I think the localisation issue is now becoming more prevalent because the European Union now charges VAT on any paid for service that originates outside of Europe.
With the way VAT works it is the company collecting the money that is also responsible for collecting the tax and handing it over to the Euro taxmen. This of course means higher admin costs for the company coincerned so they find ways around it. Forcing Europeans to play on European servers and pay a European company does just that.
This also has the added bonuses as far as the various governments go of not only adding to the treasury but also preventing their citizens from being able to cross undesirable borders via the internet when using a service such as mmorgs.
The sad thing about this is that the better it works the more prevalent it will become and eventually lead them to ways of imposing secure cyber borders on everyone. So how do we prevent it from happening?
The simple way of course is to boycott any game or service that subscribes to this method of operation and therefor force the companies to keep the borders down, this however is an impossible ask as there will always be hundreds of thousands of people who do not or will not see the big picture.
Cyber borders and localisation of services is an infringement of your freedom and rights so if anyone knows of ways to defeat it or of any laws that may be being bent a little then perhaps in time someone may come along that has enough money to challenge it in the courts. Unfortunately I do not have that kind of money but if I one day become the 16,000,000,000 to 1 shot that wins the lottery I just might.
Ill think ill wait a few days after launch to see what problems euorpeans run into with paying the monthly fee. If there arent any,i will import the game. I really wanna play om US servers. With everquest i played 3 years on a US server and then 1 year on a european server. I came to the conlussion that europeans suck in mmorpgs. Allot of them cant read and/or type english at all or are simply not willing too. I i hope i can play on a US server.
Comments
I think the localisation issue is now becoming more prevalent because the European Union now charges VAT on any paid for service that originates outside of Europe.
With the way VAT works it is the company collecting the money that is also responsible for collecting the tax and handing it over to the Euro taxmen. This of course means higher admin costs for the company coincerned so they find ways around it. Forcing Europeans to play on European servers and pay a European company does just that.
This also has the added bonuses as far as the various governments go of not only adding to the treasury but also preventing their citizens from being able to cross undesirable borders via the internet when using a service such as mmorgs.
The sad thing about this is that the better it works the more prevalent it will become and eventually lead them to ways of imposing secure cyber borders on everyone. So how do we prevent it from happening?
The simple way of course is to boycott any game or service that subscribes to this method of operation and therefor force the companies to keep the borders down, this however is an impossible ask as there will always be hundreds of thousands of people who do not or will not see the big picture.
Cyber borders and localisation of services is an infringement of your freedom and rights so if anyone knows of ways to defeat it or of any laws that may be being bent a little then perhaps in time someone may come along that has enough money to challenge it in the courts. Unfortunately I do not have that kind of money but if I one day become the 16,000,000,000 to 1 shot that wins the lottery I just might.