2y ago

Steam's regional price hikes of up to 4298% could spur exodus from Argentina and Turkey gamers

www.tomshardware.com

8 comments

I don't think there is an easy way to fix this. Basically it boils down to weighing the amount of legitimate purchases from these countries vs. the amount of illegitimate or resale keys bought, and then deciding which one costs the developers more money. I'm sure it fucking sucks to be from one of the countries and have to deal with this shit, but it sucks for developers who make a $60 game (that's actually worth $60) and lose money on sales because some asshat third party key seller bought 10,000 keys at $17.49 and is reselling them for $45, making more money off of your own product than you are.
A message to people who use shady resellers: Just pirate the fucking game. You'll hurt less people that way.
- It sounds like the change was motivated more by the instability of those currencies, the price increases may just be a temporary thing until developers update their prices. At least that's what I'm hoping.
- developers who make a $60 game (that's actually worth $60)
  This oversimplification ruins all the reasoning. There is no clear single "worth" of the game for a global market. 32527 people are willing to pay $60 for it (loyal fanbase + rich), 23886 more if it's $50, 42110 more if it's $40, 12280 if it's $30 etc. would be a better model.
  
  Right... worth is subjective. Not gonna argue that. What I'm talking about is the effort put into the game and the value presented to the customer base. Madden 24 vs. Baldur's Gate 3. One is from a company who is copy-pasting the previous year's game and updating the roster. The other is a years long effort and labor of love in a feature complete package. Both are priced at $60. Only one is "worth" $60 if we go by the effort and work put into it. That's what I mean when I talk about a game being actually worth $60.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
On November 20, Valve changed its pricing policy in Argentina and Turkey to pivot from their pesos and lira currencies to the U.S. dollar.
Now, to be fair, there is evidence to suggest that these pricing conditions won't remain quite so severe.
Basically, some Steam users will spoof their region to be in one of these "cheap" locations in order to get access to lower priced games.
Additionally, the lira and peso are so inflated (and fluctuate so frequently), that Valve stated it was unfair to developers to have to constantly adjust prices with those market conditions.
According to Gabe Newell, founder of Valve Software and owner of Steam, "piracy is a service problem".
As much truth as I think there is in that statement, particularly in wealthier countries like the United States I call home, it seems clear that Argentinian and Turkish PC gamers are actively being priced out of legitimate PC gaming if things don't change, and soon.
The original article contains 384 words, the summary contains 160 words. Saved 58%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

8 comments