Subscription (Omega) Price Outside US/EU

[Finrod_Felagundx]

Hi…Would like to hear CCP’s opnion regards the subscription (omega) monthly fee outside US and EU…I live in Brazil and the subscrition price are outrageous…it is way too expensive compared to anything else…it used to be a fair price a few years ago, but since the change…it became impossible for Brazilians to buy omega.

Is CCP willing to review it or it will be as it is and the rest of the world will have to accept it and play another game? I know the brazilian market may not be that attractive to ccp, but anyway there are still a lot of players down here that love the game.

[Shipwreck_Jones]

Well, I sympathize with you. I don’t understand why, but I’ve heard some guys get really unfavorable exchange rates. Anyway, Plex is really cheap right now, so maybe you might want to look into increasing your income so that you can plex your accounts without too much grinding.

[Adunh_Slavy]

The real has slipped 40% just about over the past couple of years to the USD, and probably not much better against the Euro. The DXY has gotten stronger, oddly to me, over the past few months too. I’m sure that doesn’t help.

Can you buy and hold some other currency?

It’s a tough spot, my sympathies.

[Finrod_Felagundx]

Let me give you an example of the pricing difference compare to other games, despite the US/BRL currency convertion (Just got the values from Steam in BRL on Apr 4th, 2021 at 19:30 Brazil time)

Eve Online subscription 1 year (With discount -27%) BRL 709,56 BRL 80,73 / Month
World of Worcraft subscription 1 year BRL 298,08 BRL 24,84 / Month

One time payment:
Outriders BRL 279,90
Total War>Warhammer III BRL 252,00
New World BRL 75,49
The Elder Scrolls Online - Blackwood BRL 214,90
Mass Effect Legendary Edition BRL 299,00

Sometime ago it was equivalent to Wow’s Subscription…but as u can see, now its 3x more expensive then WOW subscription.

It doesnt make sense and I’m sure other countries are in the same situation.

[Adunh_Slavy]

I see. Thanks for the additional information.

[Mkikaden_Tiragen]

The base monthly price in USD for EVE is $14.95/m. Annual subscription takes that down to $10.95/m at a total price of $131.40. Google says those are, respectively, 84.68/m, or 62.02/m at 744.28 annually.

Compared to WoW: USD prices are $14.99/m, or $12.99/m for a 6 month rate (annual cost $155.88), the base USD cost is cheaper for EVE.

The actual difference sounds like Blizzard (a much larger company than CCP) is selling direct to the Brazilian market with locally priced offerings. CCP doesn’t sell directly to nearly as many markets, so you are getting strictly currency-converted pricing. The conversion rate is not set by CCP. The only way for them to affect this would be to build an entire pricing structure for Brazil - which they do not yet have a localization for that would support this kind of change. It’s also not exactly cheap for them to reprice for any given region.

So while I feel for you, this isn’t something CCP can quickly or efficiently change, and it may not be a financially viable move for them anyway depending on their player population in the region.

[Brisc_Rubal]

I’m going to pass this on to the marketing team - I know they’ve adjusted exchange rates for certain currencies, not sure if they can do that here.

[0Lona_0ltor]

Owing to VPN’s not much effort is put into previously racist pricing policy of digital goods. Plenty of websites exist to help you obtain the best deal now if you are not savy to know how allready.

Digital goods have no fluxation of cost per region beyond V.A.T so there should be no difference, where there is a difference a scam is occurring.

Encouraging people to be savy in purchasing digital goods increases the chance they will gain the know how to get the best price which is free from pirate sites.

In the case of CCP that is ISK from RMT sites.

Regional price variation of digital goods is not a smart idea nor has it been for the last 10 years.

[Mkikaden_Tiragen]

A correction from my end: CCP does set currency conversion rates for some currencies with Steam, and the BRL is one of them.

The following rates for conversion to USD were updated in October 2020, after sitting unchanged since 2014:

Here are the new USD conversion rates that will be used:
BRL 5.40
MXN 22.50
ZAR 16.70
TRY 6.80
ARS 71.50
UYU 44.00
NOK 9.30
INR 74.90

So CCP does control the conversion rate they have contracted with Steam to accept, but it is still a currency conversion to buy items priced in USD and not a localized price point based on buying power in the region.

Thanks @Brisc_Rubal for taking the feedback to the marketing team.

[Finrod_Felagundx]

Guys, thx a lot for all replies

@Brisc_Rubal Thanks a lot man…I do appretiate your help.

[Yazid_Zamayid]

Interesting, I have also thought about coming back just to see the prices are prohibitive.

Being from Brazil myself I just can’t justify paying R$80,73 (Today’s Steam pricing) and I really do not want to go back to that rabbit hole of playing to PLEX my account.

I really wish CCP provided some form of “regional pricing” for Brazilians, I know other MMOs/Sub games do it through steam.

iRacing for example, the monthly cost is R$24,99 through steam versus ~R$72,7 if I convert 12,99 to R with today’s rates, there are a lot of other examples where regional pricing is used on steam for monthly subs.

Not trying to compare but just to help Finrod paint the picture:
Final Fantasy XIV - R$28,99 (Via Steam)
Netflix - R$21,90/R$32,90/R$45,90 for Entry/Standard/Premium packages
Amazon Prime - R$9,99

Anyways, I did try to bring it to CCP attention couple years back via ticket, but in the end I guess they do not value Brazilians players as much, maybe we are such a small community that it’s just not worth it.

But on the other end, us being such a small community, why not allow steam regional pricing and charge us a reasonable amount in our own currency (R$25-30) for a monthly sub.

Of course we do not want PLEX prices to also follow this as it can create a bigger problem, but if just the sub prices follow a regional pricing scheme I do believe we could get some Brazilian players back, I know at least a couple of people that would come back if sub prices were reasonable, me included.

We can only hope