Norwegian Consumer Counsel finds leading game developers are in breach of EU consumer protection. Calls for EU ban on in-game currencies.

[TheNecrosanct.4028]

12 hours ago, Teknomancer.4895 said:

Luckily GW2 is unaffected by that first one with its custom quantity purchase option, which is handy when you have an oddball left-over quantity in the wallet.

As for pricing, I ballpark the real-money equivalent at a penny per gem ($0.0125 USD to be precise). The gem price has been (loosely) pegged to the US penny since launch; for displaying actual cash prices in Euros they'd probably have to update it dynamically with the exchange rate.

Actually it's not unaffected. What you're talking about is gold -> gem conversion. It is true that we can choose custom amounts of gold to purchase with gems or gems to purchase with gold. But gold is ingame currency which is not what this report is about. And when it comes to real money purchases, ANet does not offer custom quantity selection of gems. You can only buy a preset amount for real money. This is something the report mentions and I would agree that it would be nice to be able to select a custom amount of gems instead of fixed bundles. Not because this is a shady practice (at least, I don't think bundles are shady at all, especially when the value of a single gem stays the same across all bundles), but because it gives the customer more choice and would therefore be more convenient.

A single gem is worth €0,0125. 400 gems for €5,-. 800 gems for €10,-. Et cetera, up until 8,000 gems for €100,-.

Edited September 15 by TheNecrosanct.4028

[Danikat.8537]

4 hours ago, Teknomancer.4895 said:

Luckily GW2 is unaffected by that first one with its custom quantity purchase option, which is handy when you have an oddball left-over quantity in the wallet.

As for pricing, I ballpark the real-money equivalent at a penny per gem ($0.0125 USD to be precise). The gem price has been (loosely) pegged to the US penny since launch; for displaying actual cash prices in Euros they'd probably have to update it dynamically with the exchange rate.

If you're in Europe you buy gems directly in Euros (and in the UK you buy them in pounds) so they don't need to worry about dynamically updating the in-game display based on the exchange rate, just show the price in the currency you're using to buy gems.

[difens.1326]

On 9/15/2024 at 11:00 AM, Danikat.8537 said:

If you're in Europe you buy gems directly in Euros (and in the UK you buy them in pounds) so they don't need to worry about dynamically updating the in-game display based on the exchange rate, just show the price in the currency you're using to buy gems.

Possibly also adding VAT based on account location, as most consumer laws in EU require VAT to be always included in the final price

[Dean Calaway.9718]

On 9/15/2024 at 4:24 AM, TheNecrosanct.4028 said:

you're incredibly naive

I've seen posts of mine deleted and been moderated with points for less than this.

Some of us are more equal than others around here.

[Dean Calaway.9718]

On 9/15/2024 at 4:24 AM, TheNecrosanct.4028 said:

 

 

Edited September 16 by Dean Calaway.9718
Post so nice forum got it up twice.

[TheNecrosanct.4028]

3 hours ago, Dean Calaway.9718 said:

I've seen posts of mine deleted and been moderated with points for less than this.

Some of us are more equal than others around here.

I'll grant you that it would have been better if I had written "It is incredibly naive to think that..." as opposed to "You're incredibly naive if you think that...". After all, the comment might have been naive, that doesn't necessarily mean you are too. But my comment got deleted too (and one of yours as well) so I guess we are on equal footing.

Does that mean we're both second class forum users? Or maybe there is no such thing. 🤔
Anyway, just drop it. Chime in if you have something to say about how the report pertains to GW2. So far you haven't.