Payment systems, information inside

[impp]

Originally Posted by chilko

In terms of nominal value it is more expensive but the relative value is the same...
We tried to come up with a pricing scheme that will not only take into account the exchange rates but the purchasing power.

an example of other products:
An xbox 360 game system costs 300 USD in the States, and 300 Euro in Europe
PC GAMES that cost 50 USD in America usually cost 50 Euro in Europe
Same thing with mass market stuff like MacDonalds, etc

regards,

Chilko

This argument is complete nonsense, i am in the UK i have therefore to pay for everything i buy in GBP sterling. Due to my location I have to buy Xim in EUR the exchange rate i 1.26 therefore for 10EUR i pay 8GBP. If i could buy in dollars I would pay the exchange rate of 1.94 and therefore 10USD would cost me 5.15GBP.
This buys the same amount of xim irrespective of the currency which means NGD are pocketing (from UK nationals at least) an extra £3GBP for every $10USD of Xim purchased.

This effects everyone paying in EUR who are effectively paying more for their xim. With the current exchange rate at 1.5 USD per EUR players buying in EUR should be receiving 50% extra Xim to be getting the same value for money as those paying in USDollar.

When NGD look in their bank account (which is obviously in held in US dollars) they must see a much larger contribution to their balance coming from EUR payers, maybe we should receive some benefit for our extra contribution to NGD's balance sheet?

Impp

[Boukarou]

Originally Posted by chilko

In terms of nominal value it is more expensive but the relative value is the same...
We tried to come up with a pricing scheme that will not only take into account the exchange rates but the purchasing power.

an example of other products:
An xbox 360 game system costs 300 USD in the States, and 300 Euro in Europe
PC GAMES that cost 50 USD in America usually cost 50 Euro in Europe
Same thing with mass market stuff like MacDonalds, etc

regards,

Chilko

Regarding this, i have to give some precision:
-How do you evaluate the purchasing power of countries or continents ??
I'd love to see details about how you're evaluationg this. Specially that you have to come up with something that justify 50% diff between europe and US
-For Hardware; there is a law in europe that imposes 2 years of full warranty on electronics, im not sure it's the same in US, these off-course makes prices higher.
-Video games that are fully localised will cost more than the US version, that is due to the facts that they are localised and are delivered in your local country language, this include, content (texts, voices etc) and also the manual and most often the support aswell; this is why EA and others have to charge more for these versions. Now than this has been said, there's nothing that won't allow me to get the US version of the game for the same price as it is in the US as I always did (just get a decent distributor, they're all over the place)
-Mass market products are produced and/or sold by european ppl, who asks for european contracts and salaries. MacDonald don't pay theyr european worker the same than in some other countries. Plus McDonalds use local products as much as possible, making the production price higher here than say in the US.

All your arguments are very very poor.

There's is nothing i can find to agree with you, and i tried really really hard!

FYI: A few years ago, we had an issue in europe concerning DVD's pricing, indeed, all zone 2 dvd were twice more expensive than zone 1 , and it was not possible to legaly import zone 1 DVD according to theyr consortium. EU suited them and made this practice illegal in europe.

I love Regnum, I'd like to support this project with cash. But that's just not fair, i really wished i knew that before i created my account, now i'm screwed and i can change it, off-course ...

[chilko]

Regnum's pricing strategy has been defined according to several factors.

Purchasing power, exchange rate, market demand, the competition and overall fairness have been our parameters.

we are confident in the current pricing scheme is positive and have no reason to believe that it is unfair by any means.

Best regards,

-Chilko

[Mikan]

Originally Posted by chilko

we are confident in the current pricing scheme is positive and have no reason to believe that it is unfair by any means.

chilko,

I wish to remain neutral here, however I would like to state that it is ultimately not NGD's decision whether the pricing is fair or not. Even if you conceive it as fair, those who do not are paying customers who are lost.

There is a saying here in America that the customer is always right, and company policies often require employees to abide by this at most costs. First and foremost, the primary objective of any market is to make a sell.

In my opinion, this is something NGD often seems to forget (or ignore entirely), in many aspects of Regnum.

There is too much "This is how we are going to do it" mentality these days and all it does is drive good, paying players away and slowly replace them with the same lemming cruft that other MMORPGs suffer from.

I know you good folks don't want to hear this, but when more than a few people speak up (and many have over this issue especially), there is a problem and NGD ultimately does not decide if it is a problem or not.

But they do pay for it, as do the customers. It is a blade that cuts both ways and does no good.

Regards.

[ExtremeCoder]

Is there any update on alternative payment systems for people like me who can't use PayPal (I'm from Egypt)?
It sucks that I want to pay and I can't :/

[Boukarou]

First of all,
Why aren't any of the points I made in my previous post answered neither discussed? These are valid reasons to why this is seen as unfair by customers.

Originally Posted by chilko

Purchasing power, exchange rate, market demand, the competition and overall fairness have been our parameters.

we are confident in the current pricing scheme is positive and have no reason to believe that it is unfair by any means.
-Chilko

-Purchasing power ain't better in Europe than in the USA, you can easily find info and facts about that; just compare taxes rates, from salary to VAT.

-Market demand and competition concerns should make you consider to lower the price; there are a lot of products out there who does not suffer for years from some basic stuff like: approximative translations, broken spells, position bugs, lags, random reset of fatigue, wrong prices at the markets, ... Some won't even advertise fake prices on their websites for an entire year!

Now i'm having troubles understanding what the exchange rates have anything to do with the pricing, maybe exhange costs would, but since most traders use fixed costs to exchange currencies, you should have that same factor applying for everyone not using your currency.

Fairness in-game ain't affected by your pricing policies in my opinion, so as a gamer I don't have any concerns about this. But as a customer, I'd really like to know how you can justify such differences between regions.

Please NGD, help me to understand your position, disclose the process you used to make it 'fair'. I also invite you to read my previous post on this thread and tell me where i'm wrong.

Waiting to read you soon on this, i wish all the best for NGD and the community.

Regards,

[Pwnography]

I think that it would be good if you could pay using your phone as many people dont trust sites and wont use their credit card.

[Paps]

I bought my ximerin and everything went perfect

[Alexis_Manion]

Hi NGD,

I started playing your game in December, and am quite fond of it. Whilst there are flaws, I trust you are working on them and your interactino with the player base is admirable.

One thing that does concern me, however, is that you advertise costs on your premium page in dollars. That's fine, and many other donation-funded games do simliar, however from reading this thread, and double checking my transactions, you have billed me in euros.

At today's exchange rate, you are charging me about 30% more than you advertise.

Please advise how you plan to rectify this, as nowhere on your site (other than within this forum thread) does it mention the 30% additional cost for European players.

Many thanks.

[Domino_]

In game its ok when something is unfair, but since this is about real money.....
And as I read thru this topic I've found no reason why I should pay more cose I'm European. Its ok to support you job NGD, but this double standard is the biggest shame of this game
If its solved, I will buy ximerin !