Why the price difference in EUR vs USD?

Perhaps the fact that people in the UK have to pay more tax on bought items? Things in the US have always been cheaper than the same item in the UK, at least the times that I've been over there. That is what I hear too. The taxes are higher on a lot of items in the U.K.

He better be glad that he doesn't live in Australia. I hear that the game stores there price gouge customers.

Could you possibly find anything else to complain about?

Games are priced according to the precident for the region in which they are sold.

This thread should be locked. It's not a game as such - it's 3 weapons, a useless trial and some demo time before the game goes live. And, when bought from the official store, it's virtual - so no manufacturing costs. So when you say precident, I'm going to assume you mean what's commonly referred to as "Rip-off Britain".

I bought it on a whim, but I almost certainly won't be buying the game from the store (I'm expecting the download to cost £24.99-£3.49, which is still a few quid more than 3 other retailers are offering the boxed version for). If Anet prove me wrong and manage to match the price offered by Amazon, Play or Gameplay (even if the price only matches with the pre-order discount), then I'll eat humble pie, but I doubt it. The store is a tool to gouge us with and nothing else.

Oh, and sure - close the thread now I've had *my* say. P.S. Does anyone else hate it when posters think they can demand this?

Could you possibly find anything else to complain about?
Games are priced according to the precident for the region in which they are sold.
This thread should be locked. "Region" where I'm looking to buy this:
the online store - ingame - WWW

Prices according to region is for a download just silly: same download no matter where you are on this planet; no shipping, vat, ...
FYI: I recently bought an extra char slot via the online store.
Guess what: Tax= 0.00 EUR

That's why I buy my stuff in the US or Russia and let it ship to the Netherlands.

Nightfall for half the price of the online store.
I dont see why they can't make the online store cheaper. We get no box and they don't have to sell cheap to retailers and distributers that leech their money. Retailers make 25% profit. I guess distributers get another 15% share. So we should get it 40% cheaper in the online store then the game shop at the street. I'm guessing they purposely don't want to undercut retailers. Games still largely depend on brick-and-mortar sellers with physical boxes, for the most part. I'd guess the percentage of folks that are willing to buy a game online is still pretty low, especially considering they sell Collector's editions, and given Europe's general avoidance of credit cards (unlike the US, where's it's almost a given that everyone has one and uses it regularly).

Obviously, they could sell it quite a bit cheaper, but then stores might decide it's not worth ordering boxes.

Oh, and sure - close the thread now I've had *my* say. P.S. Does anyone else hate it when posters think they can demand this? When you're dealing with a thread that involves people demanding that Anet (or NCsoft) change how they're making their money, I think asking for a thread lock is fair game.

When you're dealing with a thread that involves people demanding that Anet (or NCsoft) change how they're making their money, I think asking for a thread lock is fair game. We're not asking that, we just have problems with two things:

1) The online store being equally or even more expensive then the local shops, while we get no physical items.

2) The Europeans having to pay much more then the Americans due to them not abiding by the Euro-Dollar or Euro-Pound exchange rates.

Zero rated tax in the online store, Last time I used the store I was charged £0.00 in tax. It's simply not a valid excuse.

To have two or more pricing structures for an electronically delivered product based on geographical location is plainly not acceptable, unless of course you live in one of the 'cheaper' zones. No, it's called Price Discrimination. Take Economics some time, it's a fairly basic principle that allows monopoly powers to increase their profit. Ever wonder why some people pay different prices for EXACTLY the same seat on a plane?
Secondly, it depends on the products elasticity of demand. How much of a difference will 3.61 to 4.99 make for many people? Quite frankly, not a whole lot. For the final prices, will 5 euros make a huge difference? If they decided to jack the price on the US side by 5 USD, I'd still be inclined to buy the product. The demand for the game is most likely inelastic for most of the range that it's in, give or take 5 dollars. NC probably sees this and is willing to make money off it.
Thirdly, I don't know how easy it is to obtain a hard copy in stores in Europe. I useually see people complaining on forums (mostly form Australia) about the lack of hard copies (and EB's monopoly on the game in Australia...). If it IS more difficult to find stores that carry a hard copy, the higher price could be reflected in the convenience of not having to leave your house or search for a retailer. For me? There's a retailed about 15-20 minutes away that I know will have a copy when it comes out. With such a close tie, if the price in the store were higher, I would just go out and get a copy for cheaper...which is one of my theories as to why the EU pricing is higher.

As far as I'm concerned, if people want the game and want to use the online store, a marginal price difference will NOT deter them.

Think about it this way. If the Five EUR is really upsetting you, just don't buy coffee, or chocolate, or something else in your habit for a week. That's what I do when saving up (no trips to Starbucks for me...).

No, it's called Price Discrimination. Take Economics some time, it's a fairly basic principle that allows monopoly powers to increase their profit. Ever wonder why some people pay different prices for EXACTLY the same seat on a plane?
Secondly, it depends on the products elasticity of demand. How much of a difference will 3.61 to 4.99 make for many people? Quite frankly, not a whole lot. For the final prices, will 5 euros make a huge difference? If they decided to jack the price on the US side by 5 USD, I'd still be inclined to buy the product. The demand for the game is most likely inelastic for most of the range that it's in, give or take 5 dollars. NC probably sees this and is willing to make money off it.
Thirdly, I don't know how easy it is to obtain a hard copy in stores in Europe. I useually see people complaining on forums (mostly form Australia) about the lack of hard copies (and EB's monopoly on the game in Australia...). 1 - You need to go back to your books, although this is a product supplied from one source it is not a monopoly market for the product, NCsoft do not dictate the price to retailers to any major extent. Your seat analogy is deeply flawed; dates, times, even passenger weight and physical ability can, and are often factors, all irrelevant in this case.

2 - Your absolutely right, but this doesn't make it right. I know it's a 'perfect world' scenario, I and from the sound of things others dislike the feeling that they are getting gouged for no valid reason.

3 - Western Europe is a doddle, until recently I lived in a fairly small town, I had my choice of three shops I could buy from. I couldn't comment on Eastern Europe with any accuracy but from the number of Poles playing I'm guessing it's pretty freely available at least there.

The problem isn't these 2 bucks. It is these 2 buck on a 5$ deal and the fact that it goes on with everything. 62$ for 45$ title. nearly 700$ for 500$ graphics card. It adds up when every transaction, you are paying nearly 40% more. And living in a country with the average income one third of that of US ppl, yeah it is a problem. Finaly ppl starting to see the problem.Btw,in hungary GWEN is 24 euros,tell me again why i have to pay almost 2 times that ammount just to get that bloody bonus mission pack?

Perhaps the fact that people in the UK have to pay more tax on bought items? Things in the US have always been cheaper than the same item in the UK, at least the times that I've been over there.
UK doesn't use €. Learn something about the world, then open your mouth.

o and btw changing your account to US instead of EU is one of the dumbest ideas ive heard yet........your bank account that gets billed is still in EU so that means the cost to u will still be the same thing. At their conversion rate and the conversion fees added in you will still be billed the same amount......come on people think before you post sometimes You are the dumb one here and you should think before you post. Conversion rate and conversion fees ARE NOT RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOING 40% of TOTAL VALUE. THEY ARE RIPPING US OFF HERE. Conversion fees are 5% tops. Let me lay it out for you since you are incapable of thinking. Either I can buy stuff for 50 eur, which is almost 70$ for something and get assraped by greedy bastards or I can switch territory to US, pay 50$ and pay the conversion fee which is like 5%, which totals 52.5 $ or 38 eur.

o and btw changing your account to US instead of EU is one of the dumbest ideas ive heard yet........your bank account that gets billed is still in EU so that means the cost to u will still be the same thing. At their conversion rate and the conversion fees added in you will still be billed the same amount......come on people think before you post sometimes You are the dumb one here and you should think before you post. Conversion rate and conversion fees ARE NOT RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOING 40% of TOTAL VALUE. THEY ARE RIPPING US OFF HERE. Conversion fees are 5% tops. Let me lay it out for you since you are incapable of thinking. Either I can buy stuff for 50 eur, which is almost 70$ for something and get assraped by greedy bastards or I can switch territory to US, pay 50$ and pay the conversion fee which is like 5%, which totals 52.5 $ or 38 eur.

Yeah I bet poor anet is charging us 40% extra to cover conversion fees.

1 - You need to go back to your books, although this is a product supplied from one source it is not a monopoly market for the product, NCsoft do not dictate the price to retailers to any major extent. Your seat analogy is deeply flawed; dates, times, even passenger weight and physical ability can, and are often factors, all irrelevant in this case.

2 - Your absolutely right, but this doesn't make it right. I know it's a 'perfect world' scenario, I and from the sound of things others dislike the feeling that they are getting gouged for no valid reason.

3 - Western Europe is a doddle, until recently I lived in a fairly small town, I had my choice of three shops I could buy from. I couldn't comment on Eastern Europe with any accuracy but from the number of Poles playing I'm guessing it's pretty freely available at least there. 1- It's closer to an ologopolistic setting...but that's too technical to diagnose the problem. What is happening is there are relatively few providers for a standardized product. The "online store" is acting as a price leader. There is such a thing as a "suggested retail price" (or at least there is in the US). Regardless, NCsoft and the online Store still contain some monopoly power in the market for GW:EN. If they wanted to, they could withdraw all shipments and make all purchases digital. Anyway, that's enough of a tangent on that...in the end, NCsoft still has enough of a monopoly power to price discriminate, and that was my point.

2- In Econ, nothing is fair. Your valid reason is that NC needs to make profit. As we all know, they need money to grow and develop more. I consider it perfectly fine for them to charge us a minor fee for no "real reason". Consider it for the entrepreneurial talent and innovation. If there is a chance to increase revenue, it would be FOOLISH of NCsoft not to take up the offer. Seriously, if someone said "We could be making about 1,000,000 more in profits if we charge X amount more, since the elasticity of demand for this product would remain relatively unchanged" would YOU as an executive say "Well, let's give up that Million, I don't think the clients will really understand and it'd kind of not fair." No, no you would not say that (or if you did, you would find yourself without a job rather quickly...) When dealing with any industry, it is absolutely stupid to question why they would want to make more money...it's what business does...
On the bright side, just remember the more they make, the more they spend, and the better our future experiences will become =)

3- I'm glad to hear that there are lots of shops around in Eastern Europe. My cousin lives in England and always has trouble finding games and decent shops. Maybe he's just bad at looking... O_o

It's not that simple. Why does it cost more to fly to Europe than to the US? Why does (average) housing cost more in England than the US? Why are brand name clothes cheaper n the US than England? If the US has more disposable income why not charge them more? It's complicated, not as simple as "we're a bigger country/co. , we're just gonna charge more" When you have countries/governments/trade/cost of living involved things get blurry. It is not because they are a bigger country or we would get charged more as well.Those of us being Canadian their nieghbours and biggest trading partners.The price is almost the same for us up here as it is for the US and the same goes with brand name clothes as well.I wouldn't say they targeting you for more money.How much do you pay for a CD or DvD compared to the US or even us CDN.

It's not a game as such - it's 3 weapons, a useless trial and some demo time before the game goes live. And, when bought from the official store, it's virtual - so no manufacturing costs. So when you say precident, I'm going to assume you mean what's commonly referred to as "Rip-off Britain".

I bought it on a whim, but I almost certainly won't be buying the game from the store (I'm expecting the download to cost £24.99-£3.49, which is still a few quid more than 3 other retailers are offering the boxed version for). If Anet prove me wrong and manage to match the price offered by Amazon, Play or Gameplay (even if the price only matches with the pre-order discount), then I'll eat humble pie, but I doubt it. The store is a tool to gouge us with and nothing else.

Oh, and sure - close the thread now I've had *my* say. P.S. Does anyone else hate it when posters think they can demand this? Yes, I hate it when poeple ask for thread locks, when it is anything but a whiner "why not me?" thread. I have seen threads locked for less.

Still though, your preorder money goes to the purchase of the retail version when you purchase through PlayNC. Be pissed at bulk pricing and low overhead, not at Anet. They are probably required to charge MSRP by their publishers/distrubuter/retailers or else they would get sued (see: Steam/Half-Life 2).



This thread needs to be locked before it turns into a US vs Euro thread.

BTW - Your copies need to cost more BECAUSE YOU HAVE FAVOR TOO MUCH. How is that for fair?