Was looking at buying an asset yesterday (2D run 'n jump) which was then listed as $30,-. I go back today to buy it and suddenly it’s listed as 28,50 EUROS! I thought maybe the author had upped the price overnight so I checked Playmaker, Yesterday listed as US$100, today as 95 Euros!!! Last I checked my euro is worth at least 1.42 US$??? That means 95 euro is 140 US$, so someone is making an extra $40,- off the exchange. Lucrative…and pretty tasteless.
Does someone at the asset store have a math problem or are we just getting a little greedy like the boys at Valve Steam? Needless to say I won’t be buying anything at these sorts of rip-off rates.
that has nothing to do with ripoff - but you’re right its a little bit of math required here. There’s a VAT for members of the european region
by law and that has to be paid with each product - therefor we pay (25% - correct me if I am wrong) more then our beloved american friends.
95€ in your example is the price including VAT (correct me again if I am wrong)
I never heard of a 25% VAT for the EU. There is the rule that online retailers charge their own national VAT to customers abroad although many large retailers (like amazon.com etc.) don’t do this because they have no fixed location. Anyway let’s assume for argument’s sake the asset store is located in a country with 25% (not very smart but…) $100 times 25% is still only $125,-. 95€ at the current exchange is $135so there’s at least $10,- added on. Someone’s probably going to claim currency and exchange rate risks but that’s lazy and customer unfriendly. Here’s an idea: base the asset store in an american state with low sales tax (4% in some) and pass the savings on to the customers Or register in each country and charge local VAT rates (19% in my case).
I’m all for free choice so if this is how they want to run the asset store then good luck to them but I’ll pass thanks.
If you live in EU and you want to purchase software (and probably other kind of products) in countries that don’t belong to the EU, you will have to pay a 25% VAT unless you have a valid “European VAT Number”. I don’t know about the laws of your country, but in my country (Spain) you need to be registered as a company or freelancer to get an “European VAT Number” (it takes approximately a month).
Once you enter your “European VAT Number” in your Asset Store account, you won’t be charged the 25% VAT.
Uhm, am I missing something or does $100 * 125% = $125, not $135? 95€ for $125 assumes an exchange rate of 1,31 and the euro hasn’t been close to that in quite a while. If you look at the price of Unity3d itself it’s $1500 or 1100€ - that’s an exchange rate of 1,36. Still low but already higher than the asset store. Apparently they need to update the exchange rate a bit more often and use local VAT rules.
And I’m pretty sure there’s no such thing as EU VAT but feel free to point me to contradicting info. Member states have their own rates between 15-25%.
Anyway no need to beat a dead horse. Like I said before Unity is free to charge what they want but the price difference isn’t completely justified by the ‘taxes’.
Last I checked the Euro was around 1.43 USD (rounded up).
As such the price (95€) would work out to about 135 USD.
So the prices are pretty spot on as far as I can tell.
Yes its still $30 for all that are not living in the EU, all in the EU pay in euro including VAT
As for “has not been at that exchange rate for quite a while”: I would assume the current rate is the one from beginning of april ie the one at the start of the just passed quarter, UT won’t do daily or weeckly updates as thats a nightmare in bookkeeping. Back then the delta was that high before the euro decided to go into free fall mode too right behind the USD (I’m living in switzerland, so I get a pretty good picture how all european currencies dip down the toilet along the USD - and I don’t have to pay VAT as we aren’t EU :))
Or register in each country and charge local VAT rates (19% in my case).