VAT on purchase

[Majestic12]

Steam can load games that are non-online by running it in Offline mode...if anyone knew that.

Dave, I'm assuming you already have a merchant account. One of my customers recommended "Neucart" as a shopping service. Then you can just use your PayPal and merchant account with it.

Offline mode on Steam has never worked properly - one time, the power cut out at my place and I tried to activate Steam in offline mode to go on playing Half Life 2 Episode 2. I double clicked the game and suddenly Steam dropped out of offline mode saying it wanted to check for updates. Result: refused to go in offline mode again and I was screwed 

Not to mention Steam is having a real bad rep the past few months combined with Paypal where people end up losing their entire account because Paypal messes up. I avoid buying games at all on Steam now. Two friends of mine already lost their account and every forum I go to has several people like that so it's quite a big problem.

Oh and I loved the Blackwell games - bought them on Gamersgate though to avoid VAT. I don't like VAT when it involves digital goods - I still find it goes against the spirit of the law to charge for a service given by a US company. The EU doesn't deserve my money if they're incapable of giving me the legal customer protection because it's not within their jurisdiction. It's really theft if you ask me to charge VAT like that because the VAT basically covers your rights.

[DaveGilbert]

Wait, just read an earlier post.  So it doesn't charge you VAT, but it doesn't tell you that until you actually hit "confirm"?

Ugh.

Just another reason to ditch Plimus.  Thanks for letting me know.

[alphatt]

I suggest putting up a notice while still using plimus.

Offline mode on Steam has never worked properly - one time, the power cut out at my place and I tried to activate Steam in offline mode to go on playing Half Life 2 Episode 2. I double clicked the game and suddenly Steam dropped out of offline mode saying it wanted to check for updates. Result: refused to go in offline mode again and I was screwed 

Not to mention Steam is having a real bad rep the past few months combined with Paypal where people end up losing their entire account because Paypal messes up. I avoid buying games at all on Steam now. Two friends of mine already lost their account and every forum I go to has several people like that so it's quite a big problem.

not sure when you used offline mode last, but it works fine for me, and I've been paying for every single  one of my 83 games with paypal. I can see errors happening but it's not a super regular occurance. Steam may sound scary if you're a newcomer to it, but trust me once you start using it, you'll get hooked.

[frederic09]

Hi Dave,

I bought some Visual Novels with BMT, and there are a VAT stuff too. Maybe it's like for Plimus, there are an option. Or maybe there are no choice at all.

I still prefer BMT, it's more easier than Plimus. I hope i'll see this payment system for Blackwell Deception ^_^

[Nathan Allen Pinar]

Dave,

What host are you running? Unless you're getting like...400k hits in a day on that cart, your servers should not have choked. I'm tempted to wonder if your host limits bandwidth? Although I may be underestimating the visits (not hits!)

Others:

Steam runs offline fine. But you have to be ONLINE to get OFFLINE. Ironic I know.

[CheekyBoinc]

Steam

Maybe its better to use this thread: Steam?

[Roddy]

LOL dude if you find a solution I recommend perhaps deleting this thread and forget it ever happened, I believe charging extra VAT (which I've been paying on all your games) and having that go to your profit (even if accidentally) is highely illegal.

I don't blame you since VAT is a PITA, and I don't really understand how VAT works internationally.

Edit: Actually I might be completely mistaken there, if you specifically claim to charge VAT but then take it as your own profit that's probably the highely illegal activity I was thinking of, BUT since you are using a 3rd-party-processor they might take care of sending that VAT to Europe.
So if I've understood this correctly no matter if you tick the "include VAT box" or not there will always be money sent to Euro government by your processing company, only difference being that you're changing the price of the product from $15 to ($15 + 15-25%).

[Roddy]

What host are you running? Unless you're getting like...400k hits in a day on that cart, your servers should not have choked. I'm tempted to wonder if your host limits bandwidth? Although I may be underestimating the visits (not hits!)

I'm guessing it has to do with the actual download of the product,
GR is 230mb, so let's say within it's first month it gets 100k buyers then that's 230x100.000 that's 23.000.000mb traffic i.e. 23.000 gb i.e. 23 terrabyte traffic for the busiest month, that kind of traffic is nothing to sneeze at!

[skybluerob]

Yes I paid VAT on Gemini Rue.  It's worth the extra if the money goes to the developers (as it's an excellent game), but I already pay enough tax here in the UK that I would begrudge it going to the taxman unenccesarily.

Having said that, I'm happy to leave it as it is.  I suppose someone's got to pay for all the teenage 'mums' (political jibe :-) )

Rob.

[DaveGilbert]

Actually, I checked with Plimus and it turns out the VAT isn't removed, but rather it's taken out of our share of the money.  :-/  So I'm going to have to reactivate the VAT again. 

In any case, the VAT is taken by Plimus and given to whatever government needs to be paid.  So that extra money does not go to us.  It's required by law, so somebody does have to pay it.  Any shop provider I use would charge VAT, even if I switch to BMT Micro (which is in the works!).  I'm honestly not sure what to do about this.  I could host a shop on my own site like I did in the old days, but as I said I've had bad experiences with that.  Maintaining the shop is a full time job in itself, but at least I wouldn't have to bother with VAT.  I'll have to think about this some more!

-Dave

[Roddy]

I could host a shop on my own site like I did in the old days, but as I said I've had bad experiences with that.

If you host it yourself the rules should be the same, with the exception that you could commit tax-fraud by "forgetting it"
Altho I've heard that they are having massive difficulty enforcing this law to force US sellers to send EU the VAT so you as a small developer might get away with it without a problem,

I'm suprised someone in this thread said he could simply change the address-box to US and the VAT went away (I heard that most of these sites are forced to check credit-card billing address), if that's true maybe you could hint at that in your text:
"EU customers (those who select a EU country in the dropdown box instead of US) will have to pay extra VAT-charge, those who have US selected in dropdown box will not have to pay VAT"

[DaveGilbert]

I haven't forgotten about this!  I've looked into VAT a bit more and I uncovered an answer to the original poster's question:

When I buy games in Telltalle game store in dollars I do not have to pay any VAT.

When I buy games on GoG.com store in dollars I do not have to pay any VAT.

VAT only applies when you are purchasing from the US.  GoG is not a US company, so they wouldn't charge you VAT.  As for Telltale, they absorb the cost of the VAT themselves.  If the VAT is 25%, they lose 25% of their money to cover the VAT.  So the customer never sees it.  Telltale has the volume to be able to cover the loss, but I'm not sure a shop like mine could.  So for now I'm going to have to keep the VAT in place.