What is it?
Regional pricing is the practice where prices of goods and services (in this case WPE) are adjusted to meet the economic reality of a certain region.
Why is it done?
Because it is very easy to price yourself out of a region. If your product is too expensive that only a few can afford it. Then almost no one will buy it. For businesses such as our it is important to make some of the money instead no money.
Do you have an example?
Currently using their special region payment option Brazilian users can purchase 2500 WPE for about 20 USD.
US Minimum wage is 7.25 USD/hr. 25 USD of points then represents 3.44 hours of labor.
Brazilian Minimum wage is 4 BRL/hr or 1.28 USD/hr. 25 USD of points would then represent 19.53 hours of labor.
This is a lot to ask anyone to pay for a video game.
By allowing for a slight loss the Brazilian player has to work 15.62 hours in order to pay for 25 USD worth of points. This is still a lot to ask. Unfortunately if we set it too low it would lead to wide abuse by players not in the region that we are targeting.
Since we want as many players as we can adventuring, MVPing, WoEing, and participating in all aspects of the game it is important to offer them at least some relief from the differences in wages between the countries. So that all can participate in the game. These payment options are supposed to be region locked so that only users from the areas being targeted with the regional pricing are allowed to use them. The Universal Payment options such as paypal always charge the full USD amount.
Why doesn't X Region have a similar payment option?
For each region it comes down to what payment processors/options we are able to partner with for individual countries. If you have suggestions I am sure that the payment team would be happy to hear them. Usually the payment processor that is unique to a region will have the regional pricing. The Universal Payment options such as paypal always charge the full USD amount.
Isn't this unfair to countries that don't have these bonuses?
Users from economically stronger countries are in the unique position where they can take advantage of sales events and conversion bonuses. When we run one of these events they are able to maximize their bonuses. In general users from other regions are unable to do so.
Is this some kind of Unique harebrained Warpportal idea?
No, regional pricing is an issue the entire games industry has struggled with. PC Gamer has done a relatively decent article covering the subject here: http://www.pcgamer.c...ound-the-world/ There are both good and bad ways of going about this and we would like to believe that we are going towards a more fair option for consumers from all over the world.