Why is DoV pre-order far more expensive for International players?

That have nothing to see with the 20% of tva. Try to do the count you ll not even be close. Like other already told, you have to remove the vat of us so the price should be close.
The problem come from soe decide what is the dollars value without care about his real value in the world. we are pretty far to 1.20 euro = 1 dollars. They are thief, and keep in pocket the net. Nothing to see with tax.
standard edition : 39.99 (tax inclued)
So ... 34,39$ without the tax (if they are at 16% like i read on this topic)
so add 20% to that... you should be at 41.27$ (instead of 39,99)
Taux du marché moyen en direct 2011.02.14 18:38:00 UTC.
41,27 USD
États-Unis Dollars=30,6045 EUR
Euro
1 USD = 0,741567 EUR

1 EUR = 1,34850 USD

pretty far from the 34,99.. something like 14% (remember this was the 20% inclued already)

and do the same maths to collector edition plz, and better to monthly fee and SC plz!

times is running, i wont be able to preorder, i will not buy collector edition !

even better : my country doesnt have 20% taxes, but 16.9, so its not fair either, plz make the maths and change the prices so you stop stealing your european custommers.

Avirodar@Oasis wrote:

They don't have too. EU law allows a sale made in one nominated head office to count as valid as tax paid in the EU, regardless of the VAT rates prevailing in the individual countries. For simplicity this is a common method used in the EU, e.g. as a UK customer I used to have to pay Belgian VAT rate to Plextor for buying CD drives from them.
Lathain_Sarathai wrote:

Sorry but your logic is flawed here. The $39.99 quoted in the US is a tax-exclusive price which is why the (misleading) footnote states taxes are added as applicable. The UK and EU prices quoted are tax-inclusive (as per Brasses FAQ) so to compare them correctly to the US pricing you need to add the VAT rate SOE are using (20%) and then do your currency conversion
Khaerie wrote:

I assume you don't have a Kindle? Digital downloads do attract tax (VAT) even though the equivalent physical product does not. So you can buy a book which is zero rated and hence no VAT, but buy it in a digital medium and the UK government will sting you for their 20%

Wingrider01 wrote:

True they have a design house, but I think they are being careful not to vend product out of that location.

Collector@Splitpaw wrote:

WRONG! SOE has set a 20% VAT rate for all of Europe, including non-EU countries, some of which have VAT of 5%.
EU and Europe are not the same thing. If you do not understand the difference, it is probably best not to post!

Levatino wrote:

and another bump. why isn't the Euro price adapted and only the price in pounds and Australian dollars? Players who pay in euro's still pay 33% more for the CE edition!
Are Aussies and Brits more important?

Beagley wrote:

Kindle huh...no I prefer the old fashioned turn the page method. Why would anyone ever wish to spend that much money for a book they can just buy? Before you ask, yes I did used to crawl through old book stores and find hidden treasures. I still enjoy it and have a nice selection of collectibles in both hard bound and paperback with a passion towards cook books as far back as the early 1800's and Kindle can keep their D*** hands off of them thank you. :-D

Are you then a qualified Tax accountant for the UK or a representative of Sony themselves? I did forget that taxes are usually added in to the final price since though I live in England I'm American and still used to seeing the charge and tax added on top. I even still go to the wrong side of the car to get in after fives years of living here. As you can see by my post, however, I am not concerned with the extra charge nearly as much as I'm concerned that the taxes are not actually being sent to a tax office. Your statement is reflective of a Euro-based company as explained in an earlier post by another individual.
I have seen some interesting things asking this question. Sony either truly has a company base in the UK area which of course means they'd have their ducks in a row but then leads to the question of why there is so much difficulty having european issues resolved long before they come to the wall. Or..Sony does not have a company based in the UK area which leads to that lovely back and forth international issue of who gets charged what but at least makes it a bit more understanding as to...well actually it doesn't really let them off the hook for why the ducks aren't in a row but that isn't an issue I'm addressing here. I'll let those that wish to kindle, kindle without me.
Still and all, my question was simple and polite. Which tax regulation requires Sony to charge us European Taxes? I'm hoping you are indeed a tax expert. As a tax expert you could let me know without me waiting to see if Sony answers.

Khaerie wrote:

Sony naturally has a games division in Europe -- Sony Computer Entertainment Europe -- who are responsible for Playstation, etc. Do a search for 'sony europe gaming' and you will get many results.
I am just not sure SOE and SCEE quite speak the same language. Or more likely, SOE Marketing waits until the last second to inquire about these things.

Question would still be why everyone else beside SOE sells the expac cheaper. Just got a mail from gamecards.eu offering the standard edition for 31,95€ and D2D sells the same for 29,95€ (when paying in USD) or with promo code even less. Not that this something new, it has been this way as long as I can remember, which is why I always bought from Amazon when DD was only available from SOE.

Levatino wrote:

The CE is 44.99 GBP which is today 53.74 Euro. The CE bought at SOE is 54.99 Euro. Yes its a bit more expensive but not that much. At release day it might be more or less. Depending on international exchange rates.
You still can buy the standart edition at DL gamer for 31.99 Euro. They dont sell CE though. But the CE has not much more then the standart edition. Just fluff.

Alienor wrote:

Sounds like a "Give us a reason to sell your game". No ? Maybe this is what the fuzz is all about, getting listed on online shops. If so, then it would have been better to first make contracts with the download shops and then advertise it on the SOE shop... I mean.. my Sony walkman is way cheaper at amazon then at ther Sony online shop and i dont feel ripped off, because i had a choice

feldon30 wrote:

also depends on if they have a hosting site located in trexas that has anything to do with their retail end - digital downloads, etc. If they do they have a retail outlet there. This is why a lot of online retailers are moving their wharehouses and distribution points to states that do not have online retail tax laws - like prefering New Jersy over New York, one has laws considering electronic distribution of software as a tangible product which is taxable and the other does not, so it is tax exempt.

tkia wrote:

Eh?? DOF was not the same year as KoS at all! DoF was 2005 and KoS was 2006! so i'm sorry to say you're completely wrong. What you're suggesting is that the level cap was raised from 40 to 60 in the same year.
What did happen, was that players hit the level cap on DoF which was eq2's first expansion within a couple of weeks, and so SOE released KOS the following February which was a much larger expansion pack.
What SOE did stop doing was the adventure packs, which were cheap and cheerful compared to a full expansion.
You can't say that they used to do expansions every 6 months when that only happened for the first two expansions.
Anyway, the biggest difference is these days that SOE doesn't ship hard copies of the game around europe, you can only buy the box in the US. This means that we can't benefit from stores buying it bulk over here and are forced to pay full price. Game over here is selling WoW's new expansion for 19.99 for example because blizzard do sell it in the shops.
Perhaps SOE should think about the massive overhead they're saving on and drop the price a bit on the digital download in that case as they have no packaging and shipment costs to cover.

Please fix the Euro price as well, Linda.

Thx in advance

For all who ordered the previous expansion from DLgamer: They now have an offer for previous customers.

A preorder costs 31.99 euro, a family pack consisting of 2 keys now costs 59.99 euro.
As far as i can see thats the sweetest deal available for us.

Khaerie wrote:

Representative of SOE - No.
Qualiifiied UK accountant - Yes

Edit - And SOE does appear to have EU based operations to comply with the law re tax paid in the EU member states. My last GBP subs taken in January went to a merchant address in The Netherlands and, IIRC, prior to that they used a London based merchant. I suspect they changed it when the UK VAT rates changed.

Please adjust the Euro price. It is unfair.

Erick Storm wrote:

I'm struggling why people still think the EUR price is way out of line compared to the GBP and AUD pricing. It isn't really.
I think the issue is that people might be comparing a tax exclusive price with a tax inclusive price. The standard edition is EUR34.99 the CE is EUR54.99. Those are tax inclusive prices,
The US versions are USD39.99 and USD59.99. Those are tax exclusive prices. To do a fair comparison, you need to add VAT onto them to do a proper comparison. If I use 20% VAT as a EU average the Standard version would therefore be USD48.00 and the CE would be USD72.00 (Rounded up for ease)
The buy price for USD/EUR as I post this is 0.73649 including the interbank premium that your bank or credit card company will take. That means the converted tax-inclusive prices would be EUR36.44 and the CE would be USD54.66.
Compare those to the local EUR prices set by SOE above. That makes the standard edition discounted by about EUR1.50 and there is a premium of about EUR0.33 on the CE That is in line with the pricing variation on the UK and AUD pricing.
I know it will be slightly different in different markets depending on your local VAT but SOE will have had to set an average and 20% is around the average as most EU markets have rates between 20-25%. Of the major EU countries, residents of Spain, The Netherlands, Germany and (just about) France are under 20%, everyother market is either at or above 20% (http://www.tmf-vat.com/vat/eu-vat-rates.html)

Swiss still have to pay 73$ for CE
And NO, we aren't in the EU, neither do we have a VAT remotly near 20%...

feldon30 wrote:

Nice edit of my original post, not!
So, I am assuming you live in the Canaries, Switzerland or Gilbraltar? As an aside, all the VAT in the Nordic region far exceeds 20% (though Sweden is part of the EU VAT area).
And, I'll refer you to your original post, where you state EU countries, not Europe. Last time I checked, EU was an abbreviation for European Union. The EU VAT range is 15% - 25%. No Countries can set a standard rate outside this range. So, my post is totally factually correct. End of.
If you are unsure of how to correctly use the keyboard to express what you are thinking, or are unsure of which abbreviations to use to correctly levy your argument, probably best not to post!
Game, set and match!