Why is it 59,99 USD in USA and 69,99 EUR in Europe?  1€ = 1.18$ 

In Europe there's Germany and Greece, not the same paychecks at all, 70€ in Germany is not the same amount as 70€ in Lithuania. 
The regional pricing is very very unfair.

Also I tried (as an experiment) to buy on the Brazilian or Egyptian market but there are obstacles, I'm not sure that buying store credit on the Brazilian marketplace will let me buy the game...

They charge VAT at an apparent average rate of 16.66% (it should be 20% in France 🤬). In the US, prices are always labelled without tax.

I don't know, it looks like a huge amount of taxes to get to the equivalent of the European price.

26 minutes ago, EmaRacing said:

Why is it 59,99 USD in USA and 69,99 EUR in Europe?  1€ = 1.18$ 

In Europe there's Germany and Greece, not the same paychecks at all, 70€ in Germany is not the same amount as 70€ in Lithuania. 
The regional pricing is very very unfair.

Also I tried (as an experiment) to buy on the Brazilian or Egyptian market but there are obstacles, I'm not sure that buying store credit on the Brazilian marketplace will let me buy the game...

This was already discussed some while ago, but discussing it doesn't alter the reality of the situation...

Whilst 70 Euros in one country might not go as far as it does in another owing to variations in the cost of living throughout the world, to the retailer 70 Euros is the same amount whether gathered from Germany or Lithuania. It might seem unfair if you are in a country where this puts you on the rough end of the deal, but it's not the responsibility of Microsoft or Asobo to sort out the economy of a country, or determine whether there is sales tax, import duties or whatever in one country but not another.

Beyond this, if I produce tin boxes in France, and each one costs three Euros each to make, it doesn't matter where in the world I'm selling them, they all still cost me three Euros each to make, so I'll have to charge people four Euros for them everywhere, if I want to make a profit. The fact that four Euros will get you a square meal in one place, but won't even buy you a cheeseburger in another, has no bearing on the manufacturing three Euro cost of making a tin box in France. So if you wanted one of my tin boxes, it'd cost you four Euros.

That's the top and bottom of the situation. It's not fair, but that's down to the world economy and not MS or Asobo, and that's the way it is. Welcome to Earth.

Edited August 16, 20205 yr by Chock

In the biggest EU markets (France, Germany, Spain) the standard VAT rate is 20%. 

Pre-VAT the price would be €59. 

Doesn’t include any other taxes/fees/EU data compliance costs, nor the fact that it’s not Microsoft’s native market for a relatively niche product for them. 

Sign up to the XBox PC beta and get the standard edition for £3.99 monthly. You can cancel at any time.

32 minutes ago, EmaRacing said:

I don't know, it looks like a huge amount of taxes to get to the equivalent of the European price.

We do pay a huge amount of taxes in Europe indeed. Almost everything retail is more expensive than in the US. And the obnoxious  project of some  EU members led by France  and  Germany to tax more heavily the digital giants will make matters even  worse.

49 minutes ago, EmaRacing said:

Why is it 59,99 USD in USA and 69,99 EUR in Europe?  1€ = 1.18$ 

Yeah got to love that one price in the U.S. because people think that everyone in the U.S. also gets paid exactly the same. However, just like many places in the world that is not true. My company, like many others uses regional wages. That means because I live in a low cost of living area I get paid less than someone who lives in a high cost of living area. So a Training Center Evaluation Instructor based at LAX will earn about twice what I am earning even though we do the exact same job for the same number of hours. However, when you break down that cost of living the big chunk of that is cost of housing and nearly everything else is close to the same. So yes for software I get to pay the same U.S. price as a coworker at LAX who gets paid twice as much. But, I don't have to pay five time more for housing and I don't have to deal with LA traffic. 😉

Bottom line, life is unfair.

1 hour ago, 777 said:

Sign up to the XBox PC beta and get the standard edition for £3.99 monthly. You can cancel at any time.

Long term it's going to cost more than buying.

2 hours ago, Chock said:

That's the top and bottom of the situation. It's not fair, but that's down to the world economy and not MS or Asobo, and that's the way it is. Welcome to Earth.

The problem I have with this, that this a digital product that is being distributed digitally.

The cost of the product stays the same and distribution costs should be non-existant, more or less, unless there is a tariff involved.

The way I see it the only fair pricing model would be to take the current daily exchange rate, add the appropriate sales tax, if it applies and that should give you the end price.

Taking MSFS as example that gives me 50,58€ excluding taxes as a price for the standard edition. 

So the standard edition should cost:

58,67€ in Germany

60,70€ in Austria

58,63 CHF in Switzerland

66,42€ in Italy

65,33€ in France

65,87€ in Spain

67,51€ in Greece

etc...

 

But it doesn't. It costs 69.99€  Which is clearly overreaching the majority of EU customers. And I simply don't see the justification, and why there aren't commerce laws in place that prohibit to sell digital goods at higher prices in different places.

Edited August 16, 20205 yr by Farlis
Removed unnecessary long quote!

The average sales tax in the U.S. is 8%, in Europe it is 20% or more.

Dave

10 minutes ago, Farlis said:

The problem I have with this, that this a digital product that is being distributed digitally.

The cost of the product stays the same and distribution costs should be non-existant, more or less, unless there is a tariff involved.

True, but the unit cost the developer has to charge, per buyer, is part of the economics of whether it was viable as a project or not. So the unit cost has to be the same for all units shifted.

Predictively index-linking projected profits at the point where the project was being mooted, would have required the developer to have the kind of clairvoyancy of markets which would make them the best stockbroker in the history of mankind.

Edited August 16, 20205 yr by Chock

2 hours ago, Dominique_K said:

We do pay a huge amount of taxes in Europe indeed. Almost everything retail is more expensive than in the US. And the obnoxious  project of some  EU members led by France  and  Germany to tax more heavily the digital giants will make matters even  worse.

Obnoxious? You mean the EU's efforts to get Google, Apple and other tech giants to actually pay their fair share of the collective tax burden and not racketeer their profit sheets to make it look like all of their Euro income was generated in Ireland to avoid paying ANY EU taxes? No, taxing them fairly will make matters much better for every EU citizen, who will either have more services as a result, or less of a tax burden as a result, or some combination of the two. And universal healthcare is absolutely worth paying additional taxes for. Such things are not free, and it is simplistic to say that everything is more expensive than in the US since I pay over $300 a month for healthcare insurance here in the states.

Bottom line is that if you don't like the price of MSFS, don't buy it. And if you don't like the tax system where you live, lobby/vote to change it or move somewhere where you do like how they do it.

OK,  I know you want to moan and groan about paying higher prices because of taxes.  Don't get political in your comments or the axe will fall!

18 minutes ago, SeanMo said:

 

Bottom line is that if you don't like the price of MSFS, don't buy it. And if you don't like the tax system where you live, lobby/vote to change it or move somewhere where you do like how they do it.

Bottom line : take a cold shower. 

Did I say that I didn’t want to buy FS20 ? Do I have to state my political activity in France ?