Did you get affected from the price update?
While I understand the price drop for Ukraine, why are some currencies (especially $) unaffected by this? Do these countries have a magical anti-inflation barrier or what?
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That's something I don't understand either and would like someone who could clarify.
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There's no price drop for Ukraine btw. See the Steamdb post linked in OP.
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Thanks for the explanation. TBH I would probably have believed the magic barrier theory regarding Costa Rica, as I always saw that country as some kind of solarpunk ancient tech utopia :D Kinda sad to see the truth is more realistic :/
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Because Steam is an American company and prices are set in USD, every other region is just a "regionally adjusted price" for people from that region. They could remove it completely if they want and sell just in USD.
So for example, if a game publisher sets the game price to $50... it's gonna be $50. Why would USD price change?
Regional pricing changed (and not the first time, Valve used to adjust recommendations 2x a year - they just took a break during covid19 pandemic... which happened to coincide with many currencies dropping value compared to USD) to better reflect the value of the currency compared to USD. For example, EUR lost value compared to USD, so recommended price in EUR is now larger than it used to be. That said, EUR price contains inside 15-20% VAT depending on the country of sale, USD price doesn't contain sales tax in most US states and that's added on top, so even if it seems it's $1:€1 it's not really the final price people pay and it equalizes later.
And in the end, yes, some countries have a magical anti-inflation barriers, like really solid industry, domestic gold reserves, importance in the international trade which boosts their GDP and so on.
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So for example, if a game publisher sets the game price to $50... it's gonna be $50. Why would USD price change?
Yeah now I realize that they're just using it as a standard, I dunno why I thought t would be affected like the rest.
And in the end, yes, some countries have a magical anti-inflation barriers, like really solid industry, domestic gold reserves, importance in the international trade which boosts their GDP and so on.
Yeah but those who didn't get price raises feel completely random to me. Like Switzerland basically activated unlimited gold cheats, but somehow they're still getting a +15% raise. Kuwait and UAE are on the list but not the other Gulf countries. Of course I'm no economics expert but that list kinda feels like they threw some darts with random values at a world map.
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Tbh didn't really look deep into the lists, just wanted to explain why usd price stayed the same. It does seem a bit random, but I'm sure there's a reason behind it, Valve doesn't do stuff randomly.
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Nobody wants to see the prices go up but I definitely get it, everything costs so much more these days. Most gamepasses and subscriptions are already a ridiculously good deal and this will make them even better.
Wouldn't be surprised if this price increase will prove be the last straw for some people and they'll finally move away from steam in favour of epic and other platforms.
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It's always fun when someone from the first-world country with good wages and economy decides what other people should pay for goods and services
Poor Argentina
p.s. yes, I know that steam doesn't actually decide anything and it's just a recommendation. all we can hope is that developers and publishers are not that tone-deaf
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Yeah, well, more money saved for me. The fact that I won't be able to afford buying games anymore doesn't mean that I'll stop gaming, it only means that both Valve and publishers will be losing revenue.
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As a Turkish player there is nothing I can say to Steam. Only to my own gov, and their voters.
What I will do is going for my EGS freebies and if there is something new I really want to play, sail to the seas.
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UK faced a 8% increase. I've not yet noticed any price increase for some games, but I am pretty sure most people are affected and in some areas is ridiculously high. I feel sorry for Kazakhstan users, Turkish users who've seen almost 500% increase. Argentina is not standing well either. That's crazy!
This will eliminate anybody who migrated their account to Turkey or Argentina in the past because they will feel pretty much no difference in prices. It's sad, but even if I don't like it or others, it's the reality of things. Inflation man...
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I'm really sorry that you've gone with such an increase. 😥
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Last sale, and then I guess it's gonna be sailing time for me. 😎
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So just because some idiots decided to switch countries Valve has the need to punish the people that actually lives in those contries... that's so f*cked up. I'm affected by this and even being mad i'm sure i'll get through it, unsure about the ones getting +400% increase tho. This is so wrong, but i guess honest people just don't matter in this industry... so lame.
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Im from Argentina with 400+%... it was already bad trying to gift since the region lock steam put to our countrys and i needed to stop gifting a lot here. Then we have our inflation...then when we bought steam games we get 75%+ in taxes for everygame we bought, and now this price increase...Our economy is so bad... If this prices get reals...im pretty sure Argentinians will stop buying games...its already so rough to buy games...and now this...is another nail to the coffin..
And we get punished because of the abuse of VPN that people do to us....
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Looks like like they've decided to abandon many local markets altogether hoping to gain more profit from richer countries. Such a shitty move.
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I'm not affected because I pay international prices (which really sucks and is one of the main reasons I stick to bundles), but this isn't good. I guess people will have to be even more selective with their spending than they already are. I wonder if this will result in any meaningful drop in sales, enough to push developers to rethink sticking to the recommendations.
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I reckon these will negatively affect sales in a huge amount. I was already pretty selective since the pandemic started and I was expectinghoping a one last good winter sale. If some games' prices won't be updated until Winter Sale those will be the last good ones I think, but 2 months is a long time to expect this. I guess from now on some people tend to buy only AAA games and some people tend to buy only indies, and many people will stick to their backlogs. And I hope this won't affect indie developers more than it should especially as a one in the way.
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i believe if you buy an index you can get a copy free, so something to consider for those contemplating VR.
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No problem, they can raise the price as they want. I will wait for a better sale or wait longer or wait for a bundle. In the meantime I will play my long backlog. Easy.
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this makes xbox/pc game pass a "must have" in argentina.
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how da fuck eu prices are among top ones and they still increase them hhahaha
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Games in steam store were already overpriced for EU. With the 90% discount limit the sales are just useless.
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Very bad news, especially for the people of Turkey and Argentina. Is there anything we can do, apart from reducing our purchases?
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Well, I'll have to stop buying games on Steam and only use third party sellers.
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Isn't a corresponding increase expected for them as well?
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Unless the vendors all collaborate on pricing, no. Bundled games are considerably cheaper, simple supply and demand. Now if everyone buys from keyshops, low supply will push things up. That is possible. Edit: i read third party to mean greys
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Isn't there a risk that if they don't agree, they will leave the store? Unless they agree to a lower commission, that would be extremely unfair, and none of us want that.
As for the bundles, I can see them reducing the games, or the quality of the games they offer, if they want to keep similar prices. :(
As for keyshops, an increase of 20%-30% on the already low prices will not be so noticeable (as in Steam).
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So at a time when inflation is at historic rates and the "purchasing power" of europeans is falling drastically, with an incoming winter that might be one of the toughest in recent history because of astronomical prices of energy, these brilliant minds had the brilliant idea of "recommend" to increase the price of videogames.
And later on we'll have to hear the industry whining because sales dropping, because piracy, because grey market, because Putin, because China.
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The price increase for Ukraine is just the kind of support from Valve that we expected. Just business, I understand.
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RIP Steam is scamming actual customers. I totally blame the people using VPNs into other regions.
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By the way using VPN to change region does not work anymore... Valve has closed that loophole long a go.
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i know people from venezuela that use vpns to buy games on the argentinian store and they're still using it.
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There are people from Turkey that offer account switching. You pay them a bit and they purchase something on account to change the region. Or similar.
It's no longer possible to willy-nilly change your region, but Valve did not manage to fully prevent that. It just added another layer of complexity by requiring purchase with a local payment method.
They also made it harder to account share, where games were bought by one person and then account access was resold for pennies. Cyberpunk 2077 on release for $1 on Steam? Why not? So now they were making new account in Turkey and buying there games -90% vs US price, re-sell access to account for profit. It will also stop to be profitable now.
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I didn't know about this but sadly that didn't surprise me. Corrupted countries would surely have corrupted people as it was expected. Only I wasn't expecting this level of corruption. I guess scummy people will do scummy things no matter what.
Since you brought up Cyberpunk 2077, I just wanted to add how bad it goes in Turkey. It was $42 when it first released and now it's about $13, in GOG it's still $42. With the current price of Cyberpunk 2077, we can buy ~2 kg of kashar cheese (kind of like cheddar) here. It's only fair for CDPR to increase the price.
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A Venezuelan living in Uruguay posted not long ago on reddit about how he earns 3800 dollars monthly and he uses VPN to purchase games on Argentina's store and pays 1 dollar for youtube premium, hbo max and amazon prime.
A German posted on reddit too, complaining about the raise of prices in the argentine store, that post got deleted though.
Also there are tutorials on tiktok and youtube for people to learn to buy games in other stores.
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Valve finally updated their regional pricing recommendations. This won't be applied to the prices automatically and the updates expected from the publishers.
The most affected countries are Argentina and Turkey but for EU ~20% increase is still not low.
The price changes can be seen in this table:
Edit: More detailed prices can be seen here. (Thanks to @AndyFrost)
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