User Expanded Support to Travian

@Berek why is the answer always we will look into these large issues after the fact?

 

This made me think of another question: What happens to the update emails that I now receive?

 

If it is going to be the same as for the users that are now with Black Sun, you are still going to get e-mails with links that re-direct you to an unrelated site. But I trust that Travian is going to solve this better.

 

Thank you for the update and FAQ @Cerus.

One question - we do not need to have a Travian account to play the game (if we don't want to use the new cash shop) - how do I access/manage my account details then? If there is no other way to do this (e.g. through the game client directly) I am basically forced to accept the Travian AGB/EULA/rules.

 

@Cerus will you prevent us from buying all our Cotos etc from US citizens or third party sites to avoid paying taxes in your store? Since RMT is allowed this will be no problem right?

 

Initially I was annoyed by this.

I was raging by the fact that I'd put money into seedinvest (obviously not expecting it to be a real investment but more of a way to simply further support Portalarium) and then to be sold down the river to another devloper/publisher.

Then I looked at Travian's offerings and they reminded me of those horrific pay-to-win browser games you see every ten posts on your facebook feed and ignore.
Further, I looked at their horrific employee Glassdoor reviews - uh oh!

Then I saw the difference between dollar price and euro price on digital goods - damn (there's the 20% VAT in action). - Nooooo!
There's certainly going to be a gap in the market here for US players selling to EU players with perhaps only a 5% increase in US prices rather than the 20% currently on VAT! (paypal friends&family anyone? )

At this point I was pretty disheartened and felt a bit annoyed.

Then I dug a little deeper in the absense of any official statement for the reasons. Some of us presume Travian would be helping to fund Port's future development (obviously a good thing). Others think its mostly EU data privacy laws, which can be pretty tough to hit.
Then I saw the requirements for EU VAT (covered in great detail here: http://www.gamerlaw.co.uk/2014/a-pr...-rules-video-games-and-digital-content-sales/ )

In particular:

(1) If you sell digital services directly to EU customers, then you need to ensure compliance with the new VAT rules.

For example, if a games developer or music studio self-publishes and distributes its products online and direct to customers (e.g. via its website), it will be responsible for calculating and collecting VAT from customers based on their national VAT rate – in practice, this means:

• Going through the MOSS process;
• Investing in sales/accounting software which can automatically carry out different VAT calculations;
• Ensuring you can identify the customer’s location: the guidance so far suggests that you make a reasonable effort to identify the customer’s location, which involves gathering at least two pieces of evidence – such as a billing or invoicing address; country of residence; or IP address; and
• Amending your T&Cs and privacy policy to ensure that customers know about and give their consent to this use of their personal information.

And also:

I’m a US business exporting into the EU. Do I have to charge VAT?

In principle the VAT rules can apply even though you are a US business, although in practice many US businesses do not charge VAT (or indeed localise the purchase process at all) until they have established a physical presence in the EU. That can run risks, though for better or worse it has been influenced by the fact that the practical enforcement risk by an EU tax authority against a US company with no physical presence in the EU historically has been low.

So it seems that although in principle, US-only based companies should help pay VAT on digital goods and services to EU customers, its very rarely enforced (if ever!).
However, moving us over to an EU dev/publishing company ensure's that Travian most definitely need to pay VAT on goods sold to customers.


So that's the thing. We've kinda been screwed as players a little bit on the VAT side by moving us over to an EU company. However, I'm sure there must be other supporting reasons such as data privacy laws / cash injection / more dev resource.


But why, oh why, oh why isnt there an OFFICIAL STATEMENT on WHY its being done? Then we can all just relax, understand why and forget about it. I'm sure the reasons are plenty valid. Sure businesses are entitled to keep their decisions private, but its not great when the reasons are kept from backers supposedly held in high regard or those that have "invested" in a private equity funding round.
Perhaps there is but I just missed it somewhere in some small print?

@Lord British @Berek @Cerus - What say ye?



- Fazza

 

Yeah thats old news and everyone was expecting it. But usually you can still buy from US sites with an US IP... The problem is our accounts get transfered which basically forces us to pay VAT, OR buy from third party sites or private US people, that can theoretically buy from the store and charge us 10% instead of 20% VAT (or whatever VAT applies in your country).

Either Travian didn't think this through OR we europeans get access to deals that aren't offered in the Portalarium store. COTOs however will be interesting. I am sure RMT traders rejoice now, so are the scammers.

 

@Cerus the travian page still says the server is running but it is clearly in mainenance atm
from 5:11pm CEST (https://shroudoftheavatar.game/de/server-status/)
"Server status
Server is operating normally
The Server is operating normally, if you're having trouble while playing Shroud of the Avatar, contact our Support."

on portalarium it states:

Server Status
Live-Server: offline
Preparing for launch in 5… 4…
QA-Server: offline
Closed for internal testing

 

"As many of you know, Portalarium and Travian Games have a Publishing agreement for most EU countries (except for the 3 Baltic states), LATAM and the MENA region."

So Where is Great Britain and Norway placed? They is not in EU.

 

So basically it will cost more to play SOTA in Europe than it will in North America?

Not such a balanced playing field in that case.

 

Yeah, not thrilled with this at all - with the player marketplace being global I don't see why such the large price disparity. Also their website is absolutely not 'kept up to date' - as pointed out above, it says the server's up, when it clearly isn't. That's a rather significant oversight and poor first impression.

 

Q: What about countries that are not EU but still belong to Europe?
A: For more clarity, please see a full list of the European countries that belong to the Travian Games territories:
Albania, Andora, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia & Herzogovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary,, Island, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, Vatican City.

 

It may depend on the answer Travian give to the question about differential prices for different European countries, but at the moment -

"Q: What about countries that are not EU but still belong to Europe?
A: For more clarity, please see a full list of the European countries that belong to the Travian Games territories:
Albania, Andora, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia & Herzogovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary,, Island, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, Vatican City."

So if you live in any of those, it seems you get no option but to pay the prices on the Travian site. Whether your country is in the EU or not apparently makes NO difference, IP from those countries = directed to the Travian site and Travian prices. No matter what you voted for in that referendum....

 

So, I know that this isn't 'Pay to win' but it certainly seems that 'Pay more if you live outside North America' is applicable.


Why do none of my other online (with store) based games do this?


Lower tax for Non North American game property would be a start!

 

Its very likely they do without you realizing it.

 

Easy enough to check.

Close to launch however, this announcement is kind of cruel.

Port must have known about this for some time. It's been planned. If nothing else it's rubbish PR.

It's no longer a level playing field, certainly not if, like me, you have a taxable lot and bought COTOS to pay or sell for rent.

So much for those virtues, eh?

 

Nah. It isn't. It really isn't, I am not saying this to alienate you.
It just isn't the right topic here to discuss this.

On that we all here can agree ^^

 

It's like this.

We all play the same game - SOTA - on the SAME server.

It's just that some players have to pay more for PARITY.

That's just not fair.

 

Ultima Online was about 9,99 $ per month if I remember correct, and at the beginning we (at least in germany) used or better were forced to pay via credit card, which a. costs a yearly fee AND b. added also some cent per transaction, so we always had to pay more than the 10 dollars US citizens had to. Later then the game could be payed with gametimecards, and they were also more expensive than creditcards, after we got the euro it went worse.

 

Indeed, but generally EU people played on Europa or Dracenfelds (SP???) - and it made it 'level' in play terms. There were a few non EUs on there but not many. not so much it mattered.

Armour and weapons for instance need cotos - we will be at a disadvantage buying those.

Now we are all on one server. It isn't the same nor is it fair.