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Garrett Blacknova
Codex Troopers
3006
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Posted - 2013.05.16 02:09:00 -
[1] - Quote
OP, here's a tip for making a constructive thread.
When you want a thread to stay on-topic, and to be based on facts, provide facts, and when someone is providing misinformation, point that out POLITELY, provide evidence and explain that they're incorrect and how. Insulting people makes them less likely to pay attention when you're trying to educate them, ensuring that they not only remain misinformed, but continue to spread that misinformation elsewhere, spreading the incorrect information. If you're polite, and even consider saying, "well my source [insert link] says this. Where did you hear that?" and see if maybe YOU'RE the one with incorrect information. If you are correct, they'll reply "I heard it from a guy who knows a guy" or something, realise they were wrong, and you look like a good guy. If they provide a source that's better-recognised or has more up-to-date information on the situation you're discussing, you can say, "oh, good to know" and still not look like an idiot.
If you say "nope. You're wrong. GTFO" you'll very quickly attract the wrong kind of people (troll posts or tangentially-related posts like mine) and those people won't be interested in the facts (well, I am, but I already know them in this case). So you spend all your effort trying to inform people of a legitimate problem, and end up doing nothing more than demeaning those who are legitimately interested in the topic, and attracting trolls to further derail your thread from its intended topic.
On top of this, why do we need another thread when there are already several active on the topic? Just keep them alive. |
Garrett Blacknova
Codex Troopers
3008
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Posted - 2013.05.16 02:48:00 -
[2] - Quote
Caeli SineDeo wrote:First of the very base. Server cost. In united states you have tons of people downloading 10 millions a day. Compared to what maybe 100k people where you are located. It is alot cheaper to maintain a server in the US because of efficiency. You use the same amount of people to maintain a similar size server cluster but have many more costumers buying from them and paying for their use.
So we're paying extra because of all those servers that Sony DON'T maintain in the region because they just run us off the EU servers that are actually further from us than if we ran through the US server, but which work because we use PAL encoding and not NTSC.
Quote:Then what does the country tax. Is it more then others?
What is import taxes in that county. Yes this is considered a Import even if it is digital.
Neither New Zealand or Australia have any import taxes applied to digital goods. Both have taxes on goods, but those also don't apply to digital purchases up to a certain value which even the Elite pack doesn't exceed. Even after accounting for the tax, assuming it's being incorrectly charged on these items, there's at least a 40% markup from the US price because those taxes arent very high.
Quote:What does it cost to change currency. Only part of the money actually stays as AUD. Rest is tranfered to YEN
Again exchanging a smaller amount cost more then exchanging a larger amount. Looking at the small AUD amount compared to the giant USD amount pulled in because there is gaint difference in consumer money.
Firstly, even if they were running individual exchanges for each purchase, this souldn't make up the MORE THAN 40% INCREASE AFTER TAX. And they don't do that anyway. Payments are processed in local currency, accumulated, then periodically converted into the appropriate currency for Sony to use IN BULK, with much lower fees relatively speaking. Certainly nowhere near enough - even in the scenario where currency conversion is done on a case-by-case basis - to account for the huge markup that's happening.
Looking at every viable reason possible for them to be raising our prices (except "because we can get away with it"), you can account for maybe - MAYBE a 20% price hike at most. We're paying more than 50% extra. That's a significant amount of additional cost unaccounted for.
It's plausible that the EU prices might actually be justified under this argument, but the AU/NZ prices are still well outside of any reasonable argument. |
Garrett Blacknova
Codex Troopers
3010
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Posted - 2013.05.16 03:26:00 -
[3] - Quote
Buster Friently wrote:Lol, taxes my boy. Taxes. Blame your governments, not CCP or even Sony.
It's possible that the EU price hike is almost halfway-covered by this explanation.
Australia can explain a 10% markup on something they pay 50% extra for, and New Zealand can explain about 15% of our 60% price hike. |
Garrett Blacknova
Codex Troopers
3010
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Posted - 2013.05.16 03:32:00 -
[4] - Quote
Buster Friently wrote:Garrett Blacknova wrote:Buster Friently wrote:Lol, taxes my boy. Taxes. Blame your governments, not CCP or even Sony. It's possible that the EU price hike is almost halfway-covered by this explanation. Australia can explain a 10% markup on something they pay 50% extra for, and New Zealand can explain about 15% of our 60% price hike. Yes, after looking up the numbers myself, AUS has a 10% VAT, whereas the US has none. The AUS dollar is worth basically the same. So, I guess you're right. Screw all retailers, because apparently they all do this to you. Good luck.
Actually, a LOT have been getting targeted by the Commerce Commission in New Zealand and the Australian equivalent I forget the name of. When they've been approached about it, most (so far) have folded and changed their pricing pretty much immediately. Valve products (and some non-Valve products on Steam) have had their prices reduced to be in line with US pricing, so there's hope for this to turn around if people keep on it and actually get the governments of our countries to pay attention. |
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