Local currencies and wow monthly fee [TURKISH PERSPECTIVE]

[Puri]

As I said, I personally don't use, neither recommend the usage of, anything but the official distributor.
Call me old fashioned but I don't want to support the illegal acquiry of digital goods by shady sites.

That's like saying that "yea, you can buy your pain meds at the pharmacy or from Billy at the corner pub for 60% off but you don't know how he got it."

I never said you should buy from them, I just pointed out that the same game on Steam costs in Brasil less than it costs in Austria.

[Garymorilix]

meh i used to believe that, but then the prices from different vendors wouldn't all be so close together and would generally see more of a race to the bottom. if technology has increased in any area in the last 10 years it's in exactly that kinda fraud prevention. + if it was bought with stolen money you'd also see blizzard game etc on there but you never do.

nah pretty sure these days it's mostly just bulk bought global keys in cheap jurisdictions.

Nobody races to the bottom.

It only needs to be cheaper than the official price to a degree where people take notice.
From then on why would they try to not make buck? They must have some kind of expense to cover too.

Blizzard is actually paying very close attention to this, so yea, you are right, but now you gotta decide whether you want to talk in general terms or about Blizzard specifically.
Because Blizzard also didn't do regional discounts anywhere either 10 years ago.

[Hellobolis]

Nobody races to the bottom.

It only needs to be cheaper than the official price to a degree where people take notice.
From then on why would they try to not make buck? They must have some kind of expense to cover too.

Blizzard is actually paying very close attention to this, so yea, you are right, but now you gotta decide whether you want to talk in general terms or about Blizzard specifically.
Because Blizzard also didn't do regional discounts anywhere either 10 years ago.

guess game devs just gotto learn to have the balls to ban the illegally acquired keys then. surely in todays day and age the reputation damage taken from that should be quite minimal or even seen as a positive.

[l33t]

When did understanding economics became the same as hating on poor people?

Money doesn't grow on trees, as in, money is finite that's why everyone can't be rich.
Those who are more able make more. It's how the world works and that's how you motivate people to make a better living for themselves, to improve.

You don't go to Blizzard or any X company to cry how you don't have money to buy their shit, you build your own life by obtaining the necessary skills and electing a working government to make money. This goes for everyone everywhere.
You might not like this because this places responsibility on the individual which is a no-no nowadays but this is how it's done irl.

First, I never said anything 'bout hating. I said, why are you so mean? It is obvious that one person can't change anything but get a better job. Nobody comes and suddenly makes his live 146% better. Elections are nothing but a shitshow of thieving lying mobsters you "have" to choose from. Politics are shit.

Second, your understanding of economics is questionable, since you demand that costs of things must stay the same in every corner of the world, while salaries somehow differ everywhere. That's why you get food and stuff for different prices in different countries. Game services are just the same, and their costs must be based on local income, not some artificially modified currency exchange rates.

[kozzelet]

First, I never said anything 'bout hating. I said, why are you so mean? It is obvious that one person can't change anything but get a better job. Nobody comes and suddenly makes his live 146% better. Elections are nothing but a shitshow of thieving lying mobsters you "have" to choose from. Politics are shit.

Second, your understanding of economics is questionable, since you demand that costs of things must stay the same in every corner of the world, while salaries somehow differ everywhere. That's why you get food and stuff for different prices in different countries. Game services are just the same, and their costs must be based on local income, not some artificially modified currency exchange rates.

This is utter bull. Money is money everywhere ... if you're getting 50% less than someone somewhere else you are getting paid 50% less, you're not getting "the same" as somebody in some other country, and you are objectively poorer. Local purchasing power is a thing but most often you do get better quality in more expensive countries/societies. It's especially evident in housing - a house or a flat in the Netherlands may cost a few times more than one in Istanbul, but you are getting much better environment, spacing and infrastructure for that money.

If pay & prices in a country rise, but not the quality & attractiveness, that leads to the currency getting devaluated. People that get paid more and spend more in richer countries do have an objectively better life.

You should take it with your employer/local government/local buyers, etc. to get paid more adequately, improve housing conditions, have people less content of living a cheap shitty life, or you should move somewhere else where payment is more in line to an adequate mean average(where you also have the necessary skills to pass along nicely). The last people who are to blame that you are paid inadequately are a company providing digital services globally for a fixed cost. If you or your parents decided it's fine to stay somewhere and get exploited and underpaid by your local government & employers just because you are able to get some local produce for equally cheap, and you're fine living your life as cheap slave labor, Blizzard's prices are the last of your problems.

[Hellobolis]

This is utter bull. Money is money everywhere ... if you're getting 50% less than someone somewhere else you are getting paid 50% less. You should take it with your employer/local government/local buyers, etc. to get paid more adequately, or you should move somewhere else where payment is more in line to an adequate mean average(where you have the skills to pass along nicely). The last people who are to blame that you are paid inadequately are a company providing digital services globally for a fixed cost. If you or your parents decided it's fine to stay somewhere and get exploited by your local government just because you are able to get some local produce for equally cheap, and you're fine living your life as cheap slave labor, Blizzard's prices are the last of your problems.

except that emigrating to a different country is actually quite expensive so you can't just do it. and that is if the other country even wants you in the first place, which is typically only if you are highly educated, low skilled labor is much more often just on temp visas.

like you got any idea the kind of political shitstorm that would erupt here if we just took in every chinese factory worker that wanted to get paid more for similar work?

[unbound]

I'm sorry that you are living in a country with serious inflation issues, but there isn't anything that Blizz can do about that.

Blizz is in the business of making money. They aren't interested in giving anyone a break as top executive compensations is based almost entirely on stock prices, which means they need stock prices to continue to rise...which requires profits to stay high.

If you aren't able to play by purchasing tokens via in-game gold currency, then I would suggest quitting WoW and playing a F2P game (e.g. New World, Guild Wars 2).

[Doffen]

I understand the issue, not everyone earns that much, and some countries are more wealthy than others. It would be nice if blizzard could change the prices locally, but them, and close to everyone else set the same price region wise anyway unfortunately.

Saying that, and I know that time isn't always enough, getting gold to buy game time is a nice thing, which is something I personally have done since it came out. I absolutely love that option, because it gives people that could other wise not afford the sub the chance to play anyway.

Is that not an option for you?

[kranur]

Sadly, nothing we can do, and Blizz has no interest in doing something either. The last thing they care about is players.

[Wilian]

When did understanding economics became the same as hating on poor people?

Money doesn't grow on trees, as in, money is finite that's why everyone can't be rich.
Those who are more able make more. It's how the world works and that's how you motivate people to make a better living for themselves, to improve.

You don't go to Blizzard or any X company to cry how you don't have money to buy their shit, you build your own life by obtaining the necessary skills and electing a working government to make money. This goes for everyone everywhere.
You might not like this because this places responsibility on the individual which is a no-no nowadays but this is how it's done irl.

Next in yankee TEDTalk: hOW trICklE dOWn ecOnOmiCS REaLy wORk aND BOotsTRAp pUlLiNg

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I'm sorry that you are living in a country with serious inflation issues, but there isn't anything that Blizz can do about that.

Actually they can. They just won't.

[Aradur]

Blizzard has costs and wants to get paid an amount of money for their service. If your third world country can't pay you fairly because your dictator needs more money for new yachts or to eliminate some political enemies it's not blizzards fault. Do something against it to make your life better.

[Hellobolis]

Blizzard has costs

irrelevant when profit margins are over say 20%, and blizzards is way way higher than 20%

and wants to get paid an amount of money for their service.

no. they want the most money they can get. that's different. which is why it's often a good idea to sell more of something at a cheaper price, instead of less at a higher price. and with digital products who don't have a lot of variable costs this can be taken to extremes.

turkeys population is about the same as germanies, surely that's enough people to make it worth the up front investment of setting up a local system. must be some other reason they don't, i'm guessing theres some legal issue. (cause the other big reason to not do it is to keep a luxury brand appearance/image, which i don't believe for a second blizz cares about anymore.)

[Hotmail]

Immigrate to NY and open a Turkish food truck. You'll make the money you need to play WoW in no time.

[Bloomer]

If your third world country can't pay you fairly because your dictator needs more money for new yachts or to eliminate some political enemies it's not blizzards fault. Do something against it to make your life better.

Hell yeah, fellow redditor! Did you tip your fedora after typing out that comment?

[Ashina]

Why are there a bunch of degenerates in here turning this political? I understand what OP is trying to say and I feel for you, but this is never going to change. Your best bet is to pay for your sub with tokens, I think almost every Eastern-European I've ever played with did it like that. Paying out of your teeth for a WoW subscription because it charges you in a currency that is way way stronger than your local currency is ridiculous, but sadly reality.
If you're only earning 500-800 euros per month (which is a normal salary in countries like Serbia iirc) then paying 15 per month for a game sub is crazy.

Thank God Blizzard didn't set the price point of their European subs based on Swiss francs and then just copy that value to euro.

Blizzard has costs and wants to get paid an amount of money for their service. If your third world country can't pay you fairly because your dictator needs more money for new yachts or to eliminate some political enemies it's not blizzards fault. Do something against it to make your life better.

Oh boy...

[LedZeppelin]

sounds like you should be big into forex

[Azerate]

I live in Turkey and our currency; Turkish lira, loses its value against eur and us dollar day by day. In one and a half month period, eur gained 15% more value over lira. Right now 1 eur is equal to 11 Turkish lira and every moment, ratio is going up in favor of eur.

What i'd like to say is, for a moment lets skip currencies and call them "units". European players play wow for "13 units" and here in Turkey, we have to pay 143 units for monthly fee of wow. In addition, monthly minimum salary set by government here in Turkey is 2825 Turkish liras which is equal to 256,81 EUR (48% of the employees amongst total work force in Turkey earn this amount also).

I hope someone will read this comment and do something.

p.s.: sorry for my English, its not my native lang.

What you can do is try to buy a prepaid game card, if they are available in your country, or use a VPN to access other country's currency to pay for sub. The latter may be considered a bit shady, but people do it a lot and it's not really bannable outside of Steam

Yes, that's how exchange rates work.
He literally claimed that he pays more than 13 EURs which is factually incorrect. Whatever the exchange rate is he always pays 13 EURs.

Blizzard (or like, literally any other company) are not liable to any local currency doing poorly.
Steam offers the same game for 60EUR for me, for germans and for turkish people as well. True for every single digital distributor.

We are talking about a digital market. Physical products may need to adapt to local demand but digital products are international.
If Turkish accounts would receive a 'discount' based on their region then what would stop anyone with opening a turkish account to just simply game the system and pay less?
Blizzard cannot ask you for your government ID to fact check you.

Edit.: I am also eastern european before you accuse me of being a rich swiss kid.

You are very uninformed for someone who wants to educate others about economy.

Steam prices do vary a lot based on the region/country actually. They do not vary enough to compensate between the differences in wealth and currencies, but they do vary. The prices are not "international". This does depend on the games sometimes cause some do not offer different prices, but most big titles do. For example for my country (Poland) the prices are usually cheaper on steam by about 20% (in Euro).

Here's a comparison for Witcher 3. You can see the prices for all currency options, as well as converted price in a currency of choice. If you set it to euro or dollar, you see the actual differences. For example in Japanese Yen, you pay 42,25 Euro for it, while in Turkish Lira (OP's currency) it costs 5,36 euro only. In Polish Złoty it's 21,73€. Turkish price is almost 10 times smaller than the Japanese one. Anything else to say about "international digital products"?

https://steamdb.info/app/292030/

[Alicianna]

Well,
as mich as I hate to say it: The servers etc. are operated outside of Turkey… so the costs accumulated is in Euro/US Dollars as well. While Blizzard sure might go down in pricing in Turkey, it still has to generate some money.
The best way to get out of that misery is to get rid of Sultan Erdogan. His erratic behavior is responsible for the lira being in free fall.

[VinceVega]

The fall of the turkish lira is something out of the ordinary. And way to fast to get a price adjustment from a foreign company. They would have to adjust all the time so why bother?

It will get worse if current policies stay the way they are and the political direction won't change.

Blizz do not pay their expenses in turkish lira. They mostly pay in American Dollars and Euros. If they reduce it too much they don't really make any money from you. An no i do not know where the break even point is for a normal wow user who does not buy any tokens and such. But it exists somewhere.

I am sorry for you. It is a shitty situation in many aspects not just with the wow sub. But i don't think Blizz has a abligation to do anthing here.

[WowIsDead64]

I live in Turkey and our currency; Turkish lira, loses its value against eur and us dollar day by day. In one and a half month period, eur gained 15% more value over lira. Right now 1 eur is equal to 11 Turkish lira and every moment, ratio is going up in favor of eur.

What i'd like to say is, for a moment lets skip currencies and call them "units". European players play wow for "13 units" and here in Turkey, we have to pay 143 units for monthly fee of wow. In addition, monthly minimum salary set by government here in Turkey is 2825 Turkish liras which is equal to 256,81 EUR (48% of the employees amongst total work force in Turkey earn this amount also).

I hope someone will read this comment and do something.

p.s.: sorry for my English, its not my native lang.

Just 0.5% worse, than in Russia, where made-up sanctions (no real proofs - just highly likelies, just like in all modern "cancelling" cases) caused local currency to drop by 233% vs "fair" level.