The evil Euro monster
Today we had an interesting email come in from a New Zealand based gamer, who like a lot of people is gearing up for the launch of The Elder Scrolls Online. It seems that New Zealanders are being billed in Euros:
After some back and forth with Customer Support at Zenimax I have found it’s now their policy to charge all New Zealand people their subscription fees and cost of game as well, in EUROS rather than in our own currency or in USD (both would be much cheaper for us).
Obviously it’s odd to charge us in EUROS anyway, we’re nowhere near Europe, plus it not converting very nicely for us to our own currency.
Here’s what we’re getting overcharged –
Subscription fees each month (we’ll be getting charged in EUROS) –
12.99 EUR = 21.422623 NZD
14.99 USD= 17.991116 NZD
So that’s a difference of almost $4 a month we’re being overcharged.
The cost of the game for me was 79.99 EUR = 131.920763 NZD whereas I should’ve paid – 79.99 USD = 96.006686 NZD – so I got overcharged around $36 NZD as well.
Customer Service has told me this is absolute and they are not planning on changing it any time soon (if ever).
Tried getting some attention in the beta forums and while a ZOS staff member passed by the post and edited out the @names of ZOS staff members I has added into the OP (she edited them out so they didn’t trigger notifications to other ZOS staff members) she did not bother answering the thread, so all out of avenues for getting help/getting this sorted for New Zealand people.
Need someone to draw attention to this situation for the New Zealand people. We are obviously a small country and probably not worth paying attention to on a financial level…so yeah, basically this is why we need some help and support. We’re going to be horribly overcharged every month and nobody cares to fix it.
In addition, the NZ gamer received a formal response from Zenimax Customer Support:
Greetings XXXXThanks you very much for your patience with this issue.Due to NZ$ not being supported for now we can not give you an different option then to pay the game and the subscription fee in Euros. I’m aware that this is not the answer you were hoping for and I’m very sorry not to be able to help you with this.Should we support New Zealand dollars at some point in the future we’ll update the storefront at
https://account.elderscrollsonline.com for the appropriate regions.I would be happy to help you with any further questions.See you in Tamriel[name of support staff member was here]The Elder Scrolls Online Team
So it sounds like it’s going to take a bigger groundswell of support to get any consideration of a change. We’d be interested in hearing from any other New Zealanders – is this decision going to be a deal-breaker for you?
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I bought my copy of the game from GMG so I paid for the game in USD as the game is not region locked. However I probably won’t play longer than the first free month if I have to pay in Euros for the sub which would make the game $21 a month! That’s far more than any other sub fee for an MMO including WoW.
this ESO pricing is enough to make me consider if EOL is worth buying. I am a university student and a gamer, I cannot afford 21 dollars a months for a MMO. If EOL wants to grow in the oceanic region and reach all gamers and not pull some BS microsoft xbox lines of telling us the consumer how things are going to be. Game developers we are your clients not employees – take care of us don’t insert (badword here) in ass and shaft the gamers.
Cheers
I just e-mailed them and asked them to change my country from NZ to US so I could pay in US dollars and they did.
Yeah, its a deal breaker for me personally. I won’t pay extra in Euros. During Beta I thought it was just a glitch, I didn’t realise it was a policy set in stone.
I too have contacted Support to be told they won’t change my Country from NZ as I clearly live here. I will try again, hopefully to get a different support person who will change the Country from NZ to US. Otherwise I will go back to Solitare.