Game Design, Programming and running a one-man games business…

nail-biting Exchange rate woes

cliffski

I generally get paid in dollars. Even if you buy my games in Euros, it gets converted to dollars before I get it. That’s just the reality of internet commerce these days.

So when the dollar is strong against the pound, It’s good for me, because I get more pounds, and thus I can afford to not buy economy bread to live off.

I’m currently waiting for a big fat payment from a publisher for my games, and the exchange rate is gyrating wildly. The US government just blew a trillion dollars on bailing out banks etc, and that made the dollar nosedive. Why can’t these insensitive fools wait until I’ve collected my royalties? Grrrrrrrr.

I have tons of cool stuff going into GSB, but I’m hoping not to bore everyone with screen shots too early. Today it was time to do the ship name selection GUI and tidy up some of the explosion code. There is so much to do in this game to get everything looking acceptable at both normal and 4x zoom.

3 thoughts on nail-biting Exchange rate woes

  1. You must be kidding. The £ has lost 33% in the last couple of years. Check the rate a year ago, you’ll see that you do get paid 25% more today than back then. So yes, this last week the $ has decrease a bit but it is still pretty good if you compare the rate same time, last year.

    Tip of day: open a $ account and convert then back when ever the rate change is good for you. That’s what I do.

  3. For tax, you have too solutions:

    * you convert everything back in £.

    * you kept some $, this is where it gets interesting. Let’s say you have X$ in your account. You can’t declare it in $. So, you virtually convert it in £. You virtually, have Y£ (current rate). You put this Y£ in your tax form. Now, 6 month later (next fiscal year), you really convert this X$ and you get Z£. It is more than likely that Z is different than Y. So, if it is less, you can claim the difference as a lost. If it is more, you need to add the difference in your next tax form. Not simple to keep track but feasible if you don’t convert the money all the time.

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