Buying on Steam in dollars from Europe

[MfA]

Does anyone knows where I can buy King's Bounty: Armored Princess (I like and play it, so I want to buy it) without a credit card?

Why is a credit card a problem? You can use wirecard, it will just cost you one euro for the money transfer and 1.5% surcharge for paying in dollars ... not free, but not exactly a lot either.

 

[Frank]

Thanks. I'll try that.

 

[Sxotty]

The exchange rate seems to be relatively meaningless when you cannot buy 1.4 times the stuff with a euro as a dollar. Big Mac Index

 

[Silent_Buddha]

The exchange rate seems to be relatively meaningless when you cannot buy 1.4 times the stuff with a euro as a dollar. Big Mac Index

Well it does if you take a trip to the US. Exchange rates are rather meaningless if trying to justify prices in the country you are in. Prices in the your country will be set by the wages and costs of doing business within that country. Imported goods will generally be adjusted to that.

Although in some cases if it's cheaper to manufacture in the "other" country, then an importer has the option to either discount the product in the local economy or rake in huge profits by keeping it inline with the current exchange rate.

To use the Big Mac Index. In Japan, McDonald's hamburgers were double the price of hamburgers in the US in the 80's going straight by the exchange rate, but that was rather meaningless as wages and cost of doing business in Japan, at the time, meant that was the absolute cheapest they could sell them while still making a profit.

Regards,
SB

 

[Richard]

Well it does if you take a trip to the US. Exchange rates are rather meaningless if trying to justify prices in the country you are in. Prices in the your country will be set by the wages and costs of doing business within that country. Imported goods will generally be adjusted to that.

That argument doesn't apply as well you believe it does otherwise a game developed in Britain ought to cost $80 to make up for the fact wages and living conditions in the UK are higher than Ukraine where GSC did the first STALKER game.

In digital sales like Steam, etc. it's even less possible to apply that rational since the price would have to vary, not only by your location, but by the location of the servers your download is routing through (since electricity + server space is more expensive in Europe than in, say, Asia). The steam dev team is in the US, are they getting paid for the normal US wage then with my higher value in euros?

No. the price is whatever the market will bear. Companies get away with same value $/€ because people continue to pay up.

 

[MfA]

Good thing the UK is full of cheapskates and poor people.