Will the new USA trade tariffs effect the cost of overseas game subscription in general, and here in Australia in particular?
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I have a cat named Itty
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Is anything being imported? Don’t tariffs generally affect imported goods?
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It’s a service. Does that count ?
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Ew politics.
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The monthly sub has already gone up by $5 AUD. So from 20AUD → 25AUD.
I don’t know if that’s a tariff thing or just Blizz jacking up the price cuz why not.
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That was because the value of aud dropped compared to usd. It has to do with currency exchange rates.
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The only reason the sub would go up due to some form of tax in Australia is if the Australian government was the one enacting a new tax on foreign services and IP usage.
I believe there’s discussion on removing US IP protection on imported pharmaceuticals as retaliation for US pharma whining to Trump about why medicine is so cheap in Australia (it actually isn’t. it’s just the americans pay way too much). So basically Australia could adopt Chinese policy of outright disabling foreign IP laws in the domestic market. But that’s about it.
We already started punishing the US by selling our new radar tech to Canada instead. So now the Canadians have superior radar systems to the Americans.
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Makes sense I guess. Everything else in this country is extortionately priced anyway so might as well add the WoW subscription to the list.
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getting in on the ground floor of this soon to be TRAINWRECK. now to wait for the usual suspects to arrive.
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No, if you READ what they are putting tariffs on, it’s stuff that other countries have tariffs on us for.
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Not unless the Govt of your country implements counter-tariffs on US goods or services in retaliation for the US implementing tariffs on imported goods from your country, and it’s not likely that digital subscriptions would count because there’s no “good” being imported.
So basically, not very likely.
IIRC, tariffs only apply to physical objects, and are paid by the entity importing them to the country.
That would be a regulation, not a tariff.
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Why would they?
Tariffs are something the country issuing them pays. Not the other way around. If the US slaps a tariff on sneakers from China, anyone in the US importing sneakers from China has to pay more. No one in China does.
Which is why the Australian government has refused to engage in reciprocal tariffs in response to American tariffs on our steel and aluminium. Our leaders are aware that putting tariffs on another nation hurts us and that such tactics only make our lives harder, all so the government can get a bit of extra revenue. It’s not worth it.
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Cannot wait to see the spectacular way in which this thread will be 404’d.
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Only if you live in the US because everything is about to get so expensive you might not be able to afford a subscription, or work for a company who produces goods imported solely to the US via a country that has active tariffs imposed. (I don’t believe that includes Australia. More specifics below.)
Yes. Tariffs are imposed on the domestic purchase of imported goods to encourage people to buy domestic versions of things.
- To be clear: No country can/has the legal authority to impose a “tax” on another country. A tariff imposed on all imports from China by any foreign (not China) government means the importers (Walmart for example), pays the tariff to the government imposing the tariff (in this case the US), then passes that cost on to their customers in the form of higher prices.
Example: The US imports aluminum from Canada and China because it became too expensive to mine bauxite and smelt it into aluminum domestically and is more cost effective to import it. However, now that the US has imposed heavy tariffs on Canada and China, everything that has aluminum is going to be even more expensive because it’s mostly impossible/prohibitively expensive/time-consuming on a decades level, to restart the domestic bauxite mining industry.
Seriously, imagine trying to find experienced workers for an industry that mostly disappeared in 1982.
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Unless they extend tariffs to digital goods, no, that shouldn’t be a concern. This is far from over though, so it’s hard to say where or when it’ll end. They are likely already affecting some peoples’ ability to pay for a subscription at all. It’s wonderful, isn’t it? All this suffering for the average person just so a few billionaires can get some tax breaks. 
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Why do you ask questions to which you already know the answer?
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