Will digital VAT ruin VG industry in Europe?

https://www.gov.uk/vat-on-digital-services-in-the-eu

Starting from Jan 1, all the European countries will introduce a value added tax on all digitally distributed goods.

Personally I'm boiling with rage as the prices already are at least 40% higher than in the US, even with all the tax ramifications notwithstanding, I wonder what would the implications of this act be. Certainly higher prices, but how much higher? I'm afraid soon there's not gonna be any point to

owning a console in Europe with games costing twice as much and more than half services not functioning.

In the UK there's additionally a VAT on video games as well. I have a musician friend who will pull out his albums for digital download as it's not only gonna be not profitable but also he'd lose more money.

Welcome to the Dark ages, bros.

'Murica is all that matters

I'm sure Valve, Sony and MS will change their prices over here to compensate. The prices have always been higher, now they can lower them. OR alternatively, they coould potentially lose the entire European market.

If prices do indeed go even higher on Steam, I will resort to getting my games elsewhere c:

So does that mean that digital games in the UK will cost more? That would make Ubisoft games extremely more expensive than they already are.

In UK you already pay tax on digital goods

it's inevitable that digital taxes will hit the US as well.

However, even with taxes I would hardly call this the dark ages. Games are still cheaper then they have been in the past, and they're are many more gaming options to choose from.

Don't buy games digitally. It's a bad investment anyway.

So much taxes.

Buying digital is lame anyways. Well, unless a sale is going on.

Sometimes you don't have a choice. It's digital or nothing.

@Boddicker: You always have a choice. If the game is only offered digitally, just don't buy it, that's what I do. You should never feel forced to buy a game digitally if it's your only option of playing it. Simply walk away and save your money for something else. It really is easy to take a stand and just say no.

I was under the impression stuff like Steam had VAT on the price anyway, at least in the UK... so whats the problem?

I already pay VAT on Steam, Origin etc. not a big deal.

I buy all my games digitally. I have two xbox ones in the house. When my friends come round, they can logon with their profiles into the main xbox while I logon to the second xbox and we can play together. So effectively with a single purchase of a digital game we can both play simultaneously. Besides swapping discs just because I want to play another game is so last gen. Even with the outage over Christmas, all I had to do was put my main console into "offline" mode and I was able to continue playing my digital games. The only good thing about physical discs is that you can re-sell them. But I hardly sell my games because the depreciation is so bad its not worth it. I don't buy second hand games either because for couple of quids more you can buy new - besides I want to support the developers.

Your cheque's in the post, Insipid8.