Karkara.9067

Yes exactly this, but if we from SA, give more feedback on the subject maybe they will consider more research on the market, give more of a look, and investment. That’s what i'm doing here, its important to show interest in the product, so the company knows other markets want more of it in a fair way.

Never said any of that. That’s only your interpretation. Of course you do friend... Again, this is nothing new, online games do regional pricing, including "gems" or equivalent, the argument about how its not viable should go to all the other companies that do it already (because the balance is positive, as every company like money). if you are unhappy because you think its unfair that you would pay 40 USD and i'll pay 30 USD, i'll not, in Brazilian currency i'll have paid the same amount in relative terms. In fact some companies don’t do just regional pricing, but use metrics to do individual pricing based on every person particular buying power. You have to adapt your business to the market you are in in order to sell more copies of your game, or virtual currencies, and if you are a global company, like this not USA/EU locked is, you should look more in to it. This is beyond you and me though, all i want is to ANET/NCsoft to take us seriously, and also look the third party official "distributor" that they have in Brazil that don’t look too invested in their game anymore, and make at least an text only Brazilian Portuguese translation of the game.

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!

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.

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. As it is right now i do pay that "200 reais" on a 40 USD game + bank conversion fees, but that does not mean 200 reais is worth it (if you take in to account the average wage of Brazil). I think is harder for people not used to convert and calculate currency value Vs relative worth of a product all the time, but if you live abroad (in a”3 world country” or devalued currency to dollar country) you’ll get it. 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.

Ok friend. I'm just giving then my opinion, and my experience, the decision is up to anet/NCsoft, they may choose to ignore it, or not. But now at least they know someone else think this is a problem, and that there may be a solution. You may think regional pricing is impossible or is not viable, but this discussion is old, today companies adopted it already, and that’s because it is worthy for them, if it worthy for Anet/NCsoft that’s for their financial department, i just gave my opinion on it.

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.

sigh... i'll not pirate the game! i think europe have different pricing than the 1 dollar=1 euro thing (if not here is another place where they should apply this). you may have a point in saying this, but at the same time, this may be the reason there are less people outside from NA. i don’t know anet metrics on this, so i cant only judge based on my experience here. but i do believe there is an expressive SA player base in this game.

No it is not. it's the REALISTIC way of thinking of it. It will be funny to see someone try to 'pirate' a service like GW2 ... do not assume regional pricing will make the game cheaper than the base cost in the USA. People pirate MMO's all the time, i'll not show you here, because of terms of service, but believe me, they do! I think we are in a loop here, so i'll not argue anymore. But i do recommend you to look this further, A lot of companies do this, and i understand why living in America you may not realize this, because it doesn't affect you, but almost every single big company does this, regardless if it is online or not. this is not new, and believe you me, if big triple A companies, and even some indies are doing it, its because it's worth it, they don’t make decisions that lose then money.

that's a naive way of thinking it. as the difference between dollar and the native currency increases, most people will most likely pirate a game than paying a unrealistic price on it, if a company sell for less, in a country that would not buy the game anyway because is too expensive, it will win more money than what it would before. The balance is positive in the end, and that’s what make it worth it.In essence you gain a costumer that would never buy your game in the first place (and if this was a SP game this would be pirated, because people would want to play it anyway) the example is to show a company that uses regional pricing, for your understanding. but i can give a MMO that use-it too like ESO if needed. (you can do the research about it if you never heard about it, but every major company do it one way or another.)

yes, it suits then to a point, considering they must have an expressive non-USA playerbase.the consept of regional pricing is not selling the game at the same price but in another corrency, but selling the game at a price that is equivalent to the price it is in the USA. so the game will cost less in a direct conversion, but considering the country buying power, it will be the same (fair) to them. refer to the exemple i gave, DOOM eternal is 60 USD, but in Brazil it is sold in steam for 200BZR (40 USD), and not 300 BZR (that would be 60 USD).

you can link it to the credcard origin, or bank origin, like steam does, or billing address, the money have a trail, so unless you are using a fraudulent method to buy, you can trace the origin. steam does this for almost every game, as does EPIC, as does GoG, the methods are there, its not like its new technology.

i know all this, but that’s not my point. i even said in my post that having the money was not the problem to me... i buy gems converting gold, but i also wanted to do it with money in a fair rate. i have the money to buy the expansion, but is worth the money after conversion... no!

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, depending on the content they put in, expect no sales for months or even a year, and you can see the problem with everyone outside of the USA/EU will face… 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. (And if you understand economy, you know that a 1:5 conversion don’t mean I have 5x more money or something, that’s not how it works) The fact that anet/NCsoft obliviously don’t care for regional pricing is very puzzling to me, every new MMO do it, if not by themselves they use steam that make it for them for “free”. In Brazil there is a third party partner but since it is still showing vanilla promo on their site, and selling HoT, I can say they don’t care and NCsoft don’t as well because they don’t keep an eye on these things. Every competitor do regional pricing (even the money hungry activision\blizzard), please take this new rebirth moment you are having and look on this too. Ate least think of doing more text translations. I doubt that the south American population on this game is so low that is not worth it, and considering that every place I go I come across a fellow Brazilian and that I call friends to this game that are instantly tuned off by the “dollar only international credit card paying method”, I can say that they are there. Show that you care for people outside of the USA and EU too anet/NCsoft please, don’t just say “sorry” and leave us in the dust. (For reference, the new doom game is 60 dollars, but in Brazil it is 200 reais (on steam), not 300 as it would be).

i was not focusing on the new player experience as of now, but the fact that there is no context for players that joined after HoT, but ok i guess i'll go there.