Cross-Region Gifting: Higher price

[DragonGirl]

So, I can't gift a game to my friend because I live in the US and she lives in Eastern Europe, so it flags the "there is too much of a price difference to allow this" thing. I know this is to prevent people making accounts in different countries to buy games for cheap. But what exploit is it preventing if the gifter is the one with the *higher* price? Like, I'm paying more for this than she would, why is this flagged? And on that note, why not give an option where you can choose to pay the higher price to gift cross-regionally? Like if it's $20 in the Gifter's region but $40 in the Recipient's region, just make it so the Gifter has to pay the $40 price of the recipient region. It's not that hard, right?

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

引用自 DragonGirl：

Cross-Region Gifting: Higher price

So, I can't gift a game to my friend because I live in the US and she lives in Eastern Europe, so it flags the "there is too much of a price difference to allow this" thing. I know this is to prevent people making accounts in different countries to buy games for cheap. But what exploit is it preventing if the gifter is the one with the *higher* price? Like, I'm paying more for this than she would, why is this flagged? And on that note, why not give an option where you can choose to pay the higher price to gift cross-regionally? Like if it's $20 in the Gifter's region but $40 in the Recipient's region, just make it so the Gifter has to pay the $40 price of the recipient region. It's not that hard, right?

US prices don't include taxes in the listed price. They are applied upon checkout.

EU prices include VAT in the listed prices.

Not to mention bait and switch laws.

Also not to forget places like Argentina, while they are now in a reduced USD region, their country has a 100% digital sales tax applied upon checkout. Add to this that their government destroyed their currency resulting in Valve creating new regions. Would you want to pay the 100% tax to their government?

[DragonGirl]

引用自 cSg|mc-Hotsauce：

引用自 DragonGirl：

Cross-Region Gifting: Higher price

So, I can't gift a game to my friend because I live in the US and she lives in Eastern Europe, so it flags the "there is too much of a price difference to allow this" thing. I know this is to prevent people making accounts in different countries to buy games for cheap. But what exploit is it preventing if the gifter is the one with the *higher* price? Like, I'm paying more for this than she would, why is this flagged? And on that note, why not give an option where you can choose to pay the higher price to gift cross-regionally? Like if it's $20 in the Gifter's region but $40 in the Recipient's region, just make it so the Gifter has to pay the $40 price of the recipient region. It's not that hard, right?

US prices don't include taxes in the listed price. They are applied upon checkout.

EU prices include VAT in the listed prices.

Not to mention bait and switch laws.

Also not to forget places like Argentina, while they are now in a reduced USD region, their country has a 100% digital sales tax applied upon checkout. Add to this that their government destroyed their currency resulting in Valve creating new regions. Would you want to pay the 100% tax to their government?

:winterbunny2023:

Okay, so apply the sales tax applicable to the state involved. On top of the pre-included VAT. Cover all the bases if need be.

As for the Argentina example: I'd like to have the option to do so. Which is what this would be. Rather than being flat-out denied because of whatever math makes the current system just says "no" with no other option.

[Ben Lubar]

The reason for this is bait and switch laws. You can't advertise one price and then change it to another in the checkout, regardless of reason.

[HikariLight]

Long story short: People abused cross region gifting and so it was changed to: if the price difference is more than 10% you cannot gift across regions.

[nullable]

引用自 DragonGirl：

Okay, so apply the sales tax applicable to the state involved. On top of the pre-included VAT. Cover all the bases if need be.

As for the Argentina example: I'd like to have the option to do so. Which is what this would be. Rather than being flat-out denied because of whatever math makes the current system just says "no" with no other option.

Why do you think Valve hasn't implemented those sort of schemes already? People have suggested such schemes for years. So one must imagine if Valve thought it was worth the fuss they'd have done it already, and if not they won't.

So since you know what you want and are able to imagine solutions to everything, the unanswered question is: Why hasn't Valve just done it if it's as trivial as you imagine? Are there's some games in your understanding that would make "not just charging more" a solution.

Paying extra sounds great to you and you might want to do it in a one off situation. But I'd wager when the rubber hits the road the number of users willing to pay extra, pat the difference between two reasons, is quite a bit less than people who like the idea.

[rawWwRrr]

引用自 DragonGirl：

I'd like to have the option to do so. Which is what this would be. Rather than being flat-out denied because of whatever math makes the current system just says "no" with no other option.

Because an online retailer IS NOT ALLOWED to charge you a different price than advertised. That's actually a good thing. Imagine how rampant price gouging would be if online retailers were suddenly allowed to charge customers whatever they wanted.