The NA and EU photo competitions

[Aivi_lo]

It looks like you can win a plushie from the NA competition, but not the EU one. Why?

[Luna_Ariana]

I wondered that too in the German Subsection and Lallalingo responded to that

Leider werden wir keine Preise mit Geldwert anbieten können . Der Grund dafür ist, dass wir die Foren-Wettbewerbe für ganz Europa (bzw. PAL-Region) offen haben möchten, damit niemand ausgeschlossen wird. In jedem Land gelten andere Bestimmung bezüglich Wettbewerben und Preise für diese, sodass wir jedes Mal die Wahl haben zwischen

1. Nur einigen wenigen Regionen einen Wettbewerb zugänglich zu machen dafür aber Preise mit Geldwert anzubieten
   
   oder
   
   
2. Es offen für alle Regionen zu machen, dann aber Spielgegenstände anbieten, die keinen monetären Geldwert haben.

Wir versuchen daher so viel wie möglich zu variieren, damit so viele Spieler wie möglich in Europa etwas von unseren Wettbewerben haben. Fan Festival Wettbewerbe haben zum Beispiel physikalische Preise, sind aber für weniger Regionen offen, sowie auch unsere Livestreams, unter anderem Eorzea Aktuell. Deutschland und Österreich sind rechtlich nicht schwer einzubinden, aber z.B. die Schweiz ist etwas schwierig. Das gilt auch für viele andere Länder und denen gegenüber wäre es nicht fair, wenn sie stets ausgeschlossen sind. Wir bemühen uns aber stets mit unserer Rechtsabteilung die Länderliste für physikalische Preise zu erweitern.

Ich hoffe ihr könnt die Gründe durch meinen Post ein wenig besser verstehen.

to Translate it easily: For the European Contest it is avaiable for MANY european Countries. Hence every Country in Europe is different for the Shipping/Rules and such they declined this part. And so in all fairness for the others they don't add the Plushie part like for North America.

Of course it is a little sad but it is also very understandable. ^^)''

[Aivi_lo]

They could easily ship a plushie to any state. Or they could give the winner store credit maybe?

[Aivi_lo]

They could easily ship a plushie to any country. Or they could give the winner store credit maybe?

[RiyahArp]

Usually its because there are so many different regulations about contests in EU member states that it isn't worth bothering there. the EU is actually a real pain in the butt to do business with, and a lot of things don't make it there because of that.

[Vidu]

They could easily ship a plushie to any country. Or they could give the winner store credit maybe?

Its a legal issue - different european countries have different laws about handing out prices that are actually worth real money, wether thats a plushie, store credit or hard cash. They're always mentioning that the ingame-items dont have any monetary value.
Their choice basically is: Either they only make those contest available in a small number of countries, where its easy to handle things like this legally or they dont offer money-prices at all. To include as many countries as possible, they go the second way.

Its not about the difficulty of shipping or something like that on SE part, its an issue with the laws of different countries. For NA they only need to follow the US-law that seems to allow for competitions like this.

[Apoptomon]

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if shipping was part of the reason - "EU" actually means "PAL territory" rather than just one continent (hence also the legal disparities), and that is a very broad area that includes places SE Europe's merchandising wing refuses to ship to.

For this same reason, some previous competitions have had tighter eligibility restrictions (in terms of participating countries).