EA BW is kinda stealing real life money from us with their GTN, trade and mail tax ideas (and the current taxes too)

[wombatjake]

Hear my wall o text out please lol. 
If I pay real money, which btw now comes with a real tax in my state, to buy something off the cartel market to sell in the GTN, or trade, for example, those credits earned are bought with real life money. It's a half step away from directly buying credits. EA is stealing our real life money with these taxes. 

Gold sellers, as we can clearly see in chat and around the internet, have not stopped farming SWTOR or advertising. The in game taxation doesn't prevent other expoits people may pull either. And the taxes wont ever be high enough to stop a scammer who cheats people via in game mail or trade, because obviously a 500 million dollar item FOR FREE from scamming someone will numb the pain of ANY tax, because it is pure profit. So there is literally no benefit to any one. Even EA so this makes no sense lol.

I wont lie; so chill before you attack me with too much furor lol, I don't know if im right or if people agree. I just feel that I am right about this. It's wild they can do this. We are not getting any thing from being taxed that benefits us. It isn't like using our creds to buy things from other players or NPCs. Those prices are a mutually agreed upon fee and/or market based corrections, we gamers are saying 'yes' to buy paying the price in question, or haggling, etc., and NPC fake bank accounts have a lore and immersion factor to them. Also, most IMPORTANT items from NPCs can be made or found by the player. So IF someone doesn't want to pay for a mod for armor or they want a better one, they can craft it, get a gift from someone, or buy from the GTN. But EA wants that to cost more than the agreed upon price between player and player. 

(And no, i certainly don't want the devs to freakin add lore to why we are being taxed in order to excuse it, but there is an immersion factor in paying an NPC for an item, and it prevents the weird play that would emerge if every thing were free)
 

Edited May 5, 2023 by wombatjake

[Nee-Elder]

7 minutes ago, wombatjake said:

 We are not getting any thing from being taxed that benefits us.

This ^ is why i made the following suggestion in another related thread--> https://forums.swtor.com/topic/929143-73-credit-economy-initiative-updates-and-the-gtn/?do=findComment&comment=9755379

[Char_Ell]

1 hour ago, wombatjake said:

If I pay real money, which btw now comes with a real tax in my state, to buy something off the cartel market to sell in the GTN, or trade, for example, those credits earned are bought with real life money. It's a half step away from directly buying credits. EA is stealing our real life money with these taxes. 

It has been this way since the Cartel Market was added to the game in 2012.  The GTN has always assessed a fee for selling items, both in-game and cartel market.  Why is this a concern now?  Anytime someone purchases cartel coins using real money they are purchasing the right to acquire what EA refers to as "entitlements" (refer to EA Terms of Service section 3).  When a player uses cartel coins (EA Virtual Currency) to acquire said entitlements (a.k.a. cartel market items) that is a second transaction.  No "tax" is levied.  If you choose to use the purchased entitlements on your own account for your own characters no additional "tax" is levied.  However if you choose to sell the entitlement to other players for in-game credits then you are attempting to engage in a third transaction and EA/BioWare has chosen to assess a fee as a part of allowing this third transaction to occur between players.

1 hour ago, wombatjake said:

Gold sellers, as we can clearly see in chat and around the internet, have not stopped farming SWTOR or advertising. The in game taxation doesn't prevent other expoits people may pull either. And the taxes wont ever be high enough to stop a scammer who cheats people via in game mail or trade, because obviously a 500 million dollar item FOR FREE from scamming someone will numb the pain of ANY tax, because it is pure profit. So there is literally no benefit to any one. Even EA so this makes no sense lol.

I don't get what you are saying here.  You seem to be conflating "taxation" with credit exploits.  Additionally you seem to be applying all the principles of a real world economy and governmental taxation systems with a virtual economy.  While there are many similarities between real world and virtual economies they are not the same.  BioWare is not a government that needs taxes from in-game credits to operate like a real world government does.  BioWare needs real world money to operate its virtual economy.  So any "taxes" in SWTOR's game economy are not the same as taxes a real world government assesses.  Additionally it looks like BioWare refers to the in-game credits they deduct from GTN transactions, and in the future player-to-player transactions, as a fee (see recent post by BioWare dev regarding the studio's credit economy initiative).

[xordevoreaux]

1 hour ago, wombatjake said:

EA is stealing our real life money with these taxes. 

1. You spend real cash buying cartel coins to purchase something off the cartel market.

2. You place it on the GTN for a sale.

3. The item sells, you receive the mail for the item, but...

4. You don't log on for 30 days, and the in-game mail (and the profit attached to it) is subsequently deleted from the system.

That really happened someone recently on the forums.

Where, in that scenario, is the theft then? Wasn't via taxes. Was via a different mechanism altogether. 

[xordevoreaux]

3 minutes ago, Char_Ell said:

It has been this way since the Cartel Market was added to the game in 2012.  The GTN has always assessed a fee for selling items, both in-game and cartel market.  Why is this a concern now? 

Good question, given the person posting that as a problem has a profile which shows he joined in 2011, so he should have had plenty of experience with that, so why now does the OP bother to complain about a decade+ old system?

[Aghasett]

58 minutes ago, xordevoreaux said:

Good question, given the person posting that as a problem has a profile which shows he joined in 2011, so he should have had plenty of experience with that, so why now does the OP bother to complain about a decade+ old system?

Because it's getting more...taxing? 🤔

[jedimasterjac]

3 hours ago, wombatjake said:

Hear my wall o text out please lol. 
If I pay real money, which btw now comes with a real tax in my state, to buy something off the cartel market to sell in the GTN, or trade, for example, those credits earned are bought with real life money. It's a half step away from directly buying credits. EA is stealing our real life money with these taxes. 

Gold sellers, as we can clearly see in chat and around the internet, have not stopped farming SWTOR or advertising. The in game taxation doesn't prevent other expoits people may pull either. And the taxes wont ever be high enough to stop a scammer who cheats people via in game mail or trade, because obviously a 500 million dollar item FOR FREE from scamming someone will numb the pain of ANY tax, because it is pure profit. So there is literally no benefit to any one. Even EA so this makes no sense lol.

I wont lie; so chill before you attack me with too much furor lol, I don't know if im right or if people agree. I just feel that I am right about this. It's wild they can do this. We are not getting any thing from being taxed that benefits us. It isn't like using our creds to buy things from other players or NPCs. Those prices are a mutually agreed upon fee and/or market based corrections, we gamers are saying 'yes' to buy paying the price in question, or haggling, etc., and NPC fake bank accounts have a lore and immersion factor to them. Also, most IMPORTANT items from NPCs can be made or found by the player. So IF someone doesn't want to pay for a mod for armor or they want a better one, they can craft it, get a gift from someone, or buy from the GTN. But EA wants that to cost more than the agreed upon price between player and player. 

(And no, i certainly don't want the devs to freakin add lore to why we are being taxed in order to excuse it, but there is an immersion factor in paying an NPC for an item, and it prevents the weird play that would emerge if every thing were free)
 

There’s already a GTN commission fee. You didn’t seem to care then. 

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

7 hours ago, wombatjake said:

If I pay real money, which btw now comes with a real tax in my state, to buy something off the cartel market to sell in the GTN, or trade, for example, those credits earned are bought with real life money. It's a half step away from directly buying credits. EA is stealing our real life money with these taxes. 

Okay, firstly, paying taxes isn't 'stealing', it's a civic duty. EA/BW isn't taxing you with real life money, that's the government. EA/BW don't get the tax fees. - You cannot have a government, a country, or a society without taxes. Where is the money to pay for sanitation, trains, subways, schools, roads, emergency services, etc. suppose to come from without citizens paying taxes?

EA/BW isn't stealing anything. You are aware that you won't die if you don't play this game, right? You gave them your money knowingly and intentionally, and you get a service for it.

I really don't get why people have this problem with players who buy things with real money in the Cartel Store and than sell those items to earn in game credits. It's their money and they can do whatever the hell they want with it, and it isn't anyone else's business how they use their own money. - If you object to that practice, well than don't do it yourself.

This whole game economy/inflation thing has gotten way out of hand. It is so insanely stupid easy to make tons of credits in this game without spending a single cent of real life money, it's not even funny.

In this last 6 months, I have made in excess of 70 billion credits without buying anything from the Cartel Market to sell or via credit sellers doing nothing but selling things from crafting and deco-hunting and selling those decos on the GTN.

Does that take some time and effort? Sure it does. But making money tends to have a relationship with how much work you do and time spent doing it.

You are also not taking into account that subscribers get 500 Cartel coins each month for free. So people can use those free cartel coins to buy things from the Cartel Market to sell for in game credits, for free.

I could not possibly give less of a rat's azz if someone sells Cartel Items for in game profit, whether they paid real life money for it or not. I could likewise give less of a rat's azz if people buy credits from credit sellers. - It doesn't effect me in the slightest.

Now, here's the secret as to how I hold such a nonchalant POV about this subject.

V

I

D

E

O

Game.

Edited May 6, 2023 by WayOfTheWarriorx

[Pirana]

There is no stealing. You knowingly spent your own money on something that was entirely an option, a video game, taxed or not, you made the decision to spend. Best way to avoid this, yep, you guessed it, don't spend your money. 

[Eckrond]

Didn't read this wall of text, because you have no argument.  You are selling at the price you choose to sell at, therefore you can price your items to compensate for the tax; case closed, move on.

[Sanchpanza]

On 5/5/2023 at 6:02 PM, wombatjake said:

Hear my wall o text out please lol. 
If I pay real money, which btw now comes with a real tax in my state, to buy something off the cartel market to sell in the GTN, or trade, for example, those credits earned are bought with real life money. It's a half step away from directly buying credits. EA is stealing our real life money with these taxes.
 

They're not stealing your RL money. You're thinking of the credits in game as having an inherent value, they don't. The item you sold had the value, the credits are valued based on what people are willing to spend on the items that have real value.

Say you buy something that's worth 10$ and the market dictates that it's worth 100cr. Each of those credits is worth 0.1$.

If by the taxation of the GTN and various other fees the selling price of that item is now 50cr, then each of those credits is now worth 0.2$. Taking credits out of the system actually increases the value of them, not decreases them. People who are pumping money into the system without it being taken out are the ones who are reducing the value on those credits. As things stand, in a year you'll have lost a ton of value on all the credits you have if inflation continues to rise at a crazy rate.

[Ominovin]

On 5/5/2023 at 6:02 PM, wombatjake said:

Hear my wall o text out please lol. 
If I pay real money, which btw now comes with a real tax in my state, to buy something off the cartel market to sell in the GTN, or trade, for example, those credits earned are bought with real life money. It's a half step away from directly buying credits. EA is stealing our real life money with these taxes. 

Gold sellers, as we can clearly see in chat and around the internet, have not stopped farming SWTOR or advertising. The in game taxation doesn't prevent other expoits people may pull either. And the taxes wont ever be high enough to stop a scammer who cheats people via in game mail or trade, because obviously a 500 million dollar item FOR FREE from scamming someone will numb the pain of ANY tax, because it is pure profit. So there is literally no benefit to any one. Even EA so this makes no sense lol.

I wont lie; so chill before you attack me with too much furor lol, I don't know if im right or if people agree. I just feel that I am right about this. It's wild they can do this. We are not getting any thing from being taxed that benefits us. It isn't like using our creds to buy things from other players or NPCs. Those prices are a mutually agreed upon fee and/or market based corrections, we gamers are saying 'yes' to buy paying the price in question, or haggling, etc., and NPC fake bank accounts have a lore and immersion factor to them. Also, most IMPORTANT items from NPCs can be made or found by the player. So IF someone doesn't want to pay for a mod for armor or they want a better one, they can craft it, get a gift from someone, or buy from the GTN. But EA wants that to cost more than the agreed upon price between player and player. 

(And no, i certainly don't want the devs to freakin add lore to why we are being taxed in order to excuse it, but there is an immersion factor in paying an NPC for an item, and it prevents the weird play that would emerge if every thing were free)
 

You do seem to be missing one minor point, and that is the fact that you actually own exactly two things in game:

1. Diddly, and
2. Squat.

Everything in game (except the Star Wars IP itself) is owned by Bioware (including characters, items, credits, and cartel coins) and your subscription fees and/or Cartel Coin purchases just grant you permission to play with them on Bioware's terms (which they can alter at any time).

If you actually dig through their terms, you'll find all online games work like this:  It's just not feasible to run such a game in any other way,...

[Diamaht]

It's more of a "gotcha" argument against a change they don't like.

If they can rationalize a thing they don't like into something far worse then they can force it to go away without having to actually form a contextual argument.

 

[eabevella]

BW makes GTN tax becasue in game credits can be generated indefinitely, there has to be a way for them to "disappear" otherwise credits will be worthless - exactly what was happening in the past couple of years.

The details of what BW proposed (progressive tax, tax for trade/mail etc.) might still need to be discussed, but that is exactly what needed to be done to put an effective band-aid to heal the economy.

BW would be stealing our irl money if they do nothing about it - when the CM items you buy with irl money "worth" nothing in terms of in game credits.

[supertimtaf]

I like the idea that the GTN taxes and fees are "stealing" your real-life money because you're using it to buy CM items that you sell at an absurd price then to other players.

I find it *really amusing* that the issue for you is that you can't "farm credits" in a fair and efficient way with real money. While the real issue is that you shouldn't be allowed to sell cash shop items to other players in the first place. 

We found this "You can basically convert CCs for Credits with the GTN" system absurd since it was released, as no other "successfull" mmo needed this to give players an incentive to use their marketboard. And now Bioware made it such a part of their economy that the whole GTN would collapse in an instant if you removed this (which they should if they really want to make this game a good one, let's be honest).

Besides, you didn't seem bothered by the current fees for any GTN transactions until now, so... Why now ? 😕 Again, if for you the issue is that you won't be able to convert efficiently real money for credits, I think your reasoning may be a bit flawed in the first place, as no mmos should do that to keep a stable economy... But eh, it's ok.
Now you can just lower your prices, so the taxes and fees will be lower too, and you'll have done your part in reducing this stupid inflation most players have put on this game. I hate to say it, but if "back in my days", you could buy any armor for 50Mil that came from the cash shop, why wouldn't you do that now ? It's not like the real money price changed... :')

[DawnAskham]

Just don't buy stuff off the CM to sell in-game for credits - problem solved.

Edited May 8, 2023 by DawnAskham

[Nee-Elder]

41 minutes ago, DawnAskham said:

Just don't buy stuff off the CM to sell in-game for credits - problem solved.

Yeah cuz human gamers on the interwebs are ever so trustworthy & noble.

[Balameb]

On 5/5/2023 at 8:02 PM, wombatjake said:

(And no, i certainly don't want the devs to freakin add lore to why we are being taxed in order to excuse it, but there is an immersion factor in paying an NPC for an item, and it prevents the weird play that would emerge if every thing were free)

No need for new lore. How can empire/republic maintain their fleets? How can the vendors pay for all your junk if they rarely actually sale something new?