What is more incredible is that Apple adjust their price to a region as per their operational cost and some other factors and Amazingly Google have exactly same cost to the exact cent as apple lmao . How is this even possible?
Well, actually the item charts have not always been identical in all regions. I don't check them regularly, but players have actually reported here on the forums that sometimes the price of an item was different on the two different platforms.
But the item charts are probably very similar most of the time because a) operational costs are similar for the two companies in most places and b) there's some round off inherent on the item charts as the prices jump in increments. If Google's costs are 3% higher or lower than Apple's, factoring in taxes and other fees (which would be identical) the overall difference between the two might be small enough that they end up landing on the same price. I'm pretty sure like Apple, Google rounds off tier pricing in most countries to round numbers. Plus there's probably some competitive pressures at play here.
So if Apple calculates the AUD price of an Odin relative to USD as being anywhere near 159.99 AUD, its going to be 159.99 AUD. It is not going to be 158.72 AUD. If Google's calculation is different, but still close to 159.99 AUD, they will also land on 159.99 AUD even though their costs and other requirements might be slightly different (note: I don't have Google's price tiers in front of me now, so I don't know if this is literally true at the moment; this is just an example).
By the way, I don't expect the average person to know this just off handedly. However, if someone is concerned about pricing and wants to know why the prices are what they are, or if someone intended to publicly discuss or advocate a position on the issue, I would expect them to ask one reasonable question first: how are prices set in the app store?
This is literally the first thing that comes up in Google. It might not be the first hit for everyone, but I suspect it will be very high in the search list for most people. From there, further reading and investigation would lead you to basically all the rest of the information I mention above.
As I said, this is not super secret information. It is just something most people don't know, because most people aren't exposed to different currency pricing in the major app stores, so most people don't even think to ask.
But if someone is wondering, I would hope they would get at least this far.
As helpful as this post is, most people unfortunately won't ever do the leg work. The youtuber you referenced is one of them and the worse part is that his followers will listen to what he says. The comments on the video itself are proof of that. All of them now think Kabam is to blame and not a single one of them fact checked the video. Thank you for putting this out there.
I would post a comment on the video in question, but I already post to two wretched hives of scum and villainy, and Youtube comment sections would exceed my quota. Them peeps are cray-cray.
I hope those two items that you referenced are youtubers and I'm not one of them lol. I posted your link on the video with a comment. We'll see if it stays.
I went back to check just to see what the conversation looked like, and I cannot find a single post where this was explained in any detail. A couple people saying "that's not how it works" or mentioning price tiers, but I don't see anyone challenging false statements directly like "You are aware that kabam can change prices to make it fair after the conversion?" Like they think Apple does a currency conversion, but Kabam can just set the price differently in each country so that after the conversion it "works out." Which is completely false.
I'm assuming your comment either got modded away or maybe Youtube itself did something. I heard once that Youtube frowned on external links, but I wouldn't know because I don't really wade into YT comment sections.
Even if they could Kabam would still find any way to squeeze as much money as possible . They are not your friends they are a corporation here to make money . So if for some reason you want to waste money on a game that could easily be played for free you might as well get a vpn and find the cheapest possible offer from around the world
Even if they could Kabam would still find any way to squeeze as much money as possible . They are not your friends they are a corporation here to make money . So if for some reason you want to waste money on a game that could easily be played for free you might as well get a vpn and find the cheapest possible offer from around the world
Apple is also not your friend and are a corporation trying to make money, and yet they limit the maximum transaction size for stuff like this to tier 60, aka $99.99 USD. This came up in a conversation I had recently, and it never occurred to me that while I've seen very expensive IAP on the app stores, I can't actually think of or find a mobile *game* that sells something in game for more than $100 US in a *cash* transaction. MCOC sells things for 15000 units, but you can get units for free from game play. They don't sell anything for $500 USD, and neither does anyone else. It turns out that it is Apple itself that prevents this in their IAP approval process, according to developers who have discussed this on their developer forums. Imagine that, a corporation limiting the maximum amount that can be charged for anything.
Sure they try to do as well as they can just like literally everyone else in the Western world, but thinking that everyone pursues the maximum short term profit possible regardless of any other circumstance is just as naive as thinking there's no profit motive at all. Only cartoon villains live at either extreme.
If Kabam was really trying to make as much money as possible, they wouldn't allow me to grind almost a hundred thousand units a year through gameplay. In fact, one of the reasons I play this game is because it is among the most friendly to free to play grinders. I'm not a 100% free to play player: I spend. But the vast majority of everything I have in the game I earned through gameplay, including the equivalent of about $3000 of units per year. You'd be hard pressed to find another mobile game like this that lets you do that, and it most certainly cuts into their profits.
All things considered if you can find a way to spend less on the game, go for it. You don't owe Kabam inefficient spending. The way I do it is I stock up on iTunes gift cards whenever someone is dumb enough to sell them as a loss-leader, like Costco. I usually also only spend when the value of the offers is huge, like J4 and CW. But if you decide to use a VPN to go region shopping, as I mentioned the issue you might run into is that the app stores take care to conform to your locality's tax and fee requirements. You might be beraking the law by buying outside your region and dodging those taxes and fees. Everyone has to decide for themselves if this is worth the hassle and they are comfortable with the legal consequences.
Well, actually the item charts have not always been identical in all regions. I don't check them regularly, but players have actually reported here on the forums that sometimes the price of an item was different on the two different platforms.
Some cases of same item, in same country, having different prices between Apple/Google may also have been cases where one was charging the VAT or SALES TAX, where the other one was NOT. In addition to whether (across different countries) the VAT/TAX was directly included in the IN-GAME listed price, versus being applied afterward to your actual credit card (etc) purchase receipt.
The earlier example maybe having become more standardized (across all services like Apple/Google) over time, as laws regarding Taxes on Digital Goods may have over time evolved to a current standard practice (of charging them, vs leaving it up to the consumer to report “digital” or “online” purchases on their own State Tax Returns in order to pay the Tax as many States in the US had originally been requiring people to do). Now online places are much more typically required to actually collect that Tax by the Seller (Apple/Google, or even eBay, Amazon, etc), instead of leaving it up to purchaser to “honestly” declare and pay on their end of year tax returns.
Some of this can be seen in much older posts (and maybe somewhat outdated State by State comparisons) in Forums here regarding “Currency Variations” and “Sales Tax”, which basically had included some similar info to this thread. Except for the added references by DNA here regarding PRICING TIERS, etc.
Even if they could Kabam would still find any way to squeeze as much money as possible . They are not your friends they are a corporation here to make money . So if for some reason you want to waste money on a game that could easily be played for free you might as well get a vpn and find the cheapest possible offer from around the world
Can you tell me what for-profit business is your friend? You are correct that they are here to make money. That's the whole point of offering micro-transactions. That's every mobile game out there. If this were truly a F2P experience, I wouldn't play because of all the adds they'd have to put out in game to keep it going for almost 7 years.
But Kabam is pretty friendly when it comes to interacting with it's base. Miike is everywhere. Dork Dave will be great. Even Gabriel Frizzera is accessible on twitter. Kabam is everyone's friend when it's SA calendar time or SA week and anniversary week.
Let me know if you can talk directly to Wal-Marts owners.
By the way, I don't expect the average person to know this just off handedly. However, if someone is concerned about pricing and wants to know why the prices are what they are, or if someone intended to publicly discuss or advocate a position on the issue, I would expect them to ask one reasonable question first: how are prices set in the app store?
This is literally the first thing that comes up in Google. It might not be the first hit for everyone, but I suspect it will be very high in the search list for most people. From there, further reading and investigation would lead you to basically all the rest of the information I mention above.
As I said, this is not super secret information. It is just something most people don't know, because most people aren't exposed to different currency pricing in the major app stores, so most people don't even think to ask.
But if someone is wondering, I would hope they would get at least this far.
As helpful as this post is, most people unfortunately won't ever do the leg work. The youtuber you referenced is one of them and the worse part is that his followers will listen to what he says. The comments on the video itself are proof of that. All of them now think Kabam is to blame and not a single one of them fact checked the video. Thank you for putting this out there.
I would post a comment on the video in question, but I already post to two wretched hives of scum and villainy, and Youtube comment sections would exceed my quota. Them peeps are cray-cray.
I hope those two items that you referenced are youtubers and I'm not one of them lol. I posted your link on the video with a comment. We'll see if it stays.
I went back to check just to see what the conversation looked like, and I cannot find a single post where this was explained in any detail. A couple people saying "that's not how it works" or mentioning price tiers, but I don't see anyone challenging false statements directly like "You are aware that kabam can change prices to make it fair after the conversion?" Like they think Apple does a currency conversion, but Kabam can just set the price differently in each country so that after the conversion it "works out." Which is completely false.
I'm assuming your comment either got modded away or maybe Youtube itself did something. I heard once that Youtube frowned on external links, but I wouldn't know because I don't really wade into YT comment sections.
This is what I posted. It's still there. I tried posting this forum link but not sure if Hoff took it down or a mod. Tried it 3 times. You're right, there's a few people on there saying it's wrong. But you can also see the comment right above mine that agrees and bashes Kabam, Hoff liked or hearted or whatever it is in youtube world.
But you can also see the comment right above mine that agrees and bashes Kabam, Hoff liked or hearted or whatever it is in youtube world.
Actually, no I can't. I refreshed and resorted just to be sure, and this is the only one I see posted by the same name:
Odd. Is there some YT setting somewhere that is causing YT comments to be filtered? If you log out and view the video anonymously, do you still see the comment you posted? Just to make sure it wasn't my YT account messed up I tried viewing anonymously, and I still can't see that comment or its parent.
And because I'm me, the comments section says "91 comments" so I counted them all twice: there are 91 visible, so I'm not hiding one myself. Yours isn't in the 91 comments Youtube is feeding me.
I thought most people knew it worked like this. Atleast I find it pretty self-explanatory
Pretty sure most people do not know how this works. For example:
This person thinks Kabam likes to make all their prices end in 9s. Of course, when it comes to USD pricing, all App Store prices end in 9s, because every price in the tier list ends in 9s.
Also, I'm pretty sure this is set by retail convention. Which is to say, in the US it is common for prices to end in "99." But in Japan all the App store prices end in zero, because in Japan they don't have the same tradition of prices ending in 9s. In Singapore, I believe all App store prices end in 8, because there it is more culturally appropriate for retail prices to end in 8 than 9 or 0 ("8" is a good luck number in Chinese culture). And again, this is all mandated by Apple (and presumably Google).
So Apple doesn't just perform the currency conversion, then apply a risk adjustment, then apply a cost of business adjustment. They also very explicitly make the price tiers visually palatable to the region they are in. They put a significant amount of thought into exactly how the price tiers work.
The “left-digit effect" - 0.99 is a psychological bargain compared to 1.00
But you can also see the comment right above mine that agrees and bashes Kabam, Hoff liked or hearted or whatever it is in youtube world.
Actually, no I can't. I refreshed and resorted just to be sure, and this is the only one I see posted by the same name:
Odd. Is there some YT setting somewhere that is causing YT comments to be filtered? If you log out and view the video anonymously, do you still see the comment you posted? Just to make sure it wasn't my YT account messed up I tried viewing anonymously, and I still can't see that comment or its parent.
And because I'm me, the comments section says "91 comments" so I counted them all twice: there are 91 visible, so I'm not hiding one myself. Yours isn't in the 91 comments Youtube is feeding me.
You're right. If I log out and try and see the comments, I can see the one that I replied to but not the one I actually posted and replied to. That's super weird. Logged in- Logged out- Zero idea why.
I presume it is a form of invisibility flagging where the poster can see their posts, but no one else can. I didn't know Youtube implemented that, but it is not uncommon on discussion forums. These forums have a form of invisibility when you exceed certain limits as well.
I presume it is a form of invisibility flagging where the poster can see their posts, but no one else can. I didn't know Youtube implemented that, but it is not uncommon on discussion forums. These forums have a form of invisibility when you exceed certain limits as well.
Comments
But the item charts are probably very similar most of the time because a) operational costs are similar for the two companies in most places and b) there's some round off inherent on the item charts as the prices jump in increments. If Google's costs are 3% higher or lower than Apple's, factoring in taxes and other fees (which would be identical) the overall difference between the two might be small enough that they end up landing on the same price. I'm pretty sure like Apple, Google rounds off tier pricing in most countries to round numbers. Plus there's probably some competitive pressures at play here.
So if Apple calculates the AUD price of an Odin relative to USD as being anywhere near 159.99 AUD, its going to be 159.99 AUD. It is not going to be 158.72 AUD. If Google's calculation is different, but still close to 159.99 AUD, they will also land on 159.99 AUD even though their costs and other requirements might be slightly different (note: I don't have Google's price tiers in front of me now, so I don't know if this is literally true at the moment; this is just an example).
I'm assuming your comment either got modded away or maybe Youtube itself did something. I heard once that Youtube frowned on external links, but I wouldn't know because I don't really wade into YT comment sections.
Sure they try to do as well as they can just like literally everyone else in the Western world, but thinking that everyone pursues the maximum short term profit possible regardless of any other circumstance is just as naive as thinking there's no profit motive at all. Only cartoon villains live at either extreme.
If Kabam was really trying to make as much money as possible, they wouldn't allow me to grind almost a hundred thousand units a year through gameplay. In fact, one of the reasons I play this game is because it is among the most friendly to free to play grinders. I'm not a 100% free to play player: I spend. But the vast majority of everything I have in the game I earned through gameplay, including the equivalent of about $3000 of units per year. You'd be hard pressed to find another mobile game like this that lets you do that, and it most certainly cuts into their profits.
All things considered if you can find a way to spend less on the game, go for it. You don't owe Kabam inefficient spending. The way I do it is I stock up on iTunes gift cards whenever someone is dumb enough to sell them as a loss-leader, like Costco. I usually also only spend when the value of the offers is huge, like J4 and CW. But if you decide to use a VPN to go region shopping, as I mentioned the issue you might run into is that the app stores take care to conform to your locality's tax and fee requirements. You might be beraking the law by buying outside your region and dodging those taxes and fees. Everyone has to decide for themselves if this is worth the hassle and they are comfortable with the legal consequences.
The earlier example maybe having become more standardized (across all services like Apple/Google) over time, as laws regarding Taxes on Digital Goods may have over time evolved to a current standard practice (of charging them, vs leaving it up to the consumer to report “digital” or “online” purchases on their own State Tax Returns in order to pay the Tax as many States in the US had originally been requiring people to do).
Now online places are much more typically required to actually collect that Tax by the Seller (Apple/Google, or even eBay, Amazon, etc), instead of leaving it up to purchaser to “honestly” declare and pay on their end of year tax returns.
Some of this can be seen in much older posts (and maybe somewhat outdated State by State comparisons) in Forums here regarding “Currency Variations” and “Sales Tax”, which basically had included some similar info to this thread. Except for the added references by DNA here regarding PRICING TIERS, etc.
But Kabam is pretty friendly when it comes to interacting with it's base. Miike is everywhere. Dork Dave will be great. Even Gabriel Frizzera is accessible on twitter. Kabam is everyone's friend when it's SA calendar time or SA week and anniversary week.
Let me know if you can talk directly to Wal-Marts owners.
This is what I posted. It's still there. I tried posting this forum link but not sure if Hoff took it down or a mod. Tried it 3 times. You're right, there's a few people on there saying it's wrong. But you can also see the comment right above mine that agrees and bashes Kabam, Hoff liked or hearted or whatever it is in youtube world.
Odd. Is there some YT setting somewhere that is causing YT comments to be filtered? If you log out and view the video anonymously, do you still see the comment you posted? Just to make sure it wasn't my YT account messed up I tried viewing anonymously, and I still can't see that comment or its parent.
And because I'm me, the comments section says "91 comments" so I counted them all twice: there are 91 visible, so I'm not hiding one myself. Yours isn't in the 91 comments Youtube is feeding me.
Good OP.
Logged out-
Zero idea why.