Regional Pricing

VR-ARRIVAL

With regards to regional pricing - is there any plans for that to be applied to the SpringboardVR set station monthly pricing as well as to the content ppm pricing (if the software developers opt in)? I have only heard Regional Pricing referred to with regards to the content ppm. If not, can SpringboardVR provide a rationale as to why not if there is recognition that price parity is important?

Jordan

Andrew,

Regional pricing ensures you are charged a fair rate based on your country's purchasing power parity. We do have flexibility on Springboard subscription services we handle manually. Certain countries can expect to see discounts on commercial licensing. However, based on purchasing power, Australia will not be one of those countries.

You can read more about purchasing power here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_power

arena.vr

How about Canada? And just checked AUD rates. Australia have to pay extra 40% and Canada 30-35% (which i'm already paying every single month) because of exchange rates. Fair enough...actually no!

gameovr

The USD commercial rates here in Canada have been absolutely killing us and we have been waiting patiently for updates on this for a long time. Almost every 3rd party deal we've signed with devs has been in CAD and there is some very premium content we are getting for cheaper then the per minute rates we are paying through springboard on cheap early access games. Is this still a priority for Springboard?

Conor

Sometimes I don't get this argument though, yes the price is 30% /40% higher when converted to your local currency, but wages are generally equally higher.

Median household income in Canada CAD$76k vs US$54k in the United States.

I think you have a pricing problem and not a currency problem!

I see loads of Canadian arcades matching the US price but in CAD, going for CAD$25 an hour!

Guys in my part of the world charging higher than that in Euro and Sterling!

Ultra slim margins at CAD$25 an hour

gameovr

Conor

Unfortunately prices are set by the big players up here. We have franchises with over a dozen locations priced at $25/ hr OR LESS. Last summer ctrl v a 15 min drive down the road from us was as low as $13/hr 7 days a week. If we charged what we needed to to make the same margins we would be out of business because nobody would come in the door. We also have a high portion of arcades here that do not pay any licensing at all to anyone so they can afford to charge way less. The first arcade in edmonton started out at $15/hr regular price and they were the only arcade in town so they could set the price. It's not as simple as just looking at income, a median price has been established for the region.

Conor

gameovr

I have a competitor who sells as low as €10 an hour some days. The other competitor does groupons at €12 an hour (he gets maybe €8)

I am €25/€30 per hour with no discounts ever and would be way busier than both of them.

Price is not the only thing customers consider

gameovr

Conor, your dollar is about 10% higher and ours is about 30% Lower than USD. So for us to have the same margins as you we would have to charge about $50/hour. The market in Canada is nowhere near as mature as the uk and europe so the $15-$25 isnt the outliers they are the countrywide average. There isnt a single place in business over $35/hour that lasts more than 6 months.

kootenayvirtualreali

Is this a dead issue? I have not hear anything else from Springboard and they said it would be here this spring.

arena.vr

kootenayvirtualreali

inaweekorso

soon

illchatwithdevs

:man_facepalming::man_facepalming::man_facepalming:

Jayson_Paglow

@kootenayvirtualreali

Hey Steve,

Thanks for reaching out! Being in over 44 countries we understand this is a major pain point and we're looking to address it ASAP. We currently have it on our Public Roadmap to be solved in the next 3 months.

With that being said, as the markets change sometimes we have to make difficult decisions and prioritize new issues over ones we plan to solve. I know how frustrating it can be to wait for a solution but I want you to know we take this issue very seriously and will release regional pricing as soon as possible.

Thanks again for following up and we hope to have this issue resolved soon.

kootenayvirtualreali

Jayson here we are 6 months later and again no thing on pricing. The exchange rate now will be the nail in our businesses coffin. As of today $800.00 us dollars costs us over $1200.00 Canadian. You said you were looking into it asap. Well it might be to little to late

gameovr

Im kind of glad we are shut down right now because this drop in the Canadian dollar would be killing us otherwise. a .10/min game like arizona sunshine would be 35% of gross sales at $25/hour, which is more than double the 15% rev share springboard’s white paper suggested we need to have to be profitable. Even 6 cent/min games are over 20% of gross sales, and if we have coupons, or deals on top of that it’s even lower. I know springboard is doing a lot right now to help operators and I am grateful for that but if the Canadian dollar is going to be below 70 cents US when we re-open we are going to have to pull every game we are paying for in USD if we have any hope of surviving.

kootenayvirtualreali

Thanks for your input. Springboard does not seam to get this,and just keep stringing us along say soon and it is a priority. We are in the same position and will have to make some drastic changes soon.