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Nintendo Argentina webstore is selling digital codes for some switch games. [see staff posts]
- Thread starter Chessguy1
- Start date
I feel good and bad that my transactions went through. Glad it did since I now have the games, and bad that my bank has no issues with putting through random Argentina transactions.
Us Argentinians are probably fucked then, right? Thanks internet.
This feels dirty to me. Jumping through hoops to buy and making up a fake address seems not to be playing the game in good faith.
Not gonna judge. Definitely not illegal. Definitely not piracy. But at minimum, it's morally ambiguous.
Enjoy your games! I think I'd rather pay a few extra bucks and support the devs by purchasing and their agreed upon price, rather than taking advantage of a strong dollar in a different company (that's had trouble wooing developers and releases in the past).
Not gonna judge. Definitely not illegal. Definitely not piracy. But at minimum, it's morally ambiguous.
Enjoy your games! I think I'd rather pay a few extra bucks and support the devs by purchasing and their agreed upon price, rather than taking advantage of a strong dollar in a different company (that's had trouble wooing developers and releases in the past).
just imagine that you wanted to fly to Argentina, do a currency exchange, and buy the games fair and square, but you're choosing to ethically conserve jet fuel
Yeah, just to give perspective, legally the minimum wage here in Argentina is 230 USD (today, if the dollar goes up the salary goes down), if they raise prices no one would buy a single game, which is why stores do special pricing here (Blizzard was the first one IIRC, Microsoft and Valve are great too). I get wanting to save a few bucks, buuuut... Grey area all around, I just hope that the prices aren't raised for us
Edit: average salary here is about 360 USD, at least in my profession
Edit: average salary here is about 360 USD, at least in my profession
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I'm cheap as shit and love a good bargain, not gonna bother with this though as I know my NZ card wouldn't work with it even if I wanted too.
Does make me concerned though when things like this pop up because I worry Nintendo will get all Nintendo-like and change the region free life back to the dark days because of some lost dollars. >_<
Being region free is so important to me!
Does make me concerned though when things like this pop up because I worry Nintendo will get all Nintendo-like and change the region free life back to the dark days because of some lost dollars. >_<
Being region free is so important to me!
i just dont want to hurt argentinians, their president is already torpedoing the economy hard enough, they could use some Katana Zero to relax
You do know that physical games in Mexico and South America aren't cheaper than what you can buy in the US right?
This analogy falls flat.
UPDATE: Indeed, they are incorrect as ever. Ignore them.
This is my hypothesis:
Just so people understand how Nintendo is able to accept digital codes you purchase in the Argentine region, this is most likely caused by political reasons:
Due to the above event happening in mid-August, or last month, Argentine peso current weakened between August and September. Super-deflation will cause video game prices to plunge to really cheap prices, if we are to use another country's strong currency (USD) value to make purchases.
Hence, in USA, a game costing $15 USD will cost about $3 USD when converted, taking account of the inflation/deflation of the now weakened Argentine peso. What would amount to $88 USD normally, if using peso and taking into account the deflation, it will cost around $15 USD.
But, please correct me if my hypothesis is incorrect.
Just so people understand how Nintendo is able to accept digital codes you purchase in the Argentine region, this is most likely caused by political reasons:
Due to the above event happening in mid-August, or last month, Argentine peso current weakened between August and September. Super-deflation will cause video game prices to plunge to really cheap prices, if we are to use another country's strong currency (USD) value to make purchases.
Hence, in USA, a game costing $15 USD will cost about $3 USD when converted, taking account of the inflation/deflation of the now weakened Argentine peso. What would amount to $88 USD normally, if using peso and taking into account the deflation, it will cost around $15 USD.
But, please correct me if my hypothesis is incorrect.
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Your hypothesis is indeed incorrect (for starters, that article's headline seems biased AF and it's basically citing the crap our current government tries to peddle as an excuse for the mess they've made here).
Some games cost less here compared to the US for example, because the developers/publishers understand that they can't ask people from a country where a teacher earns less than 500 dollars per month (and that's not the minimum wage, by the way) to pay the same as a place where they might earn 5x/10x that. That's how regional pricing works. Companies do the math and try to adjust the price of their games so people can actually afford them. That's also why it's pretty crappy to see people from places where they earn 10x what we earn exploiting it (that, plus the very real fear that the powers that be will just stop doing regional pricing and punish us instead of the a-holes who abuse it).
This is much older than just a few months, even your article mentions it.
The strengthening dollar has made it harder for countries with dollar denominated debt to pay it back, it is effectively more expensive for them.
This is being exacerbated by the fact that the current govt in Argentina has done jack shit to stop the hyper inflation the past four years, and was trying to introduce severe austerity measures, in a sense, they fucked up, and want to take it out on everyone else.
So people are voting for the other side of the pendulum, and that is fucking up things even more, even though the actual elections haven't happened yet. And the reason it is getting messier is because banks worry it will negatively affect global finances. When in fact there is currently no evidence.
So taking advantage of it is kind of scummy, its kind of a gray area, and honestly don't have it in me to chastise people.
If you have used the Mex Eshop and seen how that has gotten worse due to everyone else raiding it when prices were really low, it would only be a matter of time before Nintendo closes off Argentina's eshop
Edit -- See post above. It seems a mess.
Fun fact: in the mexican eShop those Nintendo games are more expensive, 1599 pesos mexicanos, around almost 80 dollars
But the prices for indies and other publishers can be very good.
Ahh, I see. Thanks for all of the corrections. I should better cross out my post.
Nintendo really don't care, otherwise they would put similar restrictions as the PSN. I live in México and I change between the mexican and USA stores, I suspect my debit card could work in other eShop versions but I don't feel like I want abuse and make worse to my fellow latino Switch users.
Got Wargroove and Cuphead but thanks to a fellow Era member. I'm trying to get Katana Zero but the store won't accept my credit card, or even Revolut. If anyone is willing to sell a code I'll pay $5. Cheers
Receipts for what? Nintendo still lets you hop around regions with your international CC, and instead of adding extra layer of authentication like everyone else, they just jack up the price. This also happened with MXN store and I don't blame people from Argentina if they're worried about a price hike.
Same here in India. Gears 5 is about $18. I'm glad Steam has robust region locking, otherwise we'd be fucked too.
These are good deals but as someone from South Africa I will rather not be an asshole by making another financially struggling country's prices skyrocket to save quick buck. Thank fuck for steam region locking, we have the gears 5 price too.
Tried multiple cards and couldn't get it working today. I assume there's no other way to pay for stuff on the Argentina eShop? Annoying that it doesn't take Paypal :<
If anyone wants to help me out and get a few items for me I'd be willing to throw them a few bucks for their trouble.
If anyone wants to help me out and get a few items for me I'd be willing to throw them a few bucks for their trouble.
User Warned: Hostility.
Hollow Knight is an incredibly polished 60 hours game which was priased for being sold at a really low price (15 bucks).
You have to be a fucking scumbag to buy specifically that one from the Argentina eshop, and I see many scumbags in this thread.
You have to be a fucking scumbag to buy specifically that one from the Argentina eshop, and I see many scumbags in this thread.
I bought two games just to see if it would go through and my bank called me almost immediately. I'm glad they didn't freeze my card or anything.
I'd refrain from using an epithet as strong as SCUMBAG for someone guilty of buying a digital goods on a store to save a few bucks, c'mon man.
I do agree that HK is a crazy deal already and I was ecstatic about getting it at launch for just 15€.
That being said, if some people haven't bought it yet despite being out for so long even when it was on sale for just €10 then it's safe to say they would have never grabbed it if not the ARG eShop's price. It's a gained sale for Team Cherry. Certainly nothing deserving people to be called scumbags.
I'm seriously interested in hearing the official stance of Era regarding this.
You're basically doing frauds for buying games in another country for cheap. It's bypassing the legit way. And I keep finding this kind of thread over the years.
You're basically doing frauds for buying games in another country for cheap. It's bypassing the legit way. And I keep finding this kind of thread over the years.
Yes, it is.
I said what I said.
If they had such limited interest in the game, they probably won't finish it anyway as it's quite tough. But the direct result of their selfish actions will probably be that the regional prices are going to increase, depriving some people with a legitimate interest in the game to play it. This level of entitlement is just scummy, but not surprising from first world country citizens.
I am also currently not living in the US, Japan, Hong Kong, UK and Austria. Nobody cares.
This is not piracy, it's arbitrage. Not illegal but can be exploitative depending on how lopsided it becomes.
While it's in most cases a violation of an agreed upon TOS or EULA, most digital merchants, Nintendo likely included, are unlikely to enforce it as a direct user violation and will instead monitor for excessive arbitrage and restrict the access to such where it becomes a liability.
In basic terms they will prevent incoming payments from X territory to settle in Y territory where the price ratio is too extreme, simply happens too frequently, or violates terms of sale agreements between the merchant (Nintendo) and product-owner (Publishers in this case).
Not just because legitimate users are getting "one up on them", but because it also attracts organised fraud (with a capital F), which is entirely destructive to both Nintendo's and the Publishers' business. Fraud is in majority of cases the primary reason why a market receives a sudden raise in local pricing, not because the average Joe buys a game for cheap.
Companies do it without going through the loopholes such as falsifying their address or using VPN.
Amazon prime CC worked with no problems.
Redeeming codes on your main account and getting coins also no problems.
Thank OP and CAG!
Redeeming codes on your main account and getting coins also no problems.
Thank OP and CAG!
They do things much worse like changing their address to pay less tribute to the country they are actually from and explore poor countries working force.