Why Is Australia/New Zealand considered European?

[Jpblade]

Everytime I look at something related to ANZ, its is always the euro page Im looking at. I want to know why. We are nowhere close to Europe. How come we dont have our own currency listed on the "Australian" webpage? And another thing i just checked out, the Euro to AUD conversion say that a standard subscription will cost somewhere around $18 a month which is quite a bit for an MMO.

[Catapult]

I can give you the general background, although I can't speak for Square Enix's decision to not accept alternative currencies from us Australians and New Zealanders.

Many decades ago, when televisions were invented, a number of standards existed. Whether you believe in conspiracies of politics or sheer coincidence, the fact is that North American and Japanese televisions operated on technology that produced images at about 30 frames per second (60 Hz), while Europe adopted a standard of 25 frames per second (50 Hz).

Australia and New Zealand, in their patronage, chose to adopt the standard of the Motherland, England, whom at the time was typically revered with unconditional respect.

Fast forward a few decades to where these standards have become entrenched in the infrastructure of their respective countries.

Now, when videogame consoles were invented (yay!), developers found that they had to tailor their systems to the differing standards. So at least two versions of each console were developed. The NTSC consoles would work on 60 Hz television sets, and the PAL consoles would work on 50 Hz Television sets.

Because ANZ had adopted the 50 Hz standard, it made sense from a production and marketing perspective to group our countries with Europe rather than give the USA or Japan the complication of addressing multiple product versions in their marketing lines.

Fast forward another twenty years and the old television standards have become largely obsolete, but the corporate structures remain entrenched. Europe simply continues to produce for and market to Australia and New Zealand.

This could theoretically change, but then you're getting into corporate politics. I'm not going to pretend I know why they haven't done it as yet. But if you like, you could send a letter to SE with the suggestion - with enough unique snowflakes you might be able to start a blizzard.

[SolanQ]

Unfortunately Square Enix have gone for the following region divison: (1) Japan, (2) the Americas, and (3) Europe & Other Regions. So if you don't fall under region 1 or 2, you're automatically shoved in with Europe and get to pay in lovely expensive Euro's.

Your best bet would be to find some place online where you can buy EU region GTC's digitally in UK pounds, since the monthly fee in pounds is only 8.99, which comes out to about 15.25 AUD at the currently exchange rate, instead of 18.62 AUD if you convert from 12.99 euro's.

I was looking for digital GTC's yesterday and this is where I ended up buying mine from:
http://www.game.co.uk/en/final-fanta...imecard-244771

As far as I know GAME have no problem selling to foreign customers and delivery is completely digital. My key appeared instantly on the order confirmation page after checking out with Paypal and worked perfectly on my SE account (which is locked into Euro's like yours). PS: if the Paypal button doesn't appear at checkout click "add new card" -> click the Paypal button.

In my case I'm screwed because SE won't let me change my Country from the Netherlands to the UK, even though I've explained to them that I emigrated permanently and have no plans of moving back. They told me that they can't change the Country or Region of an account because their system doesn't allow it and that this is apparently intentional. It's one of the most customer-unfriendly and archaic region-locking systems I've seen in a while...

edit:
@Catapult: Hmm, I'd never actually looked at it that way. That makes sense from a hardware and software (console) perspective, where you're still tied to regions by PAL and NTSC, but it feels extremely forced and archaic with today's digital download services. I guess it just never occurred to them to seperate the digital payment system's assigned currencies from the physical region locking.

[SolanQ]

edit: duplicate post / pls delete

[Catapult]

edit:
@Catapult: Hmm, I'd never actually looked at it that way. That makes sense from a hardware and software (console) perspective, where you're still tied to regions by PAL and NTSC, but it feels extremely forced and archaic with today's digital download services. I guess it just never occurred to them to seperate the digital payment system's assigned currencies from the physical region locking.

Indeed, it is a bit of a historical relic that the industry at large has not sought to change. All the console producers market to Australia & New Zealand through their European production arms. A publisher is not wont to break ranks on that subject unless the manufacturing moves out of Europe.

For example, most Nintendo game products marketed in Australia will show as their place of manufacture "Grossostheim" which is in Germany. It flows from there.