Is it fair that a three bedroom, two bath single family home located in Fairfax County, VA costs, in some cases, more than five times as much as the same house in rural Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, or West Virginia?

I get the claims of unfairness, on it's face it seems absurdly unfair and unjust, but how would you make it fair? In the example above, if we had one price policy, the homeless situation in Mississippi would spiral out of control, because almost no one living and working in Mississippi would be able to purchase a home. I get that housing and games are, you know, not even close in terms of human need, but the pricing principle is the same. So because games are not "as essential" (technically neither is buying a home... there are alternatives such as renting an apartment) as a home do we ignore those facts and tell everyone living in New York to have a blast with all of your new games and to those living in Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansa, or West Virginia we say tough shit, too bad so sad? That also doesn't seem fair. At least to me, YMMV.

I bring up these very large differences within the US because the differences between countries, in terms of income and cost of living, are often much, much larger than the example above. I don't know what the most fair solution is, but I think it might be more complicated than the initial knee jerk reaction, that I also feel, to charging different people different amounts for the same thing. That's always going to "feel" wrong, yet it may ultimately actually be "more" wrong than the alternative of different pricing. I dunno. It's a tough issue. I get both sides. I lean more toward regional pricing myself, but again, YMMV.

Very bad comparison because the digital stuff is completely artificially created... by sheer greed and opportunity... not because of "very immovable circumstances". You can not simply move your house from Mississippi to New York in order to get a better price... those are "hard goods" that got high dependencies on a certain economics... the local one.

Games on the other hand are digital data which are just artificially becoming "localized" by some country lock... a DRM... but in fact... those data are highly moveable from ever point of the world in less than a second per bit. In many cases... the server is centralized... so it does not even have a "local spot"... it simply is not a hard requirement. Servers are moveable... as they got a world wide "reach", same for data.

In fact, it is in most cases even the exactly same data being moved to every spot worldwide. The markets here are artificially created and there is no direct dependency on a certain local market. Fact is... no matter where someone live... i know people with a lot of cash who will never pay a single cent for a game or gamers who in general simply never pay more than 20 coins a game and what else... the only thing which is taken into consideration here is "what works" and it surely is not working very well charging the same amount for someone in Brazil vs. my country. However... the same would be the case for Mexico or Poland... yet they still have to pay sometimes crazy prices. There is simply no clear common sense nor logic here and more than anything... it is simply the matter of "if it actually works" mixed with some scent of discrimination in many cases. There is no hard rule nor "Immovable economic" involved here... the entire digital industry is highly movable and extremely adaptive in near every corner of the world.

It is called "world wide web" for a reason... else it would become known as "local wide web".

Who wants to work in any digital business if their work is considered utterly worthless? The argument is: Digital goods have infinite supply. And when infinite supply meets limited demand, the price drops to zero. It's simple maths.

And why do you people even look at Euro prices? Why stop there? Why not compare with Brazilian Real or Argentine Pesos or Chinese Renminbi? Or ask the final question: Why isn't every game on GOG free?

Dunno about this, but if we want to play the "who's poorest" ranked game... here (Italy) the average wage is about 1200€, and most people need cars because the public transporation services are in disastrous conditions -my area, for example, isn't even served. I must do the last 30 minutes on foot to get back home.
So yeah, this hardly seems a valid argument.

Edit: also no, it's not DRM. They might even rip you off for real, but as long as it's before purchase and they don't touch your game after, it doesn't legally qualify. DRM gives someone else control of your software after you acquired it.

If we're going to start comparing prices (especially if we want to talk housing cost vs income), you're not going to win this. I'm in California. Just because we literally pay more for everything, it doesn't mean that we're just swimming in cash and can afford to subsidize everyone.

Real estate websites estimate the value of my house being $428,000 to $490,000.
The median income for my neighborhood is $37,000 (individual) and $77,000 (household.)
Gas/Petrol is at a low point at $4 per gallon. In the summer, it is always $5+
Average cost of eggs for my area is $7 per dozen.


In comparison, my aunt in Minnesota is always racing to the bottom as she cries about poor she is even though the houses cost half as much and the median income is $128,000.... or the people on reddit that were complaining about $3 per gallon gas/petrol and $2 per dozen eggs.


The same could be for the folks in this thread living in Switzerland. It's a wealthy country, but that doesn't mean that everyone living there is wealthy themselves. Somebody has to work the shops, and nobody is going to be commuting from a bordering country to do it.

Actually, yes, they do. Mostly because they can not afford a rent in Switzerland.

Win,, what? I wasn't trying to win anything. I thought the discussion was about the same things being sold for different prices depending on locale. I gave housing as an example. You also showed how eggs and gas (a dozen eggs and a gallon of gas is the same product no matter where sold, with some exceptions for local environmental rules in the gas for gasoline) are other examples. I'm just unclear on what it is I'm not going to win.

As I said, I get both sides, and I think it's in human nature to feel that all of this is unjust, on a gut level. It sure "seems" wrong. Like, if you're Exxon and you're willing to sell a gallon of gas in West Virginia for $2.99 (that's what it was when I went to my last VA appointment in Martinsburg, WV just a couple of weeks ago) why aren't you willing to sell it in Virginia for the same price? (here in northern virginia it's averaging around $0.50 more, in my little town it's $3.39, less than 5 miles from the West Virginia border) It just feels wrong. Especially when you're on the "wrong" side of it, as I am in the gas situation. My car holds 16 gallons, so the difference in a tank of gas when I buy it in northern Virginia will cost about $8.00 more than if I purchased it in West Virginia. I don't much like that either.

But, that is how it works with gas, eggs, houses, and almost everything we buy (groceries are another big example) so my question was is that fair? It just also "feels" (to me at least) like if it's fair in those circumstances, why isn't it fair in others? And, by the same token, if it's not fair in the selling of games, then does that mean by definition that it's not fair in these examples as well? I know it sure doesn't feel fair when I go fill up my car here versus West Virginia.

I'm not trying to win the argument on either side, as I said, I get it. I just at the moment lean toward regional pricing, but I'm no expert and don't expect to win anything or change anyone's minds.

To me, this all feels like yet another sticky workaround for the all the problems associated with capitalism. And if you want to see some real stick workaround problems for trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, just check our health care system. To make that work in a market lots of contortions and conflicting policies have to be made up, with the expected results. We really don't have a health care system here, we have a health care industry here, whose sole motivation and goal is like any other industry, to make money. Not to deliver health care. I could point out about a gazillion examples of things unfair within all of those contortions.

Oh FFS!

The regional pricing for digital products has rarely, if ever, made sense, with nonsense like lumping most of Europe under one price for example. As long as enough people keep buying at those prices however, there is zero incentive to change that. Why would they willingly take less money from you unless absolutely forced?

Switzerland has the reputation of "the rich country", so they usually get to enjoy the most expensive end of the stick.

Well your maths are flawed because there is indeed a "limiting factor", at least if we get the games legally: It is the size of almost everyones moneybag... with the exception of a chosen few who indeed got a near unlimited bag...

So, they have to consider "not to strain the artificially limited bag of most buyers"... so those digital data are "attached" to a certain economic which got some limitations.

They do not enjoy to see any "unnecessary limitations" and because they realized "on certain markets we may be able to charge way more or way lesser... thats where regional pricing was kicking in". It got nothing to do with a "sense of fairness"... nope.. it is simply a certain "law" of "how to get it to work with the highest cash flow possible", it is pretty pragmatic, no sense of "ethics" which is actually rarely playing a role but if so... by using those "DEI" stuff.

Of course... the "moneybag" is actually with a percentage of around 99% as well just "digital data" which on theory can be expanded near endless... yet it is being "artificially limited" for most of us. The "real currencies..." the hard ones... are around 1% of all the "rated currency values" out there but those 1% is extremely important because if we lose any hard currency the entire "house of cards" will lose its foundation and ultimately becoming shattered into non valuable pieces. Because we can not "eat bits", we can not "drive a bit" or we can not "sleep inside bits", and if any power is gone we can not even trade using bits... ok maybe some true freaks are barely capable of but not the majority.

We are already doing it... there are several sites able to track the prices in many currencies worldwide and comparing the prices with. However, in usual we try to compare "a high income country with another high income country" and in many cases with a close neighbor, in this case using the currency of a close neighbor makes sense. Not making stuff unnecessary complicated if it can be compared with simplification and common sense.

Why not every game is free? Well, why are you in almost any cases having an income?
If any stuff will cost zero, we as well should have zero income... this is a strong logic. The problem simply is... no matter how it is done, humans tend to be greedy... greed is a weak attribute of almost any human (only those with a powerful mind may be able to restrain themself from unnecessary greed)... sorry to say. If we could get anything we want for free... most of us will get so many stuff... there is not enough of material on the planet. So, we need some sort of "limitation" and "a trade balance"... in order to get a certain "flow happen" which is ultimately "healthy" in the sense of "sustainability".

However... even this "DRMed" system, trying to get a sustainable flow going is still far away from being just and fair to the masses and many individuals are amassing "wealth" like never seen before... so this system is in no way, not even nearly, perfect. Still, if we got a "unlocked" system... ultimately almost everyone will use another form of "power" to amass as many resources as they can... for example by using muscles or weapons... or whatelse. Greed is simply in the human nature... sorry to think so bad about humans in general. I do know there are many good humans out there but someone will have to find them, they may not appear without trying to find them... unless someone is extremely lucky.

Of course it is possible to make a "free digital system" in the sense of having a "world archive" which every human could use, free of charge, because fact is... datas can be reproduced endless... so there is not a real limitation here. The only issue is, it does not fit the current system on "how economy works". We may have to change the whole system and perhaps Musk (OK, even if he love games he may strongly disagree) or simply a certain "world wide media commission" could be handing out the coins based on a certain rating or even "success" (the system we currently use is success-based). We already have comparable stuff for example IMF and whatelse. Still, those changes would be very big and not easy to manage, yet not impossible.

How do you know about how much I earn? Do you think all Swiss People are rich?

I stand my point: Regional pricing is the new form of racism.

As somebody living near the border... nope. People totally move from the bordering country and get back daily, doing the kinf of "humble" job the ethically questionable Swiss laws on foreign treatment allow to be paid less.
A "less" that is still significantly higher than the local equivalent, I may add. Talking about +50% to double the pay for the very same thing, so clerrly people flock there whenever possible -Italians get more and live here where life is less costly, Swiss employers pay far less than by hiring a CH citizen.
Lol. And here I thought racism was about systematically denying basic rights and openly discriminating the already disadvantaged.
I guess now a slightly higher price on videogames in first world countries is a crime against humanity.
Dude... seriously. I get it, you have a point, but come on, dragging it to these limits is bloody ridiculous and insulting to true vicims of crimes.

Yes, exactly. Basic rights, like all people have the same rights. And all people have to pay the same price for the same product. Regardless of skin color, sex, race, ethnicity or in which country you live. This is what I'm talking about.

Why are you defending this shit?

Because what you say makes no sense. Based on your view everybody in the world should pay the same regardless of economic conditions, both global and local.

It's not rocket science, just common sense - prices identical in absolute value are not viable, there are just three ways it can play out:
1-you make no profit at all because you set the lowest possible bar, making everybody in the world pay the minimal price even when you have to sustain yourself in more expensive countries, ending up with outcomes higher than incomes;
2-you keep the highest possible price from the wealthiest countries, so you break your sales because most won't be able to afford it;
3-you entirely cut out some places, not selling there at all.

None of this is optimal. You want to charge exactly as much as it's viable in any single place.
There are obviously people in every country that do not belong to the "average". Some might be richer, some might be poorer. I personally speak as a broke af individual, hence why you can often see myself partaking into giveaways, but the odd number doesn't invalidate the rule, whoever sets the price isn't a clairvoyant that can just tailor make offers. At some point you have to generalize.

Edit: ethnicity, sex and whatever have 0 impact on this. This is about wealth and wealth alone, talking about racism is preposterous. You are talking about games purchases, not basic needs... and even those you couldn't detatch from the local economy.
It's not like stores ask your ID at checkout and charge you depending on your ethnicity or preferences, let's not be absurd now.
At worst you have the bad luck of being below the average income in your country... but that's an issue of the country itself.

Can we go based off time? Like how many hours does the average person in each country have to work to buy the same game?

From here, we get the net average monthly wage - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_average_wage

Switzerland - 5,460 CHF/mo
Germany - 3,054 EUR/mo

Assuming 40 hrs work week and 4 weeks/mo, then we get hourly rates:

Switzerland = 34.13 CHF/hr
Germany = 19.09 EUR/hr

So for Stalker Ultimate, the average Swiss has to work 3.6 hrs whereas the average German has to work 5.8 hrs for the same game as per your OP under regional pricing. How is it fair that the average German has to work nearly 60% more hours just to have the same purchasing power as a Swiss if they're both doing the same jobs?

And keep in mind here that Germany is ranked 10th on the net Euros here. Average people in Italy, Portugal, Greece, Slovaka, etc. have to work longer than 5.8 hrs just to buy the same game that the average Swiss can buy in 3.6 hrs.

Listen, regional pricing isn't perfect. Someone will always be paying more in terms of absolute currency or time. But it does help close the gap and make things a little more accessible in this world for those who cannot afford it or have control over their situations. I mean, I'd love to be a Swiss citizen, but I had no choice picking where I was born. Especially considering something like consumable media like video games where people who have experienced it in lower GDP countries do not have a direct effect on those who haven't experienced it in higher GDP countries - if any.