ArenaNet talk:Developer updates/20070706

Just a note: Europeans preferably need either a PayPal or Electronic Cash paying option. I really really doubt SMS paying will resolve our issue. BigBluetalk 09:51, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for letting me know your thoughts. Many Europeans have told us that adding SMS would greatly increase accessibility. NCsoft's experience with PayPal was not a success, and they are not eager to do another test at this time, especially when there were a greater number of negative incidents and higher costs. The NCsoft teams are working to broaden what they accept for payment. I will pass along what you have said. In return, though, please allow me to share what I have been told: With some Electronic Cash paying options, you can purchase a prepaid credit card or a Visa (or other brand) Gift Card, and those are accepted in the in-game store. So please consider that as an option. Of course if you look into this and find that it is actually not an option, do let me know, and if you could provide specific details, that would help a lot. Thank you. --Gaile 06:08, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for answering this. I think you should write a Gaile News article, telling everyone PayPal and other paying methods were considered but not found useful. This would be easier than writing this interesting information to everyone in "private". :) I found this german forum post [1], one point was, that so called "Premium SMS" are limited in Germany with an upper threshold, so you can't pay 26 Euro with one SMS. To make this even worse, "Premium SMS" have different thresholds in different countries (and Europe has more of them than North America :( ) and providers. Although it's not an official information I see it as a bad omen for European customers. :( I have access to a credit card, I'm just paying attention to other Europeans who haven't. ;) BigBluetalk 08:06, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

The German post BigBlue is referencing to is from me :) and I want to give a short summary of it in English: I've spoken to somebody who is currently evaluating "payment via premium SMS" for a mobile phone game and he's saying the following: 1) "premium SMS" are limited in the maximum amount you can play, usually somewhere around 6 EUR (or equivalent in dollar) 2) that limit is different from country to country and provider to provider 3) when a customer pays some amount of money via "premium SMS" the amount of money the received by the producer of the product is only 50% or even less of that sum - the rest is taken my the mobile phone net providers and the "premium SMS" payment service providers. So at the end paying via "premium SMS" probably brings the same "monetary reward" for ArenaNet/NCsoft as putting boxes of a game on the shelves of stores. My personal conclusion on those points is that it would be very complicated for the user to pay via "premium SMS" (had to send several SMS with different amounts of money, based on where you're from and what mobile provider he has) and for ArenaNet/NCsoft there ain't much monetary benefit over selling boxes. So not good. IMHO. T.T.H. 10:16, 8 July 2007 (UTC)