Xbox Gamers Getting Banned for Using VPN on Official Store

Some Xbox users have been banned by Microsoft for purchasing games from foreign stores using VPNs to take advantage of lower prices.

[JEECE]

Just make the price pretty close to equal regardless of currency and this problem will go away. If you are charging £65 in the UK (just making that up and using £ because it's one of the most stable currencies), the game should be cost a price that would be roughly equivalent to £65 in the local currency.

[Profchaos]

There's a lot of controls you can put in place from the financial and payment side of things to block overseas payments for example I remember going through so much effort to buy left for dead 2 on steam from the US rather than Australia so i wouldn't get the censored edition no matter the payment method everything failed and I gave up

[babadivad]

That's crazy. How was it censored?

[TheColbertinator]

@Profchaos

Australia often comes up on the discussions on what is wrong with the gaming industry in terms of taxes, tariffs, licensing fees, censorship and distribution delays.

[Profchaos]

@colbertinator
Yeah what we call the Australia tax is very real with a standard game costing around $125 AUD for a digital game and $80 for a disc

Censorship hasn't been as bad lately it was worse years ago when games like manhunt, left for dead 2 were pushing some out there gore but society's views on games is changing and games I find don't just push the gore factor as much nowadays as they have gotten so expensive they are made for a wider audience.

Delays are also far improved compared to the 90s we were often the last people on the planet to get a console regularly getting it a year after the US we now get everything day and date sometimes a day earlier if digital so things have improved there

[abstractel]

Problem is living costs and salaries are different in a lot of countries. If you make $60,000/year in the US, you are making a barely above average pay. If you make $60,000/year equivalent in Sweden (that's where I'm from but live in the US), you are relatively making a lot more money. But then housing is cheaper compared to the US, so are groceries etc.. so making $30,000/year isn't as bad as it would be in the US. So how do you balance the price of a game in the US and in Sweden? Right now they don't, a $70 game in the US cost a bit more in Sweden at around $90. Then you go to poorer countries, publishers _have_ to sell the game for less to get sales, why shouldn't a Swede, in this example, feel like it's fair to use a VPN and buy a game from those countries?

[JEECE]

I mean, they should. It's a digital good that is the same wherever you are buying it. It's not like food or a consumer good where it costs less in relative terms in poorer countries, but it also costs less to bring to market due to the cheaper cost of labor, etc.

So yeah, I don't blame people for taking advantage of it. To me if they MS is selling a digital good for less absolute value, then they are establishing that is what it is worth to them. I'm simply saying how to get rid of it.

[Profchaos]

Do you even need a VPN changing regions in windows was always enough to go to the windows store and buy a game cheap from another country and switch back never had a problem got a few PC games like this

[Alos88]

MS, maybe instead of punishing the players you have left you should be grateful they're buying games at all instead of waiting for them to come to GP.

[Flewid638]

Not much incentive to when GamePass is only $11/mo

[The_Blue]

They should be trying to take all the money they can get. Fools

[InUrFoxHole]

Lame! Surely they have better things to do?

[babadivad]

I always buy GamePass internationally for lower prices.

[DivineHand125]

Well they had a good run.

[jznrpg]

It was good for a few years during the 360 and that’s about it