The European Commission launched formal investigation proceedings into ValvE and other 5 publishers for geo blocking

[Orangeator]

1 minute ago, zMeul said:

yes yes .. losing tens of millions of clients because they can't stop be greedy

what a joke

It was a satirical post... I was not being serious. Although I was serious about it being funny to watch it happen. Like seriously, could you imagine Microsoft just leaving the EU. No longer selling any products. It would be detrimental to their economy and the EU would be powerless to stop them. And if Apple followed suit... Just goes to show how scary that two corporations could crush countries.

[zMeul]

1 minute ago, Orangeator said:

It was a satirical post... I was not being serious. Although I was serious about it being funny to watch it happen. Like seriously, could you imagine Microsoft just leaving the EU. No longer selling any products. It would be detrimental to their economy and the EU would be powerless to stop them. And if Apple followed suit... Just goes to show how scary that two corporations could crush countries.

crush countries?!?!

no one will miss them one bit, there was a life before MS or Apple arrived in Europe and life will continue without them

[Orangeator]

4 minutes ago, zMeul said:

crush countries?!?!

no one will miss them one bit, there was a life before MS or Apple arrived in Europe and life will continue without them

Um yes, crush... How much money do you think Apple and Microsoft bring the EU annually? Probably hundreds of millions, if not billions. Not to mention the majority, the LARGE MAJORITY of electronics from laptops, desktops, and phones are all supplied from those two companies. If the two companies decided to revoke their licences from the devices as well, now they just monumentally fucked 80% of the population. However, I believe that part would be illegal in more then one way. 

[AresKrieger]

18 hours ago, zMeul said:

preventing consumers from buying cheaper games that may be available in other Member States.

They'll simply raise the price for everyone rather than lower it for everyone, though I will say blocking content is rather stupid and pointless as it simply encourages piracy.

[zMeul]

1 minute ago, Orangeator said:

Um yes, crush... How much money do you think Apple and Microsoft bring the EU annually? Probably hundreds of millions, if not billions. Not to mention the majority, the LARGE MAJORITY of electronics from laptops, desktops, and phones are all supplied from those to companies. If the two companies decided to revoke their licences from the devices as well, now they just monumentally fucked 80% of the population. However, I believe that part would be illegal in more then one way. 

bring to the EU?

none of the products MS or Apple and their affiliates are made in the EU

 

you overestimate the impact of MS and Apple; there are a lot of people in EU that don't even buy Apple

most of EU govs have slowly and steady moved away from MS' systems to Linux sollutions

[zMeul]

3 minutes ago, AresKrieger said:

They'll simply raise the price for everyone rather than lower it for everyone, though I will say blocking content is rather stupid and pointless as it simply encourages piracy.

if they artificially raise prices, guess what .. they'll have an investigation for that too 

[Orangeator]

3 minutes ago, zMeul said:

bring to the EU?

none of the products MS or Apple and their affiliates are made in the EU

 

you overestimate the impact of MS and Apple; there are a lot of people in EU that don't even buy Apple

most of EU govs have slowly and steady moved away from MS' systems to Linux sollutions

Yeah I mean the money spent on their products, by the citizens, which the government makes tax off of. I would like to see that Microsoft OS's and Apples OS's are not the most used in the EU. I honestly would be surprised if they don't own the majority of the market share. And omg, imagine if Google pulled android (I'd wager that's 60% or more of smartphones in the EU). I honestly think these three companies have way to much power, solely because of the mass amount of people that use their products. This is the same problem with cell phone carries in the US, there is not enough of them. Just a few and they dictate the terms and prices without next to any competition. To big to fail. Same with Intel, AMD, and Nvidia. There are just not enough companies that make these kinds of life changing products. That's my whole point of these posts, I have nothing against the EU, I just have everything against the lack of competition in the market place when it comes to electronics.

[AresKrieger]

8 minutes ago, zMeul said:

if they artificially raise prices, guess what .. they'll have an investigation for that too 

Its not artificial if they are forced by the EU to create parity is what I want to say, but unfortunately the EU is so retarded I can see that as a possibility lol

[tlink]

2 hours ago, Orangeator said:

Um yes, crush... How much money do you think Apple and Microsoft bring the EU annually? Probably hundreds of millions, if not billions. Not to mention the majority, the LARGE MAJORITY of electronics from laptops, desktops, and phones are all supplied from those two companies. If the two companies decided to revoke their licences from the devices as well, now they just monumentally fucked 80% of the population. However, I believe that part would be illegal in more then one way. 

any big company can destabalize the world economy if they wanted. But i doubt microsoft and apple would hurt is that muxh, consumers are not the ones you should worry about, its compant's with services dependand on it. I honestly would love it if microsoft and apple fucked right off because linux would bloom like a beautifull flower. To me that economic independence is worth the temporary down time.

[Master Disaster]

So have you all forgotten the reason behind these restrictions is to protect consumers who live in countries whose economies are not as strong?

 

Its very simple, someone from the UK buys 100 keys from Croatia and gets a 60% discount because the pound is worth more and games cost less there then proceeds to sell them on a UK marketplace and for 60% profit which he keeps.

 

The outcome of this will be equal pricing across all regions and no restrictions meaning consumers in poorer countries end up paying a months wages for one game. Good fucking job EU.

 

They shouldn't be going after Valve for protecting consumers from poorer countries, they should go after the fucktards running the grey market reselling sites who are responsible for Valve putting these restrictions in place. If dodgy buyers didn't have a way to move their dodgy keys on then this entire thing would be unnecessary.

[AresKrieger]

6 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

Its very simple, someone from the UK buys 100 keys from Croatia and gets a 60% discount because the pound is worth more and games cost less there then proceeds to sell them on a UK marketplace and for 60% profit which he keeps.

The prices would be independent of exchange rate (ie it would convert to the same price) the reason they are priced less is that consumers from those countries are less willing to pay a higher price due to having a weaker fiscal situation and therefor the company must lower the price if they expect anyone to buy their product.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

On 2/2/2017 at 1:08 PM, tlink said:

the general news i hear from the EU always is pretty pro consumer on this forum, is that just incidental? 

Well, the EU is mostly an agreement about market integration (the so-called "common market" from the pre-Euro days). Hence, it's not surprising that most of its activity deals with the functioning of markets and the behavior of its participant. The fact that its institutions aren't 100% sold out to large corporations is the result of a rather lucky deadlock between competing corporations trying to block each other's unfair advantages, plus the EU not being (but wanting to be) the most popular thing among its citizens. It's not just that some of these corporations are foreign, but also that most European ones have limited, national lobbying power only.

Therefore, it's important to use the current situation to prevent the rise of European-level monsters through competition policy, because once we get there, they'll have the Commission % co. in their pockets.