When playing on android, if you view the purchase option of 1 month lite sub on play store, it charges about 56 INR. Meanwhile, the exchange rate is 80 INR for 1 USD. That's a 30% lower price.

On 3 month lite sub, the price goes to 175 INR. This is still lower than the exchange rate, but what's weird is it's more than buying 1 month lite sub 3 times, when it's supposed to be less. Somehow $3 to $2.75 converts to Rs 168 to Rs 175.

On 1 month premium sub, the cost is 535 INR, which is less than $7 if converted at current exchange rate.

On 3 months premium sub, the cost is 1445 INR.

I can test it only with INR but it's likely broken with other non-USD currencies as well.

Yes, exchange rates aren't currently updated very often, and not all items were added at the same time (like 3-month vs 1-month subs), so some of them have different exchange rates that were correct to their respective period.

The downside is, if we forcibly update it now, on an automated basis, it's going to substantially raise prices in most locations, due to altered economic conditions from time-past, and a currently strong Dollar.

We are evaluating different options for what to do, moving forward.

[EDIT] (Notably, this kind of issue is also not unique to our game).

I agree that differences in real income in different countries means people can afford less in some. The exchange rate does not directly convert the differences in income and cost of living. The only point of the "panic" behind this report was

A) it reduces GSW's revenue, and GSW is paying it's expenses in USD

B) it can create a black market on subscriptions due to cost differences. Such a market would be against the RoC but tracking it down would be really difficult.

Just as a sum up of arguments:

Keeping prices as they are:
Upside: keeps the subscription more affordable for people in low-income countries
Downside: reduces revenue for GSW; enables the creation of a black market that reduces revenue even from those in high-income areas.

Adjusting the prices to exchange rate:
Upside: increases revenue per sub for GS; curbs any possible occurrence of a black market

Downsides: may reduce total number of subscriptions if some people's sub cost rises by a large margin.

I guess it's a decision based on price elasticity of demand. Whether total revenue rises even when demand falls, or the opposite.

In the update last night

*** Vendetta 1.8.611

- Android Play Store IAP prices for non-US currencies have been updated to the current exchange rate.

I don't know how this has affected other currencies, but atleast in INR it seems like the price has been overcompensated. The exchange rate is about 80 INR/USD. The price for 1 month lite sub on Playstore is 95 INR. Also, the price of 3 months lite sub is ~171 INR, while $2.75 would actually be about 220 INR according to the exchange rate.

I'm sorry, but the price on Playstore has been changed, not fixed.

Uploading some images of above "bug".









These screenshots were taken today, about half an hour before this post. As you can see, the price for 1 month lite has increased beyond the exchange rate, while the price for 3 months lite, 1 month premium and 3 months premium is unchanged, still way below the exchange rate.

Did you reboot your phone? I'm not sure that the Play Store app is very active about updating this data internally.

Also, the Play Store adds localized VAT. In India, that's something like 19% for digital products, now. So, "beyond exchange rate" is entirely possible.

The prices reset to what they should be (including VAT) after rebooting my phone. Sorry for the false alarm.

id like to point out vo (in tha app) is asking for 27usd in app screen, play store (in uk so pounds) says 32pounds. with exchange rates in uk its ALWAYS been around 1pound to 1.2usd. so WHY has it suddenly gone from 16pounds for 3 months premium to 32pounds 3months premium (even tho it should be ~23pounds) its around a extra 10pound added on top for no reason at all

pounds = GBP

> its around a extra 10pound added on top for no reason at all

As incarnate pointed out, prices include value added taxes (VAT) now, so that's part of that. Not sure about the rest.

I'm not so sure about that, Snib, because then the VAT would be a little under 50%. The highest VAT rate in the UK is 20%.

As I said:

> that's part of that. Not sure about the rest.

Maybe a buffer for future expected exchange rate changes, maybe they also priced google's 15% service fee in, maybe it's simply a mistake. Incarnate will have to clarify this.

We have nothing whatsoever to do with exchange rates, nor (realistically) does any other Play Store app developer. We do not "price in" the Google fee.

There's a button we push to update the rates. Google updates them according to Google's knowledge of current VAT and other factors. I don't know why Google picks the rates that it does, but that's what is happening.

The only difference between Apple's iOS and Google's way of doing this, is that Apple forcibly recalculates our prices several times a year, where Google wants us to press a button.

We'll take a look, but I have no idea at present.

This is what we found:

The Play Store dashboard shows a UK price of GBP 27.49 which is supposed to be including 20% VAT of GBP 4.58.
The exchange rate at the time was 1 GBP to ~1.17 USD.
It looks to me that the VAT is being added a second time, which would bring it to ~32 GBP.
If the Play Store is adding tax a second time, I don't know why it's doing that. I haven't found anything in my searches, and if it explicitly adds it at checkout, I don't know why it would add it to the exchange rate price.

Basically, we have no idea, and suggest that anyone with problems do a phone reboot, to make sure the Play Store is populating data correctly.

As far as we can tell, this is an issue on Google's side.

and now its 27GBP, as it should be.