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[Shake Your Rump]

The article intentionally inflammatory. Doesn’t mention the actual price and only uses percentages. If the article used the actual numbers, people would still be asking why it is so cheap.

The actual headline of “cost of gamepass rises from $1.50 to $4.00” doesn’t have the same feel.

 

[Forsythia]

Turkey and Argentina are often used by people outside those countries to get games exceedingly cheap. MS is trying to block this exploit.

But in doing so gamers actually from these countries are getting completely screwed. They should have made it harder for people outside those countries to use their prices not raise them for the locals.

Also the question now comes that if people that were exploiting these Turkey/Argentina prices will now pay a higher price or if they'll just unsub.

This is the reason, but of course it's just MS being greedy. It sucks for gamers actually from these regions, but they have their fellow gamers to blame for that.

 

[Three]

The article intentionally inflammatory. Doesn’t mention the actual price and only uses percentages. If the article used the actual numbers, people would still be asking why it is so cheap.

The actual headline of “cost of gamepass rises from $1.50 to $4.00” doesn’t have the same feel.

And you're kind of being intentionally anti inflammatory. The dollar price makes it look cheap to you but it's not cheap for the people there. A 45TL to 209TL or 30TL to 159TL increase is far more significant there.

 

[Shake Your Rump]

And you're kind of being intentionally anti inflammatory. The dollar price makes it look cheap to you but it's not cheap for the people there. A 45TL to 209TL increase is far more significant there.

Sure, but why would people outside of that country care (other than VPN users exploiting exchange rates)? I don’t see any news articles on a Turkish news website lamenting how the cost of bread in Canada is $6 a loaf now.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

And you're kind of being intentionally anti inflammatory. The dollar price makes it look cheap to you but it's not cheap for the people there. A 45TL to 209TL increase is far more significant there.

Doesnt matter whether people can afford X or Y.

Real price discrimination is charging people different amounts for the same service. Gaming in general is pretty close in pricing when converted give or take $5 as you'd never get decimal place conversions since currncies chage daily and stores will round off prices to the nearest price like $69.99 or $74.99. Nobody is going to do a straight conversion price vs a US dollar setting a price of $73.27.

But then you get these wacky pricings everyone would notice when the net came about and everyone saw what everyone paid. Where outliers like Russia, Turkey and South America got dirt cheap games for like $10-15 US. Everyone else is paying $60 US, $80 CDN, $70 euro etc...

It'd be like a store charging a rich guy $80 for a pair pf jeans and then a poor guy walks in and he buys it for $15.

Price discrimination isnt dependent on who can or cant afford it. It's based on how close the product is sold everywhere.

You dont see BMW selling a car for $60,000 in the US and then in a poor country sell it for $6,000.

 

[Three]

It'd be like a store charging a rich guy $80 for a pair pf jeans and then a poor guy walks in and he buys it for $15.

You think there isn't regional pricing on common goods? I can buy really cheap clothes in Turkey. That same clothes in the US would likely cost considerably more. Regional pricing has nothing to do with charging "a rich guy" more.

Price discrimination isnt dependent on who can or cant afford it. It's based on how close the product is sold everywhere.

You dont see BMW selling a car for $60,000 in the US and then in a poor country sell it for $6,000.

Funny that you think this analogy works. If only you knew, considering in Turkey if you buy a BMW you are in fact paying 300% of what you would in the US. That BMW would cost you more than $100K. Regional pricing is a thing my friend and not just because of import/export.

Sure, but why would people outside of that country care (other than VPN users exploiting exchange rates)? I don’t see any news articles on a Turkish news website lamenting how the cost of bread in Canada is $6 a loaf now.

I think maybe you're mixing up networks here? This isn't BNN Bloomberg. It's just telling you about what's happening in Istanbul on an international news site. You also do get news in Turkey about something that might be affecting others in other parts of the world on international networks. It's not uncommon. Especially gas prices which are far better in Turkey.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

You think there isn't regional pricing on common goods? I can buy really cheap clothes in Turkey. That same clothes in the US would likely cost considerably more. Regional pricing has nothing to do with charging "a rich guy" more.

Funny that you think this analogy works. If only you knew, considering in Turkey if you buy a BMW you are in fact paying 300% of what you would in the US. Regional pricing is a thing my friend and not just because of import/export.


I think maybe you're mixing up networks here? This isn't BNN Bloomberg. It's just telling you about what's happening in Istanbul on an international news site. You also do get news in Turkey about something that might be affecting others in other parts of the world on international networks. It's not uncommon. Especially gas prices which are far better in Turkey.

I never said regional pricing isn't a thing. I could buy a loose can of beer in Hong Kong when I visited cheaper than the cost per can of a 24 pack in Canada.

All gaming companies want to do is try to prevent people leaching off a digital service where someone can do a few clicks off VPN and score games and service at bargain bin prices.

As for your Turkey BMW pricing, well Turkey has high priced BMWs. If they want they can jack up the price of every BMW sold around the world to match Turkey so all the Turkish people can stop importing cheap BMWs from other countries.

 

[Three]

I never said regional pricing isn't a thing. I could buy a loose can of beer in Hong Kong when I visited cheaper than the cost per can of a 24 pack in Canada.

Ok, so what are you saying with this "rich guy analogy" ? Do you think that those in Hong Kong should have beer prices increased by 400% and that wouldn't be news because it's only 3$ per can or whatever it cost?

As for your Turkey BMW pricing, well Turkey has high priced BMWs. If they want they can jack up the price of every BMW sold around the world to match Turkey so all the Turkish people can stop importing cheap BMWs from other countries.

Yes but then they might not sell many BMWs and a 300% increase in BMW prices in the US would be significant news, no? Would some Turk then turn around and say "well that's how much we pay so what is this intentionally inflammatory news being posted?"

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Ok, so what are you saying with this "rich guy analogy" ? Do you think that those in Hong Kong should have beer prices increased by 400% and that wouldn't be news because it's only 3$ per can or whatever it cost?

Yes but then they might not sell many BMWs and a 300% increase in BMW prices in the US would be significant news, no? Would some Turk then turn around and say "well that's how much we pay so what is this intentionally inflammatory news being posted?"

And why would beer companies adjust beer prices in HK? They are happy with the price and nobody is leaching off buying their beer and shipping it over to another country to save money. Add in 3 weeks to ship it and shipping fees and it'll turn out being more expensive. Digital products are different because all it takes is someone doing some VPNing and voila. You got dirt cheap pricing.

As for reply to BMW, that's exactly the reasons. I was being sarcastic. Pricing is already set up globally pretty good. Going by your example, the poor countries might have out of whack higher prices. So the only people to worry about are limited numbers of people importing from the US.

Digital is different because most of the customers come from higher priced regions. So if VPNing catches on, sales drop like a rock.

 

[Kerotan]

Turkey and Argentina are often used by people outside those countries to get games exceedingly cheap. MS is trying to block this exploit.

But in doing so gamers actually from these countries are getting completely screwed. They should have made it harder for people outside those countries to use their prices not raise them for the locals.

Also the question now comes that if people that were exploiting these Turkey/Argentina prices will now pay a higher price or if they'll just unsub.

What are all those smug Turkish Germans gonna do now!

 

[Three]

And why would beer companies adjust beer prices in HK? They are happy with the price and nobody is leaching off buying their beer and shipping it over to another country to save money. Add in 3 weeks to ship it and shipping fees and it'll turn out being more expensive. Digital products are different because all it takes is someone doing some VPNing and voila. You got dirt cheap pricing.

As for reply to BMW, that's exactly the reasons. I was being sarcastic. Pricing is already set up globally pretty good. Going by your example, the poor countries might have out of whack higher prices. So the only people to worry about are limited numbers of people importing from the US.

Digital is different because most of the customers come from higher priced regions. So if VPNing catches on, sales drop like a rock.

When I replied saying the few dollar price increase makes it look cheap to you but it's not cheap for the people there, I wasn't talking about the use of VPN or people importing BMWs I was saying the increase is significant for the people there even if it appears small in dollars. Nothing else. So in your Hong Kong analogy yes if some Hong Kong beer rises in price by 3 dollars it would be significant to them even if in another country like the US beer may usually be that price. Doesn't mean the Hong Kong beer should be sold for "the rich guy".

As for people "leeching" and buying things in other countries look no further than people filling their suitcases with their quota of brand cigarettes to bring back home and sell due to these type of regional price discrepancies. VPN just made things easier but if all of a sudden cigarette prices in Thailand or Turkey shot up due to these price discrepancies it would still be significant and news worth. Doesn’t make it insignificant because "it's only a few dollars" and "the rich guy shouldn't pay more".