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Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest news on Alpha Two.
Check out general Announcements here to see the latest news on Ashes of Creation & Intrepid Studios.
To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Regional prices, attempt to clarify
Elder Soul
Member
Various topics have been created in the forum dealing with the issue of the cost of subscription and the differences in purchasing capacity in different regions of the world.
After reading them, I have noticed that on many occasions the situation is not explained well, and on others, some users simply resort to attacks or personal criticism towards those who propose alternatives, perhaps due to lack of empathy or lack of knowledge regarding this topic. .
For that reason I decided to create this thread in search of developing the topic a little more so that it is easier to understand and does not end up distorting.
First of all I want to clarify that it is understood that any type of decision regarding the forms of payment is purely and exclusively reserved to the will and wishes of the owners, creators and private investors of the game.
I also want to clarify that it is understood that under no circumstances are they obliged to offer an alternative to the one already presented.
Finally, also clarify that any suggestion by a user, who understands the two previous premises well, is valid and deserves at least to be seen and taken into account beyond the final decision to be made.
Having said this, let's move on to a little information that allows us to understand what we are talking about, but not before making it clear that regarding this type of data there are always differences depending on the source consulted, in which way the data was collected, the period of year and many other variables.
The data that I am going to expose are by way of example and may not conform perfectly to reality, so any suggestion or comment in this regard is welcome.
- According to the Bureau of Labor Statics (BLS) in the United States of America, the average salary of a citizen is approximately 3800 US dollars per month.
- According to Trading Economies (TE) in Brazil, the average salary of a citizen is situated at approximately 25000 BRL per month, which is equivalent to the current currency exchange rate (1usd = 5.38BRL) at about 467 US dollars per month.
- According to the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INDEC) in Argentina, the average salary of a citizen is situated at approximately 31000 ARS per month, which is equivalent to the current currency exchange rate (1usd = 100 ARS) to about 310 US dollars per month.
- According to the Superintendency of Pensions (SP) in Chile, the average salary of a citizen is situated at approximately 830000 CLP per month, which is equivalent to the current currency exchange rate (1 usd = 772 CLP) at about 1075 US dollars per month.
Now, as you may notice, for different citizens in different countries with an average salary within their region, the ability to pay in US dollars is very different.
Considering a future subscription of about 15 US dollars per month, this represents the following:
User in the United States of America = 0.4% of their income.
User in Brazil = 3.2% of their income.
User in Argentina = 4.8% of their income.
User in Chile = 1.4% of their income.
As you can see, it is not about not having a job, or the need to get a better one as many argue in the answers.
These are different realities, internal to each country that are reflected when operating in a single currency.
When one takes into account these relationships regarding costs / salary, one can understand that while in one country the cost is paid for one (1) subscription to a game, in another country another user pays the equivalent of 8, 12 or 3, 5 subscriptions.
I hope that this serves as a positive contribution to the subject and avoids misunderstandings or unnecessary aggression.
Regards!
After reading them, I have noticed that on many occasions the situation is not explained well, and on others, some users simply resort to attacks or personal criticism towards those who propose alternatives, perhaps due to lack of empathy or lack of knowledge regarding this topic. .
For that reason I decided to create this thread in search of developing the topic a little more so that it is easier to understand and does not end up distorting.
First of all I want to clarify that it is understood that any type of decision regarding the forms of payment is purely and exclusively reserved to the will and wishes of the owners, creators and private investors of the game.
I also want to clarify that it is understood that under no circumstances are they obliged to offer an alternative to the one already presented.
Finally, also clarify that any suggestion by a user, who understands the two previous premises well, is valid and deserves at least to be seen and taken into account beyond the final decision to be made.
Having said this, let's move on to a little information that allows us to understand what we are talking about, but not before making it clear that regarding this type of data there are always differences depending on the source consulted, in which way the data was collected, the period of year and many other variables.
The data that I am going to expose are by way of example and may not conform perfectly to reality, so any suggestion or comment in this regard is welcome.
- According to the Bureau of Labor Statics (BLS) in the United States of America, the average salary of a citizen is approximately 3800 US dollars per month.
- According to Trading Economies (TE) in Brazil, the average salary of a citizen is situated at approximately 25000 BRL per month, which is equivalent to the current currency exchange rate (1usd = 5.38BRL) at about 467 US dollars per month.
- According to the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INDEC) in Argentina, the average salary of a citizen is situated at approximately 31000 ARS per month, which is equivalent to the current currency exchange rate (1usd = 100 ARS) to about 310 US dollars per month.
- According to the Superintendency of Pensions (SP) in Chile, the average salary of a citizen is situated at approximately 830000 CLP per month, which is equivalent to the current currency exchange rate (1 usd = 772 CLP) at about 1075 US dollars per month.
Now, as you may notice, for different citizens in different countries with an average salary within their region, the ability to pay in US dollars is very different.
Considering a future subscription of about 15 US dollars per month, this represents the following:
User in the United States of America = 0.4% of their income.
User in Brazil = 3.2% of their income.
User in Argentina = 4.8% of their income.
User in Chile = 1.4% of their income.
As you can see, it is not about not having a job, or the need to get a better one as many argue in the answers.
These are different realities, internal to each country that are reflected when operating in a single currency.
When one takes into account these relationships regarding costs / salary, one can understand that while in one country the cost is paid for one (1) subscription to a game, in another country another user pays the equivalent of 8, 12 or 3, 5 subscriptions.
I hope that this serves as a positive contribution to the subject and avoids misunderstandings or unnecessary aggression.
Regards!
4
Comments
Otherwise, you could make the exact same case for eastern EU or Balkan countries they should get a lower price and get access to any server they want.
I agree that if a measure is taken, it should not harm the rest or generate more inequalities than already exist.
I also understand that it is impossible for there to be a dedicated server for each country or type of currency in each region, but a solution could be the following.
Continuing with the data that I previously provided, if there is a dedicated server in the South America region, it could offer regional access for a price in dollars that guarantees that no one pays less than users in the country of origin in relation to their average income but that is more in line with the reality of that region.
For example, a server located in Brazil (I take it as an example because of the number of potential clients that this country presents compared to the rest of the area) could provide access to the game for a monthly subscription of 4.3 US dollars.
In this way, the cost per subscription/average income would be as follows:
Users in Brazil = 0.9% of their income (previously 3.2%)
Users from Argentina = 1.4% of their income (previously 4.8%)
Users in Chile = 0.4% of their income (previously 1.4%)
As can be seen, this means an obvious improvement for users in the region and in no case would they be paying less (in relation to cost / average salary) than users in the country of origin of the game.
This I think is very positive for everyone, clients and company as it would add a large number of active users to the gaming world.
If I had more time, I would write a shorter post.
I'd still play in NA servers though as lang is not a problem for me and I got ping reduction software that makes latency not an issue in all MMOs I've played with decent backend infrastructure. The biggest issue continues to be money exchange ratio tbh.
I heard a bird ♫
would be great if you can play on any server based on regional pricing but then Intrepid should be fair to everyone and also reduce the prices for Eastern EU for example.
As @Vhaeyne was saying, the price will be for the server in that region so Southern Americas. When you want to play on the NA or Eu server it will cost ya the price of the region the server is located in.
I think this is more than fair
Thank you mate, wasnt aware of latency reduction software. Have just bought and set one up. I chose one without VPN in case Ashes doesn't like VPNs. Thank you once again!
Here is the link from when I posted it just a little while ago on another one (still had the site up on another tab).
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Payment_model
There will be harmonized pricing for some regions.
- Fedaygin -
Arrakis Channel on Twitch
Oh look. Another user who comments without completely reading the basics of the thread. Is it so difficult to read and interpret before answering?
Here is the demonstration that I do review the topics created in the forum and the explanation of why create a new one:
(Excerpts from the first contribution of the thread)
¨Various topics have been created in the forum dealing with the issue¨ (Yes, I used the wonderful search tool)
¨After reading them, I have noticed that on many occasions the situation is not explained well, and on others, some users simply resort to attacks or personal criticism towards those who propose alternatives¨ (does this attitude sound familiar?)
¨For that reason I decided to create this thread in search of developing the topic a little more¨ (What does not harm anyone, those who are interested in the subject can read it and participate, those who do not follow their path)
Simple, an attempt to explain in another way a topic that is sometimes poorly understood which has evolved with different contributions.
Now if a Brazilian player wants to subscribe to the US servers, they will have to pay US cost. This does 2 things, it ensures that US players don't have to deal with laggy players, and it reduces the amount of gold selling/cheating/botting from other players. It's very common knowledge that most gold sellers/cheaters/botters are coming from non-US countries, to the US servers in MMOs as they can make a lot more money selling to the US players. Those players mostly being from China, Russia, and Brazil. So if we made their subscription cost a lot less, while they still got to play on the US servers it would only serve to aggravate players and to open the floodgates for the cheaters to rush in. Sure, it will still happen, but due to it costing a lot more it will happen a lot less. So I think this is a very good compromise.
The other threads are based on the ¨request¨ for regional prices arguing differences in the exchange rate between regions.
The purpose of this is simply to ¨explain¨ what these threads are based on, to ¨analyze¨ the logic behind the request.
An independent thread trying to further develop the logic behind regional price requests.
As I explained from the beginning, many users do not understand the reason for this request and often resort to sarcastic comments, belittling the author of the thread or diverting the focus from the main topic.
The only way to try to unify the analysis to clarify what has been discussed in multiple threads already created is to create an independent thread, otherwise I should comment on each and every one of said threads to incorporate the approach that I intend to share.
Of course the threads evolve and in general tend to deviate from the main theme, as in this precise case.
We already know for a fact there will be regional prices/harmonized pricing. The only discussion left, although Steven has already stated his opinion, is whether or not people will be able to pay their regional price and play on a server in another region.
I see arguments thrown around by both sides and I disagree with many of them, but to me one makes a lot of sense: it is unfair for someone in the US to have to pay $15 while someone in SA "only" has to pay $5 to play on that same server. Even though $15 represents the same as $5 for each country's reality, it can still be seen as unfair.
I'm from a shitty country with a shitty currency and an abysmal exchange rate to the dollar, and while I would like to be able to pay a price I can afford and still play with my NA friends, I can't refute the unfairness presented in the previous paragraph.
There are P2P games which let me pay the regional pricing and play on any server, and I never faced this problem before. Sadly (for me) it seems AoC won't be the case.
Now, in case Steven changes his mind or maybe it's too troublesome to have SA servers and they want to make it possible for people who live in third world countries to play the game in the NA servers while paying a regional price, I agree problems such as RMT would rise which maybe they wouldn't otherwise.
I know some people get hostile about this topic and I don't want to play the victim card, but I would appreciate if IS could give us a chance before downright tying regional prices to regional servers. If later on IS feels like they must tie regional prices to regional servers, then at least we tried.
Best regards.
We could have a Brazil server, an Ecuador server, an Argentinian server, an Uruguay server, etc.
No longer would the EU have to worry about where their server is. Each country would have their own!
Even Canada and Mexico would have their own pricing instead of paying US.
Australians get screwed no matter what happens and some games they end up lumped into the Asian servers for less lag. But many will prefer to play on US servers for the communication and population. For the most part it does work out okay because it creates a day shift and night shift with some cross interaction.
Thus the Language barrier becomes the issue, pug groups and mixed language servers can be problematic. There has been resentment for non English speaking players on US servers for a number of years now. Personally games that get over run by non English players that refuse to communicate in groups I see as bothersome and it just creates a loss of interest in playing that game.
I think the only solutions will be to use a Hybrid approach, set the server monthly charges so no matter where or what country they are in they get the 15$ charge in their currency. Then separate the servers by language English, Spanish, French, Russian and so forth along with time zones. But you will need to enforce the rule as to what the servers Primary Language is set at.
Or look into a working chat system that has a language recognition software that can do on the fly translation for the chat. This would eliminate the language barrier.
It's a fact that there will be regional pricing. So yes, if IS wants to sell their product in a country, then that currency will have its own value to the dollar, either through an exchange rate or harmonized pricing. These things are usually handled by 3rd party companies anyway, you only need a contract and it's done.
Regional servers can support players from multiple countries, the physical location of the servers will depend on where IS thinks it's best to put them. It's the same principle for servers in the US, but instead of multiple countries, there are multiple States. Australia is also facing a similar problem, as Steven stated, they don't know yet whether there will be Oceania servers, SEA servers or both. Since Ashes will be using AWS, it shouldn't be a problem anyway.
You seem to confuse price harmonization/regional pricing with currency exchange rates. The exchange rate between USD, JPY, AUD, CAD, EUR and GBP is quite constant, it doesn't vary too much and, except for Europe, these countries have somewhat similar living standards, therefore there's no need for regional pricing, only the currency exchange rate of that day. However, like the OP explained, some countries have currencies that simply cannot be exchanged for whatever the current exchange rate is because they are worthless (for lack of a better word).
I'm not sure separating (or segregating) servers by language is a good idea; English is supposed to be the default language for every server in NA and Western Europe. So I agree, it can become a problem, unfortunately.
I agree 100%, joining a game where you can't understand anything people are saying is terrible. In my experience, on-the-fly translation software for text chat helps a lot so that's a great idea, specially for European servers.
Yes, that would be possible. It's the same as if someone from the US wanted to play on the South American servers for a lot less than $15 a month. Since there are no region locks (IP locks), I believe it would be possible to do it.
Regional pricing assumes you live in the country you're getting that harmonized price, so in order to do it, IS will need to make sure people can't exploit it (3rd party companies easily solve this issue. It's not too difficult and it already works today for many platforms).
My idea is that, if you live in the US, your subscription will always cost $15 and you'd be able to play in any server in the world. On the other hand, if you live somewhere with regional pricing, you'd probably pay less than $15 and also be able to play in any server in the world. It can be seen as unfair, but that's the system in place at least in WoW, FFXIV and OSRS today.
With regional pricing tied to regional servers, it doesn't matter where you live, you'll only be able to buy a subscription to an specific region's server, but that's obviously not a problem for most people in NA and EU. So if you live in the US you'd be able to pay $15 to play in NA servers only or pay less than $15 to play in SA servers only.
I hope Steven changes his mind and at least gives a try to copy what other games do today: harmonized prices and regional servers, but no regional locks. People who want to play in SA servers because they don't know English will be able to do it, whereas people (like myself, sorry for the bias) who want to play with their NA guild will also be able to.
In no case a player from another region with a price adjusted to the economic reality of that region will be paying less in relation to their income than a player from the country of origin, in any case they will be paying the same or a little more.
Currently, companies like Blizzard have this type of price adjustment by region and without restriction of access to their servers.
The problem can occur in the case of users who illegally alter their location to access lower prices in relation to users who live in the same region.
But this brings us to the recent case presented by Intrepid consulting us about Multiboxing.
We all know that the most direct way to deal with the problem would be to block multiple connections from the same direction, but as many stated and the same company understands it, this could generate collateral damage in legitimate users who could not access the game.
With the issue of regional prices something similar happens, the most direct way to avoid unfair differences would be to grant a single subscription price, but this would cause harm to legitimate users who want to be part of the community and could not do so.
I think there are ways to assign regional prices and without restriction to the access of the servers, of course that no method is 100% infallible, it is at that moment where you have to evaluate the risks vs. benefits.
For the largest and most ambitious project of an MMORPG, the concept of leaving millions of users out of the game for a currency exchange issue excluding entire regions from the possibility of participation does not seem to be the best of decisions.
Of course this goes beyond subscription, kickstarter campaign packs, founder packs, future cosmetics and non-P2W store items, each transaction made in a single currency represents the inability of users from many regions to be able to access said content.
I'd like to know what Steven thinks about this and how he plans to handle it.
In many industries, supplying a good to a consumer means the material creation of said good which requires resources, materials, labor, storage space, distribution and logistics costs, etc.
Each unit sold is an individual creation for that customer and each sale requires repeating the entire process from start to finish.
In the case of virtual content, once the original piece is created which requires all the components of the process, facilities, resources, labor and storage among others, each time a sale is generated it is only a copy of the original, copy that does not require the complete process or new investments in time or resources.
Bearing this in mind, it can be seen that once the original piece is created, any sale made of it is practically pure profit with a minimum investment for each copy sold.
If the sale price of said digital copy is unique worldwide, the purchasing power will be affected by the exchange rate in each region.
If the sale price is adjusted to the economy of each region, the amount of sales increases notably and all starting from a minimum investment since it involves digital copies of a single product created.
By offering regional prices, starting sales are maintained and increased by millions, incorporating those regions where there was no purchasing capacity.
Let's take the data that I contribute at the beginning of this thread.
If we go to the AOC store we can see that the most expensive pack has a cost of 250 US dollars.
For a user in the United States of North America with an average salary this represents 6.6% of their monthly income.
For a user in Brazil with an average salary this represents 53.5% of their monthly income.
For a user in Argentina with an average salary this represents 80.6% of their monthly income.
For a user in Chile with an average salary this represents 23.3% of their monthly income.
You will realize that it is very unlikely that someone allocates 80.6% of their monthly salary (taking the worst case mentioned) to the purchase of a pack of digital content for a video game.
The result is obvious, less sales, less participation, less gaming community, less expansion of the game globally, fewer recommendations, fewer active subscriptions, less advertising, more competition.
And all to limit the sale of the copy of a digital article already created.
I believe that regional prices have the ability to increase the potential customer base and thus create an expansive effect, creating one of the largest gaming communities in the world.
I'd assume it's limited to publishers, so specific publishers can decide what countries to combine under their account system. So, if you get yourself an Intrepid Account and pay American prices, you can join the NA servers. If you have your local publisher's account and pay your local currency, you can join your local publisher's servers.
As I mentioned earlier, there are companies that currently offer regional prices without limitations on server access and it works very well for them.
The problem with limiting access to servers is that it removes the ability for players to join users from other regions.
Over the years, friendships with users from different regions of the world were forged, from strangers who forged friendships to distant friends or relatives.
In addition, Steven's answer does not address (as I understand it, if I'm wrong, please mention it) the particular case of the digital articles of the store as I mentioned in the previous post.
To cite by way of example, the current lack of regional pricing makes it impossible to participate in the founding of the game and access to digital bonus items for many players.
It is obvious that no one has an obligation to attend to these needs, but when one proclaims to have the intention of creating the greatest experience in the genre and leaves aside these types of details it becomes confusing to interpret the true intentions or the scope of those words.
Now you know my pain
But Steven did address it. He said that there will be harmonized pricing for regional servers. I think it pretty much covered the issue.
Certain regions will have "harmonized" subscription prices that better reflect their local economies. These regions will be segregated from other regions.[5]
Indeed @StevenSharif has addressed this and we already have an answer. My only hope is that his decision isn't yet final and/or Intrepid is open to at least try to allow for regional prices without regional server locks.
This lets me understand, at least from my perspective, that regional prices will only be available for the use of local servers and these will only be available if the number of players warrants it.
This does not contemplate the possibility of having regional prices to access any server.
A shame as it goes against the desire to create the largest gaming community in an MMORPG.
While it's true that in an ideal world every region would have their own server. for ping and regional pricing. This won't happen in the real world. It just isn't viable. So the next best thing is harmonize the price without requiring a regional server.