Imbalance and unfair advantage

# MCOC team
Just read the refund policy and I can say that’s seems fair and pretty reasonable.
I totally agree with the company on their efforts to prevent refunding exploit by some customers.
Now, that we are talking financially and we all agree we want a fair playground, how fair and balanced is that:
Prices for in game purchases for US are significantly lower than EU.
Example an Odin costs 100$ but in Europe costs 110€(~125$)
With the upcoming 4th July offers and my intention to spend on the game, my only concern that may prevent(as it does till now) me from doing so is the outraging feeling that I pay way more for the same product other competitors getting cheaper.
There are no excuses, of the type “Europe has more taxes” or so, if the company have the intention to keep the contest clear (and I want to believe they do), they have to have the same pricing globally. It’s that an unfair advantage for US players to the rest? It’s a competitive game, does that creates balance?
So, whether reduce the EU pricing to the US, whether increase the US to EU,
or find a pricing in the middle of their difference. That would be FAIR.
Thanks in advance for your time.

Comments

Austin555555

Simple solution

DON’T REFUND THE STUFF YOU BOUGHT

unknown

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Greekhit

I can assume by the defending on the current pricing u are from the US. How about adjust their price tier regionally, so when the store does the final adjustment the final price would be the same across global?

DNA3000

# MCOC team
Just read the refund policy and I can say that’s seems fair and pretty reasonable.
I totally agree with the company on their efforts to prevent refunding exploit by some customers.
Now, that we are talking financially and we all agree we want a fair playground, how fair and balanced is that:
Prices for in game purchases for US are significantly lower than EU.
Example an Odin costs 100$ but in Europe costs 110€(~125$)
With the upcoming 4th July offers and my intention to spend on the game, my only concern that may prevent(as it does till now) me from doing so is the outraging feeling that I pay way more for the same product other competitors getting cheaper.
There are no excuses, of the type “Europe has more taxes” or so, if the company have the intention to keep the contest clear (and I want to believe they do), they have to have the same pricing globally. It’s that an unfair advantage for US players to the rest? It’s a competitive game, does that creates balance?
So, whether reduce the EU pricing to the US, whether increase the US to EU,
or find a pricing in the middle of their difference. That would be FAIR.
Thanks in advance for your time.

Kabam has no control over international prices. This keeps coming up, so it's probably good to go over this again.

When Kabam makes an item for purchase in the Apple App Store (its similar for Google, but just so I don't have to explain the nitty gritty twice), they don't assign a price. App developers aren't allowed to do that. You cannot sell something for, say, $8.37. You actually assign an in-app purchase tier. For example "tier 50" is $49.99 US. That's the only thing Kabam does. Apple then displays the price for a "tier 50" item translated to each region's currency. That translation is not just due to currency exchange, but also things like Apple's cost of doing business in that region, currency fluctuation uncertainty, taxes, and a lot of other things.

But Kabam does not tell Apple what to price that item at in all areas. It only sets the item to be a tier 50 item. It is Apple that then charges players $49.99 US in the United States, but different amounts in Canada, the UK, the Philippines, and everywhere else. The only control Kabam technically has is to decide what the price is in one place, generally the US. That's how they decide what tier the item is. But then it is out of their hands.

The site I generally use to see what Apple's (relatively) recent tier conversions are is here: https://www.equinux.com/us/appdevelopers/pricematrix.html. According to that chart a tier 50 item costs $49.99 US in the United States, but 54.99 Euros in the EU. That's even though $49.99 is worth about 43.96 Euros at the current exchange rate. That's Apple saying they need to collect more in the EU than the US factoring in all their costs. Kabam has zero control over this.

Greekhit

The same happens on android too. After all is that fair?
And Kabam can always do something. If they can’t get pricing the same across two regions they can always attach 24% more units on the EU offers. As u can see there is always a solution.
Now, do the game team wants a FAIR contest?

DNA3000

I can assume by the defending on the current pricing u are from the US. How about adjust their price tier regionally, so when the store does the final adjustment the final price would be the same across global?

As far as I'm aware you're not allowed to do that, except for subscriptions.

SiriusBreak

@DNA3000 laid it out very well. Unfortunately, just the way of things.

Hamin

I can assume by the defending on the current pricing u are from the US. How about adjust their price tier regionally, so when the store does the final adjustment the final price would be the same across global?

Because it doesn't work like that.

They set a price for a digital package. It's then adjusted.

It has nothing to do with anyone being from the US. It's simple fact. My god, some people and their victim complexes.

Hamin

The same happens on android too. After all is that fair?
And Kabam can always do something. If they can’t get pricing the same across two regions they can always attach 24% more units on the EU offers. As u can see there is always a solution.
Now, do the game team wants a FAIR contest?

What? No. They set a goddam price for what a digital item is worth. That is set. Then it's adjusted. Adding 24% more to anything despite the region would up the price and then it would be adjusted.

...this isn't some complex conspiracy. This is simple, straight forward economics.

Greekhit

“Because it doesn't work like that.

They set a price for a digital package. It's then adjusted.

It has nothing to do with anyone being from the US. It's simple fact. My god, some people and their victim complexes.”

First of all, learn not to offend peaople u don’t know because u feel threat.
Then, they can always attach the equivalent of 24% that is the difference in Units.
Again, do the game team wants a FAIR contest?

Hamin

Because it doesn't work like that.

They set a price for a digital package. It's then adjusted.

It has nothing to do with anyone being from the US. It's simple fact. My god, some people and their victim complexes.
First of all, learn not to offend peaople u don’t know because u feel threat.
Then, they can always attach the equivalent of 24% that is the difference in Units.
Again, do the game team wants a FAIR contest?

I'll learn to not offend when you learn reading comprehension. Deal?

Edit: Simple HTML too.

Greekhit

^ keeps offending to stay out of the topic

DNA3000

The same happens on android too. After all is that fair?

Whether it is fair or not, it is something Kabam cannot change. You would have to complain directly to the companies that control this: Apple and Google. They will tell you that the prices are different because their costs for doing business in different regions is different. In fact, if you look at the chart there are regions that have different tier costs that use the same currency, so it isn't just about currency exchange.

To see even more into what's going on, check the chart again. The chart doesn't only show the price conversion, it also shows "proceeds." That's what the app developer gets. So in the US the customer is charged $49.99 and the developer gets $35. That's about 70%, reflecting the standard 70/30 split. But in Germany, the customer is charged 54.99 Euros and the developer gets 32.35 Euros. At today's exchange rates that's about $36.79, which is slightly more than they'd make in the US. But it is also just under 60% of the price. In US dollar terms, Apple is giving the developer about $1.79 more, and keeping about $10.74 more.

Hamin

^ keeps offending to stay out of the topic

It's offensive to bluntly tell the truth?

Several people have laid out empirical, objective fact that refutes your suggestion and you keep saying the same thing. That's either illiteracy or a reading comprehension problem.

DNA3000

Then, they can always attach the equivalent of 24% that is the difference in Units.

No, that's not possible. They don't know where you are or in what currency you purchased the item. Apple doesn't forward that information to the developer. All Kabam is told by Apple is that someone, somewhere, bought a unit pack. The unit pack with item code ABCDE. The game then gives you the amount of units that pack contains.

And if they tried to circumvent the system to give different customers different things, they could be banned for violating the in-app purchase parameters. App developers have been asking for ways to "localize" prices for a very long time. Apple only recently caved on subscriptions, because the media companies pushed hard to reflect territorial media subscriptions outside the app store in their in-app purchases.

Greekhit

Nice clarification but there’s always something the company can do to balance that. They can sell different products across regions.
Example productA for US 100$ 3100units
productB for EU 110€ 3870units (base+24%)
As u can see there is always a solution.

unknown

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GroundedWisdom

The same happens on android too. After all is that fair?
And Kabam can always do something. If they can’t get pricing the same across two regions they can always attach 24% more units on the EU offers. As u can see there is always a solution.
Now, do the game team wants a FAIR contest?

Everything within their power, they already do to ensure equanimity with pricing. Their prices are the same throughout. What differs is individual area Taxes and Duties, which are applied via the platforms (Apple and Google), and depend on the local legislation of where you live. What you're suggesting is not only creating an unfair advantage based on the costs of the area you're in, but it also opens up a whole host of issues like potential exploiting and conflict with local governments. Which is highly unlikely to be an option any company wanting to adhere to all regulations would take upon themselves.

Demonzfyre

First of all, learn not to offend peaople u don’t know because u feel threat.
Then, they can always attach the equivalent of 24% that is the difference in Units.
Again, do the game team wants a FAIR contest?

This is how many things work that are for sale across the world. Even in the US, right now I am paying $2.25 for a gallon of gas in Texas. In California, that same gallon of gas is $4 or more. Every bit of retail that sells is dictated by the seller, in this case it's Google and Apple and the wholeseller, Kabam, gets a cut after the sale.

Fingfangfoomfanes

Lols. Let me get my pitchfork.

Hamin

So the OP’s author decides to not address the awesome work that other members have laid out to explain the price difference because the community reaction he wanted was one where we attack kabam for being unfair and support him
Makes sense... seems like a legit reaction

That's the gist.

unknown

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Hamin

Nice clarification but there’s always something the company can do to balance that. They can sell different products across regions.
Example productA for US 100$ 3100units
productB for EU 110€ 3870units (base+24%)
As u can see there is always a solution.

Greekhit

Do any of the replies comes outside the US? U guys seem pretty much threatened (except DNA300 and groundedwisdom that they just constructively posted). Don’t worry u won’t have to pay more. How peaople are triggered, when they feel they will lose an advantage is hilarious. lol

DNA3000

Nice clarification but there’s always something the company can do to balance that. They can sell different products across regions.
Example productA for US 100$ 3100units
productB for EU 110€ 3870units (base+24%)
As u can see there is always a solution.

Nope, that is actually forbidden by the terms of Apple's app store developer guidelines. You are not allowed to restrict usage or purchases that way. If you put "productA" for $100US, the only way to do that is to list the item as a tier 60 item ($99.99 US) and you must offer that item everywhere that Apple does business. That means "productB" that costs 110 Euros and contains 3870 units would have to be a tier 60 item (109.99 Euros) and must be sold everywhere as well. US customers would of course buy product B, since it has more units.

If Kabam did what you described, everyone would see two unit offers, one for 3100 units and one for 3870 units, both costing $99.99 US and 109.99 Euros. Only dumb people would buy the first one, everyone else would buy the second one, and you'd be back to where you started.

I think you are operating on the assumption that this is something a developer can just make up. It isn't. There's an in-app purchase API that Apple publishes that app developers use, and this API is extremely limited in what Apple allows you to do. There's no way to even *tell* Apple you want something to only be sold in one region. You can't do it, because Apple gives you no way to request it. You can't tell Apple "I have something for sale, and here's how I want you to sell it." You tell Apple "I have something for sale" and Apple tells you "I'll take it from here." You're involvement ends when you create the package for sale. If Apple decides to sell it on Pluto for gold-pressed latinum, all you can do is get your cut at the end of the month.

Greekhit

So seems like the only solution can be personal. Use another person to purchase it for u, or a TOR to buy the offer in $. Now I start to understand people that already doing it.

unknown

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DNA3000

So seems like the only solution can be personal. Use another person to purchase it for u, or a TOR to buy the offer in $. Now I start to understand people that already doing it.

As far as I'm aware, the only way to get US pricing is to buy through the US iTunes stores. A VPN could let you do that, but the legality of that is somewhat of a grey area. I cannot personally recommend it. In either case, the developer would have no control over this.

You would probably be surprised how much thought has been put into this. One way developers dreamed up to figure out a way to do this (and other things Apple forbids) was to make multiple versions of their app, all of which were restricted by territory. One thing you can do is you can restrict who can get your app at all. That's how regional limited beta tests work. You release the app in Mexico, but nowhere else.

If Kabam made a hundred different versions of MCOC, each of which was released in a different country, they could then release in-app purchases specific to each specific different copy of the app (since they are different apps). They could all then have different contents and different prices, effectively giving control to the developer on who gets what for what price. Except Apple caught on to this little trick and banned developers from uploading "substantively identical" copies of the same app to the app store, to prevent this kind of thing from happening (among other things, like ratings manipulation).

ItsDamien

So seems like the only solution can be personal. Use another person to purchase it for u, or a TOR to buy the offer in $. Now I start to understand people that already doing it.
As far as I'm aware, the only way to get US pricing is to buy through the US iTunes stores. A VPN could let you do that, but the legality of that is somewhat of a grey area. I cannot personally recommend it. In either case, the developer would have no control over this.

It's funny when I mentioned in another post recently about using a VPN to buy units and stating that it seems like a fast way to get banned, people disagreed with me. It just seems like you would get banned since its cutting into profits.

I won't lie, there have been times where I've considered trying this as the price difference between the UK and the US is relatively large. I haven't tried it because I wouldn't want the money that I've already put into the game to be completely lost if I were to get banned.

Cliffordcan

Y’all EUers are paying Apple back for that 16.7 billion from Ireland’s taxes they had to pay. Maybe you should write your gov’t and tell them to stop suing these American tech companies. Once they do I’m sure prices will go down.