Routinely fixing purchasing prices for other currencies

[Ultima]

I’ll keep this short. I am Canadian and during the current deal a 100USD purchase for someone in the states would cost me 139.99 Canadian. Our dollar here hasnt changed much in quite a while but currently is about 131.00 for 100$ USD.
Feels like there is a fair bit of gouging going on at least for the Canadian currency. Are others finding this to be true? In the very least do some simple math or average over a month and equalize it so it fair for all.

[JonahTheBard]

Could it be down to higher taxes in Canada?

Or they just pick what they think is a roundef figure that would still be attractive to enough people, which leads to the inequality.

[Ultima]

Maybe! Not sure. Just have to find a loop hole back door way of changing my IP adress to save a few bucks on purchases

[Dragonst666]

Just to clarify, sg don’t set the exchange rate, Google and apple do!

So sg tell google/apple the cost in a set currency they expect to achieve.
Let’s just say its in dollars for arguments sake. Then google/apple set the fees in all other currencies.

Supposedly they review the rates regularly, but like most things your find if there’s a big drop off with a particular currency its adjusted immediately, but the opposite isn’t true

So when the UK £ dropped when brexit was voted for, the price changed the next day maybe 2 days later. The £ has since regained its loses and yet no change has been made

[Ultima]

Thanks @Dragonst666 , that’s very informative.

[Rigs]

This should somehow be made known to all as this is a common complaint amongst the global playerbase

@zephyr1 how can we make that happen?(if what @Dragonst666 says is correct anyways)

[zephyr1]

@Rigs They made an adjustment to the conversion rates in January, this is the last time I remember seeing an announcement about that:

In-App Purchase Price Adjustments in January 2018 (Android)

Edit January 2, 2018: We have now made the adjustments to the Android in-app purchase prices. As you may know, the prices for the in-app purchases vary between different countries and platforms. The differences are explained by currency conversion rates as well as the value added tax (VAT). Apple automatically updates the prices of the in-app purchases on their platform. We haven’t updated the prices on Android since the game was launched, even though the currency conversion rates have changed…

(Also on the Support site here: https://support.smallgiantgames.com/hc/en-us/articles/115004285013-In-App-Purchase-Price-Adjustments-in-January-2018-Android-)

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Based on that, I’m not sure that the premise that it’s an automatically adjusting conversion rate set by Google/Apple is entirely accurate.

[Rigs]

Alright thanks. I was hopin he was right lol but oh well

[Dragonst666]

I played another game where the exact same differences in price were in effect. I contacted the game operator r and Google and both explained the process as above

You can’t expect a game operator to monitor currency rates

@zephyr1 maybe you can ask the staff for clarification

[nevarmaor]

@Dragonst666

So when the UK £ dropped when brexit was voted for, the price changed the next day maybe 2 days later. The £ has since regained its loses and yet no change has been made

This sounds like how gas prices work. Slightest hike in oil price and gas at the pump goes up immediately. A drop in oil price and the 3-month oil reserve bought at the higher price needs to be used up first.

[zephyr1]

@Dragonst666

@zephyr1 maybe you can ask the staff for clarification

Was there something in particular you wanted them to clarify?

This seemed to pretty directly state that Apple automatically adjusts pricing, and Google doesn’t:

@EmpiresPuzzles

Apple automatically updates the prices of the in-app purchases on their platform. We haven’t updated the prices on Android since the game was launched, even though the currency conversion rates have changed quite a bit since then, and some countries have began to apply VAT to the prices.