| Rhonin the wizard said: You don't understand, before we were paying the US price, to which the VAT was added depending on where the costumer lived. Now thanks to Valve's 1$=1€ convergence rate, we pay more than before. The VAT is now included in the price, however, we have no idea how much we are paying, seeing that the prices are the same, but each country has a different VAT, people from Norway suffer the most, because they don't have VAT for digital distributed goods, but still have to pay. Let's take a few example's: Left 4 Dead US $49.99 UK £26.99=$38.19 EU 44,99€=$56.55 The Orange Box US $29.99 UK £16.99=$24.04 EU 29,99€=$37.70 Dead Space US $39.99 UK not available EU 44,99€=$56.55 Before you say this is the fault of EA, I can get this from Direct2Drive for £19.95=$28,23. There are some games that are cheaper for Europeans, like say Beyond Good and Evil, but for the grand majority we pay the most. Also, most games are more expensive than retail as well. |
Well implementing a tax that is a nightmare to enforce in online transactions is just inviting online stores to do this. Correct me if I'm wrong but the tax liability is with the business so if they sell to some guy in france who tells them he is in Norway they are obligated to pay the taxes and short of going after the guy for less cash than a 5 minute consult with their legal council they are stuck with it...in short it invites a major hassle and sounds like a surefire way to hemorrage cash.
There best protection from it is to not give people the opportunity to screw them over. Luckily in many cases you can now buy at retail and attach your game to your steam account, I highly recommend it if the price difference is an issue.
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| To Each Man, Responsibility |
