that considering inflation, buying power and other economic aspects of a country, that 200 BZR is equivalent to 40 USD, that’s simplifying.

No, actually, that's EXACTLY what it means because that's exactly how exchange rate works. You are intermixing the value of currency with the price of a product or service in a specific country. The relative value of currency is probably THE primary factor when products/services cross borders .. you want Anet to ignore that in the pricing of their services because of 'unfair' ... that doesn't make sense.

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@Dawdler.8521 said:

Then you can play that pirated version of GW2 and save your money ... what's the problem?

sigh... i'll not pirate the game!

I'm not suggesting you pirate the game. You're using piracy as a justification to get a better deal in regional currency ... I'm simply letting you know if you want that better deal, you can play the pirated version. Anet competing with piracy in your region by lowering their cost to you in that region is an absurd proposition. Here is why

It's not possible for Anet to complete with pirates because Anet has to consider the cost of developing the game in their business model and pricing. Pirates don't. Seems to me there are canyon-sized cracks in your logical approach as well as your basic knowledge of how economics and service industries work ... and YOU are going to tell us what decisions Anet should be making to not lose money? Gotcha!Not sure why you are even having that argument, you cant pirate GW2 expansions unless you literally hack Anet servers to enable it on your account.

Actually, I'm just leading someone down the garden path to demonstrate how ridiculous it is to use piracy as a reason for Anet to change the price of their services in a region. I'm pretty sure mostly everyone gets it that doesn't have a solution looking for a problem to solve.

I honestly dont even understand what OP is talking about. Why would the game be "5x more expensive"? That's not how currency conversion works. If the expansion cost $40... it's gonna cost around 200 reais + if there is any local taxes added. Because that's $40. The simplest way is obviously to check what PoF cost today and slap another $10 on it because that's most likely what a new expansion will cost unless Anet do something really, really fancy.

Maybe if the OP was more honest, he would have less problems here. Clearly, his background in economics isn't strong enough to make an economic argument for why Anet should give different regions different pricing. Seriously, if he just came out and said "
Hey, it's too expensive for me ... it's the cost of X months rent where I live
", at least he would come across more genuine.

The most egregious thing (and I don't think the OP realizes it) ... he's basically asking Anet to change the business model so that 'rich people' subsize 'poor people' so they can play ... the cost to develop the game is a finite amount and if someone pays less, someone else has to more. The problem with that is if poor people can't afford the entry fee, they certainly aren't going to contribute to the game's profitability over time. Why would Anet accommodate them by adjusting their business model if that's the case?

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@Obtena.7952 said:Actually, I'm just leading someone down the garden path to demonstrate how ridiculous it is to use piracy as a reason for Anet to change the price of their services in a region. I'm pretty sure mostly everyone gets it that doesn't have a solution looking for a problem to solve.

i never used piracy as a reason for this (its not even mentioned in my original post) just as an example of reasons why some companies may do regional pricing.

also i don’t get why are you getting so aggressive about this, saying i'm not being honest (????) and stuff, as i stated in my original post i do have the money to buy the expansion, thats not what i was trying debate here, i just gave then my opinion, and experience on the subject friend!

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@Karkara.9067 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:Actually, I'm just leading someone down the garden path to demonstrate how ridiculous it is to use piracy as a reason for Anet to change the price of their services in a region. I'm pretty sure mostly everyone gets it that doesn't have a solution looking for a problem to solve.

i never used piracy as a reason for this (its not even mentioned in my original post) just as an example of reasons why some companies may do regional pricing.

And my point is that reason doesn't make sense because piracy isn't regional and original developers can't compete with pirates on pricing. You're fishing for a problem that you think your solution solves to justify it.

also i don’t get why are you getting so aggressive about this, saying i'm not being honest (????) and stuff, as i stated in my original post i do have the money to buy the expansion, thats not what i was trying debate here, i just gave then my opinion, and experience on the subject friend!

No one is arguing you don't have the money to buy it, so you don't have to keep regurgitating that the discussion is based on that point. That's part of the dishonesty here that I'm seeing. I mean, I get you have an opinion, but it's not an informed one and since you want to continue to base your argument for change on it, I'm willing to continue to clarify what's wrong with it.

I know you don't see it, but for the expansion to be cheaper for you, it's got to be more expensive to someone else because the cost to develop the game is a finite number of dollars based on paying many people to do the work. It's a very selfish way of thinking that you should have privilege on pricing because of regional differences. If you don't want to pay the entry fee, what is going to compel anyone to make a change to lower it for you knowing you are unlikely to contribute to the game financially anyways?

If the price should be lower, it should be lower for EVERYONE ... and to be 100% clear here, as many people already mentioned, that's pretty consistent with how Anet has done business so far. If you want the expansion for less, you have to wait until it goes on sale which is an indication Anet already factors in 'regional differences' in considering costumers in your situation.

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@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Hannelore.8153 said:While I can sympathise with your concern its not going to happen because then people would try to cheat the system and get friends to use currency from other countries to buy the game for cheaper, that's why its a fixed price point in every country.

Thank you,yes, but they could use codes that can only be activated in the region that is bought , like steam does, where if you buy a game from Brazil you can’t activate it in the US, counter measures to this kind of thing exists.That would mean if you ever moved into another country, your game would stop working and you'd need to buy another (and start over). And forget about choosing between EU and NA zones on your own as well, most likely. That's... not an ideal solution, to put it very mildly.

Actually, the Core game was region-locked at release, and for some time after. You could only unlock it in the region it was purchased, but could play it from anywhere.

Still, you could choose to play in either NA or EU, no matter in which region the account was unlocked.

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@Hannelore.8153 said:While I can sympathise with your concern its not going to happen because then people would try to cheat the system and get friends to use currency from other countries to buy the game for cheaper, that's why its a fixed price point in every country.

It is also related to how each company actually also have to pay tax (where they have their main office) or reserve value added taxes (VAT) for each country depending on transactions origin and another issues is that exchange rates can change from day to day which can also be an issue.

Zenimax (company behind ESO) charge local currency for purchase of game and Crowns (same as Gems). Zenimax is an American company so that argument based on that MMO which have its head office in America can offer payment in local currencies is not right. How each company handle its way to decide what to charge is based on other things then just costs, it is a bit more complex. Remember that most people that play MMO sooner or later actually buy something in their store (real money transaction from Gems).

Right now with Covid-19 markets are very shaky for some currencies, so it is something that one also need to take into consideration. It might not be that they (ArenaNet) can charge the same as they have done for years for each new expansions as more and more people will have less money to spend from this crisis.

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People fail to realize that 40 usd (or the equivalent in any other currency is not the same in other countries. That is the issue. It's not that someone particularly is poor, it's that it doesn't translate correctly into another country. I moved from Chile to Spain and now everything is much cheaper. Because prices are more or less the same but people earn wages of 3x the ones back in my country.Some companies do change their prices depending on the country. So it's not absolutely strange to ask for this either. I remember I saw dragon age inquisition at half the price on steam if I bought it on my country compared to Europe. (11usd vs 22usd)But sadly if arenanet has it set this way, it's because they have already done a market study and consider its not worth it.

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I see what you mean as a brazilian player, but as some said, Anet do not work with real, but in dollar, when they put a product to sell, they expect a revenue in dollar, not in real. Some companies do have the different pricing according to regions, but I think that 30 usd (or 150 reais) is nothing but fair to support such a great company as Anet and a great game as gw2, you see 150 reais spent on simple 3/4 maps + elite specs + mounts, but in reallity there is a whole team and time and work invested on those.As for now, the whole world is going through a very serious crisis, but the 3rd expac is nowhere near to have a launch date yet, so it is a bit early to talk about pricing considering the usd:real ratio.

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@Karkara.9067 said:

@Hannelore.8153 said:While I can sympathise with your concern its not going to happen because then people would try to cheat the system and get friends to use currency from other countries to buy the game for cheaper, that's why its a fixed price point in every country.

Thank you,yes, but they could use codes that can only be activated in the region that is bought , like steam does, where if you buy a game from Brazil you can’t activate it in the US, counter measures to this kind of thing exists.

It's not sold on Steam or EPIC or GoG or any other service, it's sold by NCSoft and I'm pretty sure this time the pricing and marketing is going to be done by NCSoft exclusively without any input from ArenaNet...so leave ArenaNet out of it and direct your suggestion to NCSoft West, the publisher of the game, that's who dictates the pricing, the publisher, not the developer.

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@"Karkara.9067" said:In Brazil a dollar is 5 reais (1:5) that means that this game (and the gems for that matter) is 5x more expensive, I’ll not pay 150 reais minimum for this expansion I’m sorry and the reason is not that I don’t have the money, but this is too over budget for a simple 3-4 maps+ spec+mount expansion.

This discussion has been going on since the game was released, back when no expansions were around and we only had the gem store. Back then, euro was stronger than the dollar (now not by that much but still) yet gems used to (and still do) cost the same amount in euro/dollars. It's not x5, like with Brazil, but it still was an argument back then of Arenanet/NCsoft giving a bad deal to their EU customers. If for 8 years this "disparity" has been in place for a market as big as the EU, then don't expect anything to happen for any other, much smaller, market. This is how the game works

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Yeah regional pricing should be a thing that is used here. It's not about how much stronger a currency is. More about the actual situation and how much money people earn and have to pay for their housing+water+heating. (On average for the country.) Then look at what's left to buy food n stuff (on average for that country) and make a price so most people can afford (maybe with saving a bit) the game.

In extreme cases this could lead to people from other countries buying the game in the cheaper country. For non-mmo piracy might as well be an issue. So that's not a big deal ... with regionally different prices people that think it is too expensive might pirate it. Others might just pay the higher price. (Okay to have the higher price maybe.)

MMO ...having different servers/logins could be a thing. If you constantly check the IP a guy from a country with higher price can't just buy in the cheaper region and make the account there and login in his region + the cheaper region would IP block him. (Still possible to circumvent this but he never might meet players from his region and might have to buy VPN services.)

Now I don't know if brazil uses his own login page + registering + servers ... or if they buy at the EN language page here and register (with different currency offered based on their region/IP - that migh tjust be bypassed by people to pay a cheaper price). From what I understand they have to pay in dollars on the EN site without having even a different currency option offered to them? ArenaNet probably fears that EU/US guys might buy with a VPN in Brazil when trading dollar/euro to brazil currency and buying the game might be cheaper. (Unless they set the price at brazil currency much higher which would not solve the problem for brazil people.)

Sad that you can't just rely on the community and people only buying in their country. People trying to get it cheaper will ruin the option for lower prices for others. People from Brazil are really cool and nice guys. (I played another game with super small community ages ago that is dead now where we had 1 or 2 known Brazil players that were fun to talk to.)

Edit: Ideally I'd hope for as much as players to play on the same servers with a region check on login/payment and ArenaNet using this to make prices different based on region ... at least for the expansions that can't be bought by gems (which is understandable ... they want something to surely generate money). Then hoping for most people not to bypass it. (Afaik the playerbase here is a bit more mature than compared to other MMO because GW2 is different and attractting different people.) Maybe doing regularly checks on the people's IP. Checing if payment info matches the IP location. Stuff like that. Afaik on steam it is pretty hard to even use older tutorials for foreign cheaper payment with credit card when credit card payment can lead to location of the card holter being checked. (Most tutorials here use PaySafeCard where no location info is connected to the PaySafeCard. PSC would need to be not allowed for buying expansions then.)

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@Karkara.9067 said:In Brazil a dollar is 5 reais (1:5) that means that this game (and the gems for that matter) is 5x more expensive, I’ll not pay 150 reais minimum for this expansion I’m sorry and the reason is not that I don’t have the money, but this is too over budget for a simple 3-4 maps+ spec+mount expansion.

You are paying for any new updates after the release too

How about pricing the expanion, at 45 dollars (225 reais ) ?Just like World of Warcraft 40 dolar price + half sub

(dont future merge-check alts)

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@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

@"Hannelore.8153" said:While I can sympathise with your concern its not going to happen because then people would try to cheat the system and get friends to use currency from other countries to buy the game for cheaper, that's why its a fixed price point in every country.

Thank you,yes, but they could use codes that can only be activated in the region that is bought , like steam does, where if you buy a game from Brazil you can’t activate it in the US, counter measures to this kind of thing exists.That would mean if you ever moved into another country, your game would stop working and you'd need to buy another (and start over). And forget about choosing between EU and NA zones on your own as well, most likely. That's... not an ideal solution, to put it very mildly.

Actually, the Core game was region-locked at release, and for some time after. You could only unlock it in the region it was purchased, but could play it from anywhere.

That still wouldn't work for what OP has in mind, as you'd simply use the same vpn to both buy and unlock it. Only if you could not
play
from a different region could it work.The reason why it works for some games is actually not "region locking" for unlocks, but localization locking. If you buy the russian, hungarian, czech, or polish version, for example, you will have to play it in one of those languages - english won't be available. For obviousl reasons that wouldn't work for GW2 either.

By the way, some people seem to be suffering from a misunderstanding of how the regional pricing works. In the end, it's not about lowering prices in the regions where the orginal price is too high. It's about increasing prices in the wealthier regions, where you can get away with it.

The game costs a certain amount of money to develop. The price is based on those costs. They are never going to underprice a game simply because it is being sold in a poorer country. They would have to get the money they lost on it back somehow, after all - and that would require raising prices everywhere else.

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@Karkara.9067 said:Things that make me sad about the new Expansion announcement...I had conflicting feelings in the last few days, for as much as I’m happy there would be a new expansion, there is one big problem hanging over it.This will be for sure a paid expansion, probably will cost up to 30-60 Dollars...I’ll not pay 150 reais minimum for this expansion I’m sorry and the reason is not that I don’t have the money, but this is too over budget for a simple 3-4 maps+ spec+mount expansion.

So, it makes you sad, that you do not want to buy the expansion because you think that the price will be too high, for what the expansion is worth to you.

Isn't this a little bit premature?

There is no release-date yet (probably it's 1-2 years in the future), there is no price yet, and there is no list of items that are included in the expansion.

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@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"Hannelore.8153" said:While I can sympathise with your concern its not going to happen because then people would try to cheat the system and get friends to use currency from other countries to buy the game for cheaper, that's why its a fixed price point in every country.

Thank you,yes, but they could use codes that can only be activated in the region that is bought , like steam does, where if you buy a game from Brazil you can’t activate it in the US, counter measures to this kind of thing exists.That would mean if you ever moved into another country, your game would stop working and you'd need to buy another (and start over). And forget about choosing between EU and NA zones on your own as well, most likely. That's... not an ideal solution, to put it very mildly.

Actually, the Core game was region-locked at release, and for some time after. You could only unlock it in the region it was purchased, but could play it from anywhere.

That still wouldn't work for what OP has in mind, as you'd simply use the same vpn to both buy and unlock it. Only if you could not
play
from a different region could it work.The reason why it works for some games is actually not "region locking" for unlocks, but localization locking. If you buy the russian, hungarian, czech, or polish version, for example, you will have to play it in one of those languages - english won't be available. For obviousl reasons that wouldn't work for GW2 either.

By the way, some people seem to be suffering from a misunderstanding of how the regional pricing works. In the end, it's not about lowering prices in the regions where the orginal price is too high. It's about
increasing
prices in the wealthier regions, where you can get away with it.

The game costs a certain amount of money to develop. The price is based on those costs. They are never going to underprice a game simply because it is being sold in a poorer country. They would have to get the money they lost on it back somehow, after all - and that would require raising prices everywhere else.

I wasn't suggesting any workarounds for the OP. Merely stating a fact. Guild Wars 2 was region-locked at launch to insure local retailers sales.

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@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:If the price should be lower for those with less income, what does it matter which country those players live in?

Should ArenaNet subsidize me? I have low income.

Yeah, exactly. OP doesn't realize his request is a big middle finger to everyone else. Anet can't accommodate everyone's situation just so they can play the game ... so they simply offer a flat rate for everyone. That flat rate is indicative of the the cost of other goods/services they offer ... so basically, if someone isn't willing to pay the entry fee, they aren't going to be a good patron once they get access anyways. ... The cost of the expansions are a good litmus test for what people are willing to pay to sustain the game. ... obviously the OP doesn't pass that test.

@coso.9173 said:People fail to realize that 40 usd (or the equivalent in any other currency is not the same in other countries. That is the issue.

People are not failing to realize this because Currency exchange rates are not a problem. it's real simple here ... if the product or service being offered is not worth it to someone for WHATEVER reason, don't buy it.

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@Obtena.7952 said:

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:If the price should be lower for those with less income, what does it matter which country those players live in?

Should ArenaNet subsidize me? I have low income.

Yeah, exactly. OP doesn't realize his request is a big middle finger to everyone else. Anet can't accommodate everyone's situation just so they can play the game ... so they simply offer a flat rate for everyone. That flat rate is indicative of the the cost of other goods/services they offer ... so basically, if someone isn't willing to pay the entry fee, they aren't going to be a good patron once they get access anyways. ... The cost of the expansions are a good litmus test for what people are willing to pay to sustain the game. ... obviously the OP doesn't pass that test.

@coso.9173 said:People fail to realize that 40 usd (or the equivalent in any other currency is not the same in other countries. That is the issue.

People are not failing to realize this because Currency exchange rates are not a problem. it's real simple here ... if the product or service being offered is not worth it to someone for WHATEVER reason, don't buy it.

The value of any service or item is what someone is willing to pay for it.

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@kharmin.7683 said:

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:If the price should be lower for those with less income, what does it matter which country those players live in?

Should ArenaNet subsidize me? I have low income.

Yeah, exactly. OP doesn't realize his request is a big middle finger to everyone else. Anet can't accommodate everyone's situation just so they can play the game ... so they simply offer a flat rate for everyone. That flat rate is indicative of the the cost of other goods/services they offer ... so basically, if someone isn't willing to pay the entry fee, they aren't going to be a good patron once they get access anyways. ... The cost of the expansions are a good litmus test for what people are willing to pay to sustain the game. ... obviously the OP doesn't pass that test.

@coso.9173 said:People fail to realize that 40 usd (or the equivalent in any other currency is not the same in other countries. That is the issue.

People are not failing to realize this because Currency exchange rates are not a problem. it's real simple here ... if the product or service being offered is not worth it to someone for WHATEVER reason, don't buy it.

The value of any service or item is what someone is willing to pay for it.

Sure ... I don't think that changes anything I said though. Are you just clarifying something I said?

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@Obtena.7952 said:

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:If the price should be lower for those with less income, what does it matter which country those players live in?

Should ArenaNet subsidize me? I have low income.

Yeah, exactly. OP doesn't realize his request is a big middle finger to everyone else. Anet can't accommodate everyone's situation just so they can play the game ... so they simply offer a flat rate for everyone. That flat rate is indicative of the the cost of other goods/services they offer ... so basically, if someone isn't willing to pay the entry fee, they aren't going to be a good patron once they get access anyways. ... The cost of the expansions are a good litmus test for what people are willing to pay to sustain the game. ... obviously the OP doesn't pass that test.

@coso.9173 said:People fail to realize that 40 usd (or the equivalent in any other currency is not the same in other countries. That is the issue.

People are not failing to realize this because Currency exchange rates are not a problem. it's real simple here ... if the product or service being offered is not worth it to someone for WHATEVER reason, don't buy it.

The value of any service or item is what someone is willing to pay for it.

Sure ... I don't think that changes anything I said though. Are you just clarifying something I said?

Yup. ;)

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