Yes, income is exactly the same all over the world, and higher prices in the US and Europe are just price gouging. That's why everybody wants to move to Russia or South East Asia, and no one would want ever to move to the US, Australia or the UK.
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Regional income doesn't take into consideration the cost of living which you'll find countries which a higher mean/minimum wage almost always have much higher.
Not to mention pricing regions differently doesn't make sense on a digital product which doesn't require any shipping or handling costs. It's pure mark-up for no justifiable reason and therefor price gouging.
You'll also find that it's not adapted for "regional income" because the poorer EU countries, South America, North and South Africa, South East Asia do not have cheaper digital prices.
The reason for the Russian store is because Valve wanted to capitalise on a market that most other game markets have deserted due to the high amounts of piracy. Piracy is the only reason why Steam games are cheaper in Russia. It's as simple as that.
The only reason why this isn't policed more is due to games being viewed as both an "entertainment" and a "luxury" item and therefore gets ignored by consumer protection watch-dogs.
Learning is fun.
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"Regional income doesn't take into consideration the cost of living which you'll find countries which a higher mean/minimum wage almost always have much higher."
Again, that must be why everybody wants to live in Russia and SE Asia instead of the US or Europe.
Are you seriously trying to tell me average people in Russia have as much disposable income as those in North America, Europe or Australia ? Come on !¹
"Not to mention pricing regions differently doesn't make sense on a digital product which doesn't require any shipping or handling costs. It's pure mark-up for no justifiable reason and therefor price gouging."
OR it isn't a mark-up in the rich countries, but a discount in the poorer countries, so they can sell more games. Which you seem to be aware of already:
"Piracy is the only reason why Steam games are cheaper in Russia."
Make up your mind - are games more expensive in the US/EU etc. because of price gouging, or are games cheaper in Russia to be able to sell them despite high piracy ?
"Learning is fun."
Glad you think so. Happy to help - teaching is fun, too ;)
¹
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if we goes by their/your logic, then games price in my country should be free.
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that, my friend. is called sarcasm. My country income is maybe like 10 times worse than russia. You can't even find a shop that sold original games. But yeah, our store price is higher than US, fuck logic.
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tell me one of SEA countries that have better income than US.
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You failed to make any point at all and completely miss the one I was making. Digital products are not priced due to regional income, as I made very clear. Everything else you said was completely irrelevant. It doesn't matter where the nicest place to live is when it comes to economics.
You seemed hooked on this "discount for poorer countries thing", that's not how it works. Just because a country is generally richer doesn't mean it's forced to pay more. Although it appears Oceania and the EU has a higher minimum and mean wage when you factor in the cost of living it's not that much higher than the US. So why does those two regions have to pay almost 200% on a digital product? It's complete nonsense, unjustifiable and therefore price gouging.
If it was a discounted for "poorer regions" why is there is no SEA, Africa, South America and other regions? Why does the US have the cheapest digital games (outside of the very small Russian steam store) when they're the richest country in the world? You're talking nonsense.
The Russian store exists to get into an untapped market. EU/Oceania stores are over priced due to price gouging publishers taking advantage of a lack of policing. I never once said that the US have higher prices.
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"You failed to make any point at all and completely miss the one I was making."
Likewise, I'm sure. I'm fairly certain I made a point - I'm sorry you can't see it.
"It doesn't matter where the nicest place to live is when it comes to economics."
No, but the economic situation in a country has a big influence on where people want to live / migrate to. If people in Russia had the same PPP-adjusted average disposable income as people in the US/UK/AU, you can bet a lot more people in the world would want to move there. On the other hand, the fact that not many people would want to move there might be an indication that the average disposable income in Russia is lower than in the US, so people might not be inclined to pay as much money for their games. I'm sorry if this was too complicated.
"Digital products are not priced due to regional income, as I made very clear."
No, you haven't.
"Although it appears Oceania and the EU has a higher minimum and mean wage when you factor in the cost of living it's not that much higher than the US. So why does those two regions have to pay almost 200% on a digital product?"
That has nothing whatsoever to do with why Steam prices in Russia are lower, now has it ?
"Why does the US have the cheapest digital games (outside of the very small Russian steam store) when they're the richest country in the world?"
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tl;dr no matter what they said or what you read. Regional pricing isn't based on income. My country is the proof, tell me one of the country in SEA region that have higher income than US.
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If you can't be bothered to read my post, maybe you shouldn't comment on it. -.-
And Steam's pricing policy in your country doesn't proof anything. Even if your region's pricing isn't related to income (and I'm neither saying it is or isn't), that doesn't mean that's also true for other regions.
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there are tons of country that have price higher or lower than they should. Africa for example, some CIS country, and some in europe. Explain? Just because an article tell that it is based on income, doesn't mean it is. Fact tell otherwise.
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my mistake about article, I read an article about steam pricing is based on income before, and I thought the link you posted above is that article.
But my word still stands. Regional pricing is never based on income. There are too many countries that have unfair price(higher than it should be).
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So, I could just said "hey guys, regional pricing are based on income" while there are only 10 countries with fair price and more than 9000 otherwise?
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One last time as simply as I can make it.
The Russian steam store exists for a completely different reason why the EU and Oceania Store exists. It exists because Valve wanted to get into a market which no other digital distribution touches due to the amount of piracy. IT HAS NOTHING TO DUE WITH THE ECONOMIC STANDING OF RUSSIA. If it did have to do with the economic standing then logically there would be stores for each region of Earth including the poorer regions like SEA, this however is not the case.
It's price gauging when the EU and Oceania stores to be charged 200% more than the US store when the US is the strongest economy in the world. Per capata Oceania and the EU are only slightly ahead of the US and this does not warrant such an insane price increase. Not to mention that Australia charges no taxes on digital products making it complete profit for the publishers/distrubitors.
You whole debate on whether a place to live in is completely pointless to the discussion. It's not the divine duty of video game publishers to try and "even" the "gross international happiness". It's their duty to offer just prices across the world.
And yes, the US digital market is the cheapest in the world. Mainly due to America being the biggest market for videos games and the fact they have a large majority of the developers/publishers. There's no artificial limitations on the US digital marketplace.
If you can't understand any of that then there's really no point in me trying to discuss this with you anymore.
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Pretty much this. The only difference between Russia and countries worse economically off is the massive piracy.
What's even crazier? Half the time you can find retail versions of the game shipped to your door for cheaper than digital downloads. 50% off too.
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On the matter of AU/NZ (and EU, to a lesser extend) prices in comparison to US prices, I actually agree with you - that pretty much is price gouging.
That wasn't what I was writing about above, though - I was specifically talking about why prices in the Russian Steam store are cheaper . In regard to that matter, I think we will just have to agree to disagree.
"You whole debate on whether a place to live in is completely pointless to the discussion. It's not the divine duty of video game publishers to try and "even" the "gross international happiness""
I've tried to explain what I was trying to say with that above - I was trying to illustrate why it's a good idea to consider average income and not just look at the low prices. It has nothing whatsoever to do with "gross international happiness". At all. I'm sorry I was unable to make myself clear.
"It's their duty to offer just prices across the world."
No. As a firm in a capitalist society, their duty is to maximize profit, not to make 'just' prices.
"as simply as I can make it", "If you can't understand any of that"
English (obviously) isn't my first language, but I'm reasonably sure those comments are meant to infer that my intellectual capacities are, shall we say, rather limited. I can assure you that that is not the case, and I'd appreciate it if you refrained from such cheap shots. Not everybody who refuses to agree with you is an idiot.
If that's not how it was meant, I apologize for thinking it was :)
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"€-Prices are always at least +25% higher than USD-PRices"
No, they are not always higher. They are often higher. If you check the Euro prices for, say, Mirro's Edge, Dead Space 1, Transformers WoC, or Space Marine, you'll notice they're actually cheaper than in the US store (depending on what country in Europe you're in, YMMV).
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The best and finest community member Steamgifts has to offer.
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New EULA : "You agree that you will not use IP proxying or other methods to disguise the place of your residence, whether to circumvent geographical restrictions on game content, to purchase at pricing not applicable to your geography, or for any other purpose. If you do this, we may terminate your access to your Account".
says, you can get banned for this!
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New EULA : "You agree that you will not use IP proxying or other methods to disguise the place of your residence, whether to circumvent geographical restrictions on game content, to purchase at pricing not applicable to your geography, or for any other purpose. If you do this, we may terminate your access to your Account".
have fun with these games on your blocked account
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u dont need to go ru site to buy russian key ru steam store have same price as ru steam key sites :) u just need to buy from ru steam store :)
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I traded for some things, but actually yes I do pay German prices for my games. Before I got into trading I bought every Steam game from the store (except Skyrim, got that from Amazon for the included map) for my regional price.
The trading part kind of destroys this, but apart from that I have no problem with paying German store prices. Because I think they're actually pretty fair compared to how much money I get.
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well in that case I can't help it. it doesn't matter what I value my games at as the market works differently. But I can honestly say I don't trade to get games cheaper. I do it for fun if one can say that. It became a somewhat addictive hobby.
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DO anyone know?
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