Unified currency

[MakiMakaa]

Since tomorrow is the deadline for free-play, I decided to fix up all the account settings and start paying for this game.

As stated on Lodestone, the fee would be $6,99 for a month plus $3,00 for the character, making it $9,99. So I hit reactivate and it tells me I'm going to pay €9,99 for a month... what gives?

Last time I checked 1 USD equals about 0.75 EUR, so that means I'm going to have to pay 25% more for the same thing. It seems to be the same for the British subscribers, since GBP is currently valued about the same as the Euro.

All this also applies to buying Crysta, so I went to the last option, the Ultimate Game Card. Going to their website you can buy game cards for $11 or $21. When I try to buy Crysta it will still charge me in EUR with the flawed exchange rate of 1:1.
To make it even more interesting, we're allowed to pick more options to pay with. Let's click on 'Ultimate Game Card' and presto, the price changes to $67,10. So $1 = €1, but €1 = $0,74!

Can someone please attempt to explain this logic? Is it that hard to just charge everything in a single currency and have the customer's credit card handle the exchange rate?

[captainpicard]

Another SE'ism. That is really all I can say. Any other company would have their act together on this. It is unreal.

[Altera]

Other companies like Blizzard charging US players 12,99$ and European players 12.99 euros?

Currencies fluctuates all the time. Im pretty happy being from Norway since NOK is very strong against Euro and USD. If they charged in NoKs, it would probably be 199Nok pr month and not 72 as it is now from paying 9.99euro, or 12.99 since i pay for 2 characters total.

If I buy something from US, i pay in USD, I order from UK its £, Japan its Yen.

[Answa]

Do you check every single thing you buy in the store to see if the exchange rate is the same? Prices would be changing all the time.

[MariyaShidou]

That's standard practice unfortunately, here in Australia we pay $80-$90 for something that is $60 in US store, everywhere, include Steam. And for FFXIV, we also pay in EUR instead of Dollars. At least you can buy Crysta, Australia doesn't have that option.

[Frein]

Do you check every single thing you buy in the store to see if the exchange rate is the same? Prices would be changing all the time.

They change all the time but not nearly as much as you seem to think. Well, that kind of stability may be coming to an end as soon as this year (and the EURUSD rate already took quite the beating last year), but seriously, the exchange rate hasn't been 1:1 since early 2003 and in 2008 it was as high as 1.6:1.

[Yumi_Hibiki]

I life in Europe and yes it sucks but that's how things are, EVERYONE does it no matter what business.

For example the psvita that comes out soon, America pays 299 dollar Europe pays 299 euro
In case that you don't know the current exchange rate: we pay 382 dollar FOR THE SAME DAMN THING!

is it a ripoff that makes me grind my teeth? of course!
can we do anything about it? nope, since the whole global market just works that way, it is a common practice
you could only not buy it at all which would be your loss in the end if you want the product or try to import which is a hassle and in the most cases only nets you a minimal discount after shipping costs and the retainer that will happily stuff his pocket with your money because they know its the only way for you and exploit that.
you just cant demand SE to not do it as only company, that's just wishful thinking

[MakiMakaa]

I'm sorry but your physical goods store comparison doesn't work here. They have factors like shipping increasing the price. If I were to buy something in the US, I'd have to pay for shipping which usually ends up about the same price you can buy it locally.

The product FFXIV is granting you the ability to connect to a server in Japan. That works exactly the same for the entire world. If we got localized servers with low ping I could understand a different payment value. Since this is not the case I do not understand. Please explain to me where the extra 25% costs come from.

If I really try hard to be the advocate of the devil: I pay more for a product with less performance (higher ping)

[Jennestia]

You'd have to ask the governments of the nations to utilize a universal currency, otherwise as said earlier in the thread, it happens with any business that deals in international customers whether online or brick and mortar -- Some convert your currency into theirs or "translate" the prices, and I guarantee if I go with a European web host while living in Japan they'll try to charge me in (insert european currency) which would be (insert exchange rate in my currency.)

[Yumi_Hibiki]

the physical good comparison might be a bad example here but that doesn't change that it is still common practice that you cant fight, Steam, PSN, Xboxlive, and so on do the exact same thing because they can
and they will continue to do so because hey its free money, and who doesn't like free money