I must admit that I have considered buying a few gems, however I found the prices to be shall we say… a bit steep. I checked out the prices of Gems in Castle Empire and found them to be the numerically the same even if the currency was a weaker one. Add to that Castle Empire has super deals. So not only are STO players getting ripped off by a 1-1 exchange rate from USD to Euro, they don’t get the really nice deals which give literally thousands of gems extra to Castle Empire players.
I know Bluebyte and Ubisoft are all about the money but this is a ridiculous. The easy answer will ofc be that Ubisoft can’t be hassled with daily exchange rates, I for one find such an answer unsatisfactory. I truly enjoy this game and wouldn’t mind throwing a few euros after it, but I sure in hell wont do it if I know that I can get a better deal for exactly the same product elsewhere.
I can’t expect people to check this for themselves due to the IP blocker on Castle Empire so I’ll reproduce the castle empire and STO price lists below. Keep in mind that the exchange rate at the time of writing is 1 USD = 0.757450 EUR
Prices on Castle Empire gems:
200 Gems = $1.99
600 Gems = $4.99
1700 Gems = $9.99
4800 Gems= $24.99
11000 Gems= $49.99
24000 Gems= $79.99 (Sale: Reg $99.99)
24000 Gems =$99.99
48000 Gems =$99.99 (Mega Happy Hour)
Prices on STO
200 Gems = €1.99
600 Gems = €4.99
1700 Gems = €9.99
4800 Gems= €24.99
11000 Gems= €49.99
24000 Gems =€99.99
To sum up in you play castle empire you get as a minimum 25% more gems for you money, and if you buy the Mega Happy Hour offer you get more than 200% the amount of gems you’d get on STO. If there’s a good reason for these price differences I can’t help but wonder what it is, does anyone know… or is it just pure greed?