4 ms·

Commission fines Valve and five publishers for “geo-blocking” practices

4 points by haunter 6y ago

haunter 6y ago
ngl that's pretty bad. East Europe gets shafted as usual. That means €70 games for everyone. You can't block the people in Sweden, France, Germany etc to get cheap games so let everyone pay €70 instead. Who cares you live in Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary etc. where the average salary is 1/4th The whole single digital market is just hurting both the customers and the developers too.
- Daho0n 6y ago
  So what you are basically saying is that consumers should pay according to their ability and consumers that have less money should pay less, correct? Does it only go one way (cheaper) or should rich people also pay more? Seems to me that up until now we only had a "Standard Price" for games (USA) and some lower prices, but not any "High Price" for rich consumers (at least not because the country is rich but we do some for other reasons like legislation). If following that thought through the US should clearly have higher prices than a big chunk of Europe. I doubt that will happen though it should. While I do agree with you that it is a problem I don't agree it should be changed in itself and I most def. do not agree that it hurts developers (IE. publishers). It is part of the free market and capitalism. Either we have it or we don't. If people should pay according to their ability we should not be in a capitalist market where it is more often the direct opposite (money breeds money, lots of money gives good deals, etc.). The problem is part the system but equally that the games industry is extremely greedy. If you can't fix the system you have to curb the greed by law. No-one says they have to be allowed to raise the price to 70 euro anywhere. Smells like price cartels to me.
- calcifer 6y ago
  > That means €70 games for everyone. That's not a given. Studios could choose to make games that are viable at a €20-30 price point. In fact thousands of them do. I don't see why the integrity of the single market should be compromised just so a studio can spend 100 million euros on a game instead of 10.

4 points by haunter 6y ago

ngl that's pretty bad. East Europe gets shafted as usual. That means €70 games for everyone. You can't block the people in Sweden, France, Germany etc to get cheap games so let everyone pay €70 instead. Who cares you live in Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary etc. where the average salary is 1/4th The whole single digital market is just hurting both the customers and the developers too.

Daho0n 6y ago
So what you are basically saying is that consumers should pay according to their ability and consumers that have less money should pay less, correct? Does it only go one way (cheaper) or should rich people also pay more? Seems to me that up until now we only had a "Standard Price" for games (USA) and some lower prices, but not any "High Price" for rich consumers (at least not because the country is rich but we do some for other reasons like legislation). If following that thought through the US should clearly have higher prices than a big chunk of Europe. I doubt that will happen though it should. While I do agree with you that it is a problem I don't agree it should be changed in itself and I most def. do not agree that it hurts developers (IE. publishers). It is part of the free market and capitalism. Either we have it or we don't. If people should pay according to their ability we should not be in a capitalist market where it is more often the direct opposite (money breeds money, lots of money gives good deals, etc.). The problem is part the system but equally that the games industry is extremely greedy. If you can't fix the system you have to curb the greed by law. No-one says they have to be allowed to raise the price to 70 euro anywhere. Smells like price cartels to me.
calcifer 6y ago
> That means €70 games for everyone. That's not a given. Studios could choose to make games that are viable at a €20-30 price point. In fact thousands of them do. I don't see why the integrity of the single market should be compromised just so a studio can spend 100 million euros on a game instead of 10.