Posted April 10, 2015
Everyone who served in military does that on subconsciousness level, even been awakened in the middle of the night, in pitch-black darkness, in heavy rain, waist-up in cold river, upside down, with fish in his mouth.
So to an extent, tying payments to flat percentage values, could be somewhat more just. Doesn't matter how big your salary is, car worth 25% of it, film, cinema ticket, music album, book, game, bottle of alcohol (as Andrzej Sapkowsk said, it should be matter of choice) should be, say, 0.5% of income, and so on. This way nobody will feel "offended" to start another offendedgate. However, this utopian option has downside - motivation, or lack thereof. Some people need to be commended, noted, and promoted to feel fine, they may stop working at all, without seeing any point earning more. So, regulating this would require much thought. Yet judging how some people are happy by having some "diplomas" telling them they are worker of month", "supervisor" and "vice-somebody", this may not be a problem at all. Just look at those achievement hunters.
To be honest, I really want to look at numbers and see, whether localizations (language, price, both) helps sales or not. Reducing prices on some market is the only way to sell something there, so it's not exactly increasing profits, it's generating profits against not generating them. Yes, in some way that's increase, sure. :)
Look at "physical" goods market, some things, with an exception of cases where country has extremely high protective import taxes (or greedy retail setting high margin), cost approximately the same worldwide. Fluctuations are minimal, and in percentage, regarding MSRP, are not that big. Yet we still have a lot of people who can't afford those goods. What's so "least discriminating" here? Can you afford, I don't know, what's in trends now in automotive market nowadays? Oh hell, let it be Rolls-Royce. How many people can afford it? Yet price is flat for all of them. I don't mean everyone needs a Rolls-Royce, that's only example, maybe extreme one (okay, maybe private jumbo-jet is extreme one:D).
And thank you for them, it was quite interesting to think about them.
Trilarion: Never say never. think one day we might get something like a worldwide global marketplace for everyone with maybe universal prices.
I already wrote a bit on that. Until we have utopian future, where everyone's income and expenses are flat, regardless of occupation, place of living, and what not, idea of worldwide flat "just" price has no sense, as some people will still be paying for someone else. The only condition where flat just price is working, is that one research from Endless Space, one that grands eternal vacation to population: since nobody doing anything productive, flat price is meaningful. Otherwise, there still be discrimination, one way or another, as many things are not equal. Trilarion: My argument for universal prices would then be discrimination. You don't want to pay a different price because of your sex, skin color, religion, name, location or wealth.
Oh, please, don't give the marketing specialists ideas! They could use it now, forcing people with less income to pay more, simply via pressing them with this "discrimination". Trilarion: Although it comes down to the interesting philosophical question how much you can charge anyone more just because he owns more and can afford to pay more? Surely not the complete price because somebody who got more surely expects to get more in absolute return, otherwise where would be the sense in gathering the wealth in the first place.
Many countries already employ differentiated taxation system, where people with higher income pay more. I'm not saying it's 100% fair. Trilarion: Also you cannot really know how much anyone owns, so guessing could result in grossly unfair treatment. Personal pricing has surely several big ethical problems. Also it might be advantageous to hide how much you really own (so prefer to live in Switzerland instead of Sweden) in order to not have to pay too much.
He-he-he, judging by Guild 2 (sorry, don't remember Guild 1 that much, but IIRC, it had similar system), you can - some political payments (bribes) were tied to your total accumulated wealth, not fixed amount (like in Oblivion, where robbers dressed in mithril and daedric were asking for 100 coins). So to an extent, tying payments to flat percentage values, could be somewhat more just. Doesn't matter how big your salary is, car worth 25% of it, film, cinema ticket, music album, book, game, bottle of alcohol (as Andrzej Sapkowsk said, it should be matter of choice) should be, say, 0.5% of income, and so on. This way nobody will feel "offended" to start another offendedgate. However, this utopian option has downside - motivation, or lack thereof. Some people need to be commended, noted, and promoted to feel fine, they may stop working at all, without seeing any point earning more. So, regulating this would require much thought. Yet judging how some people are happy by having some "diplomas" telling them they are worker of month", "supervisor" and "vice-somebody", this may not be a problem at all. Just look at those achievement hunters.
Trilarion: I guess that one could argue that the current geographical locking has many problems of its own (that's why it's not done on a finer grid level, although technically one probably could). Maybe within some areas (EU for example) it might be forbidden with regard to detrimental effects on competition.
I may be wrong, but I think some localized versions of games are cheaper, for some people it's more than enough to have game being localized on their native language, they don't care for foreign ones. So I don't think it's about competition. To be honest, I really want to look at numbers and see, whether localizations (language, price, both) helps sales or not. Reducing prices on some market is the only way to sell something there, so it's not exactly increasing profits, it's generating profits against not generating them. Yes, in some way that's increase, sure. :)
Trilarion: If we want to have fairness we might need first to define it and then think about a somewhat different solution. And if we can't find it, the result may stick with flat prices as the least discriminating choice.
Nope. It's still be discriminating for those who can't afford it, as high price would effectively take away the opportunity to purchase something. Look at "physical" goods market, some things, with an exception of cases where country has extremely high protective import taxes (or greedy retail setting high margin), cost approximately the same worldwide. Fluctuations are minimal, and in percentage, regarding MSRP, are not that big. Yet we still have a lot of people who can't afford those goods. What's so "least discriminating" here? Can you afford, I don't know, what's in trends now in automotive market nowadays? Oh hell, let it be Rolls-Royce. How many people can afford it? Yet price is flat for all of them. I don't mean everyone needs a Rolls-Royce, that's only example, maybe extreme one (okay, maybe private jumbo-jet is extreme one:D).
Trilarion: Especially long after release when prices are below $10 and during sales it is probably much less effort to not regionally price but just have flat prices.
Because in relative value, some regions will still be paying more than the others. And the alternative is to just to agree, that some regions will have permanent discounts and live with that. Certain things are much cheaper in US than in Europe, even with shipping (even first rate express airmail) and paying import taxes. And I mean relatively expensive things, with price tag of several thousands dollars, not 60 bucks, and there is no Steam, or black friday with 75% discount. You got 5% discount and you're happy. US citizens have many internal discounts and accumulative bonuses that are simply not applicable to outsiders. There are free giveaways and similar promotion activity, where citizens of many areas are not eligible. Go check Sapphire Select Club, for example, and try to win a GPU if you're from not eligible country, how just is that? And thank you for them, it was quite interesting to think about them.