Posted November 18, 2008
Ceci dit, LCL est quand même une banque assez merdique dans l'ensemble (je crois que peu de français me contrediront sur ce point).
Indeed, I'm as well charged, but I'm in Caisse D'Epargne.
DukeNico
New User
Registered: Sep 2008
From France
Ceci dit, LCL est quand même une banque assez merdique dans l'ensemble (je crois que peu de français me contrediront sur ce point).
Indeed, I'm as well charged, but I'm in Caisse D'Epargne.
Fluofish
Chaotic Lazy
Registered: Oct 2008
From Belgium
Posted November 18, 2008
I'm not sure that displaying prices in local currencies will solve this. The extra fee is likely because it's a transaction outside the euro-zone. So unless gog opens a bank account within the euro-zone, you will keep having to pay the extra fee, regardless from the currency that is being displayed.
Post edited November 18, 2008 by Fluofish
Wishbone
Red herring
Registered: Oct 2008
From Denmark
Posted November 18, 2008
The thing is, from a marketing standpoint, converting prices to other currencies is a bad idea. Marketing people want prices like $5.99 and $9.99. Why? Because it sounds cheap. Certainly much cheaper than $6 or $10. Am I right?
Of course I'm not. And neither are the marketing people. Anyone with half a brain can see through this ridiculous practice, but the marketing crowd still insists on it.
Now think of other currencies. $5.99 converted to Euro at todays exchange rate, comes out as €4.73.
To marketing people, $5.99 sounds sexy. €4.73 doesn't.
Of course I'm not. And neither are the marketing people. Anyone with half a brain can see through this ridiculous practice, but the marketing crowd still insists on it.
Now think of other currencies. $5.99 converted to Euro at todays exchange rate, comes out as €4.73.
To marketing people, $5.99 sounds sexy. €4.73 doesn't.
CTLance
48454C50
Registered: Sep 2008
From Austria
Posted November 18, 2008
I vote we stay with the Dollar too. Every single time we get a price converted to another currency will make someone unhappy.
Either we'll get yet another BOHICA with 1:1:1 €:$:£ conversion, which would *really* suck. The alternative is a godawful mess with legalities about ever-changing exchange rates and not-quite-up-to-date conversions. If you try to avoid that by setting a certain exchange rate as default, say, at the beginning of the month/week/day, either GOG or the customer will suffer from fluctuations and lose money. Don't kid yourself into thinking realtime updates are even remotely feasible.
There could be a small, disclaimer-ridden iFrame with an approximation of the price, but GOG can't guess what fees you as a customer have to pay, or what exchange rate your credit card company uses, so it would be plenty inaccurate.
Just stop for a moment, open a new tab, type xe.com/ucc and hit Enter, copy&paste the value, and you have your approximation without entangling GOG in legalese and additional unneded work.
At least that's how I see it. It's not like there are numerous price points on this site, it's either ten or six bucks, and if you can't remember what that is in your currency I really don't know what to say. I can see how amazon or other huge multi-pricepoint websites need to approximate the cc charge for you, but with only two possible pricepoints here... meh.
Either we'll get yet another BOHICA with 1:1:1 €:$:£ conversion, which would *really* suck. The alternative is a godawful mess with legalities about ever-changing exchange rates and not-quite-up-to-date conversions. If you try to avoid that by setting a certain exchange rate as default, say, at the beginning of the month/week/day, either GOG or the customer will suffer from fluctuations and lose money. Don't kid yourself into thinking realtime updates are even remotely feasible.
There could be a small, disclaimer-ridden iFrame with an approximation of the price, but GOG can't guess what fees you as a customer have to pay, or what exchange rate your credit card company uses, so it would be plenty inaccurate.
Just stop for a moment, open a new tab, type xe.com/ucc and hit Enter, copy&paste the value, and you have your approximation without entangling GOG in legalese and additional unneded work.
At least that's how I see it. It's not like there are numerous price points on this site, it's either ten or six bucks, and if you can't remember what that is in your currency I really don't know what to say. I can see how amazon or other huge multi-pricepoint websites need to approximate the cc charge for you, but with only two possible pricepoints here... meh.
soulgrindr
sloshed
Registered: Sep 2008
From Japan
Posted November 19, 2008
if you are worried about fees, it might be worth checking out different credit cards.
In the UK, for example, most credit cards will charge you a currency conversion fee. But the Nationwide credit cards (and maybe a few others) won't. So i use nationwide anytime i buy anything abroad.
Paypal of-course charges fees, but i think it might work out cheaper in some cases... worth checking out.
If they have a currency convertor its useful... but it won't include fees so it won't be 100% accuracte.
If they have prices in local currencies then I'd bet we'll get a $1=euro1=£1 system which would suck.
Though the recent currency fluctuations have really messed with the value of games on GOG... prices have gone up by 30% if you are buying in £gbp. Or down by about 30% if you are buying in Yen.
(which reminds me, i should really get a japanese credit card...)
In the UK, for example, most credit cards will charge you a currency conversion fee. But the Nationwide credit cards (and maybe a few others) won't. So i use nationwide anytime i buy anything abroad.
Paypal of-course charges fees, but i think it might work out cheaper in some cases... worth checking out.
If they have a currency convertor its useful... but it won't include fees so it won't be 100% accuracte.
If they have prices in local currencies then I'd bet we'll get a $1=euro1=£1 system which would suck.
Though the recent currency fluctuations have really messed with the value of games on GOG... prices have gone up by 30% if you are buying in £gbp. Or down by about 30% if you are buying in Yen.
(which reminds me, i should really get a japanese credit card...)
iWi
Jedi
GOG.com Team
Registered: Apr 2007
From Poland
Posted November 20, 2008
As I said before, all the team would have to do is replace the image price tags with actual text in an element flagged with a "price" class. If this was done consistently throughout the site users would be able to write their own greasemonkey scripts to translate the prices to whatever currency is desired.
And you wouldn't get that $5.95 = £5.99 problem :)
They've admitted to working on the EULA and adding a related disclaimer before buying the title, they've admitted to adding a notice saying that peoples banks may charge fees for buying out of country, also they're working on the broken reputation system (probably going to put in a block so I don't get anymore, hahaha), as well as the PM option and updating the GOG.com downloader. The site is very much beta right now, at least the installers work, but best of luck to you if you're actually trying to download it (many people here are over in Iraq using military connections to try to get the files, and it just won't take!).
So, I can imagine they would get to it eventually, if it seemed like it was a feature they actually care for, regardless of ease, but without clarification from GOG.com we can't really tell, and again, the absolute best way to ask for a feature from GOG.com is to SUBMIT A SUPPORT TICKET! (please pardon the caps, I just wanted to emphasize this for ALL readers). Because, as I mentioned earlier as the GOG.com team loves reading the forums, they haven't always got the time.
EDIT:
I really think it'd be kind of neat if the GOG.com downloader also sort of worked like a torrent so I could seed my existing copies of games to people who have purchased the title themselves. Perhaps this would create a better connection speed for others? Not sure, anyway, it's a red herring at best.
WOW! It does look like a team member's post - thank you for it :)
Indeed we are in beta and our dev team is working hard to add all the necessary fixes and updates. The currency calculator is something, what we will definitely add to our list of important features, but it will take us a while.