Same for Argentina, the end is nigh.
I do wonder if we're gonna get the same prices as the USA like back in the day or if it'll be like how GOG and EGS do and they'll introduce a cheaper region but in USD.
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The valve post mentioned that it'll be USD currency, but there will be 2 new regions, so publishers can still have lower prices in argentina/turkey, but it will be in USD instead of pesos/lira
It sounds like the system is going to roughly stay the same, but valve wants the price in USD instead of more volatile currencies
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Yup, saw it some minutes ago. I also took the freedom to make another thread since it actually affects many more countries other than Argentina and Turkey.
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Should have cracked down on abusers instead.
It should be a bannable offense to take advantage of the system.
It's a pain on the already dead wallets to pay in dollars in those countries.
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The official announcement: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamworks/announcements/detail/3728476412305766958
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Kinda related with the original post, but slightly different.
In Brazil, just like you, we're about to get prices and wallets converted to USD as well.
I'm predicting some heavy taxes on digital content soon and, then, Steam will leave the "brazillian wallets" with brazilian currency that accepts buy without currency convertion.
Federal government is getting way less from tax payers and demanding way more already.
Laffer's Curve is happening on real time just like the last government told it will and I'm loving it.
The brazilian people wanted to play stupid games last election. Now we gonna gather our stupid prizes.
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I guess it's because of the abusers who used VPN to create Steam accounts from Turkey and Argentina. I would love to see a one last major sale before this, didn't know the summer sale was the last. Well, I hope they still keep some regional price, otherwise it'll be tough.
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The current inflation rate in Argentina is 138.28%, which is calculated based on CPI (Consumer Price Index) values for the last 12 months ending in September 2023.
Turkey's central bank expects inflation to hit 58% by the end of 2023. The monthly inflation rate in Turkey reached 85.51 percent in October 2022.
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Still hard to tell before seeing what these new USD regional prices would be, but I think most games will be way more expensive than they are now. I don't see them making it cheaper than half of the original USD pricing, maybe 1/3 at best (their current Valve suggested prices for the developers is around this). Currently there are many games that are 10, sometimes 15 times lower than the original USD price with the local currency, so those days will definitely be over in a month.
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Oh well, if it is gonna be like this it will be like the range I guessed in my message just above you (somewhere between 1/2 and 1/3 of the original USD price). This means to buy any wishlisted game that is below these prices before next month. Shame that they will make the change just the day before the autumn sale.
One thing I don't think they considered btw: Turkey, as well as Argentina and the other countries that will be affected from this have huge inflation rates, so even though for now it might still be possible to buy some games, in a year or two one single game might become half of the minimum wage (it will be like someone paying $1000 for let's say Baldur's Gate 3), then people won't be able buy any games.
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It seems Valve want to see how much the sales will be affected. I wonder how many users from these two countries will move to another country.
It's already kinda tough buying games with current prices, with inflation going on this is only good news for our backlogs.
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Turkey prices seem to be going sky high for anything these days, for daily expenses too. They used to be much cheaper than in my country (Bulgaria), but recently I noticed many things (in official stores) were more expensive than here already, and I was told all prices got a huge hike some months ago this summer.
While I am not saying it is fair, it is just something that affects everything in Turkey, not just Steam games these days it seems.
Unsure how it is in Argentina as I've never been there sadly.
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so it's bad news for those two countries (Argentina and Turkey), but good news for the 20 some other LATAM and MENA countries in that list who previously used the USD prices by default?
(again devs can set any price they want for different regions, I am talking about the default recommended prices by valve)
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That will be the case it seems. Overall, this will be good for Valve I guess since combine of Turkey+Argentina is something like ~130 million, while all the other LATAM and MENA is 450 million.
At least for the default Steam prices, yeah. And Valve won't let devs to set prices lower than suggested apparently.
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One thing though most of those other listed countries are even in a worse situation than Turkey and Argentina, so the new buyers from those countries might not be enough to cover the losses they will suffer from less purchases from Turkey and Argentina. They might be hoping the VPN abusers to buy from their own countries with this, but that might not be the case and those kind of people can just go for piracy.
It is all guesses and speculations at this point and I don't think even Valve knows what precisely will happen with this change. If they reach their expected sale numbers this will stay, otherwise they will update the suggested prices to a lower amount to cover the losses
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I guess that's the reason why they chose November 20th. If this will go as they expected, the prices won't change. If not, maybe we'll see another adjustment for winter sale.
While I agree, this will surely increase the sales for those countries since they'll get better prices, even though still steep for their income. Would this worth the sacrifice from Argentina - Turkey customers, they'll know soon. One thing is certain, the system abusers will blend in.
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I don't think that publishers/devs will have losses. They can only win with it.
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It's actually insane to see developers encouraging theft because regional abuse is out of control. Region hopping to pay less than a dollar for a $20USD game is wild.
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The fact is that it isn't a $19 difference because the people purchase hundreds or thousands of games.
And 1.000 x $19 = $19.000 damage made in one go from ONE user.
And a part of this users sell the accounts and make this way more damage with it.
Multiplicate this number (19.000) with "only" 10.000 users that do such stuff (the real numbers are for sure much higher) and you have a damage of = $19.000.000.
Yes, 19 millions... so you see very easy that it isn't the "peanuts" category.
Of course could now someone come along and say "not all games cost $20" and it would be correct, some are cheaper, some are more expensive.
The amount of bought games and the amount of users that exploit it influence the damage a lot, so of course could be the number above be far away from the real damage but each one see with this, very simple, calculation how much damage this people do to the dev studios. Which will, absolutely sure, lead to lesser innovations, lesser experiments and lesser quality in games of the, "near", future.
But the region hoppers people will not see themself guilty for that results because they paid the devs money..... (if it were lesser as 5% of the full price or not).
A good bunch of such people are sg users.... the mods know exactly which ones switched the countries because they need to do this for the users.
I spotted, in the last months, around 10 that done region restricted GAs in the past from a cheap region and switched then to region restricted turkey or argentina GAs. They are easy to spot if someone do themself the work to search for them.
I would like when sg would not change the sg region for users or only after deep checks to prevent region hopping abuse and, with this and the region restricted GAs, cv system abuse on sg.
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Oh, no doubt. The very same developer you posted about above mentions in reddit comments that as a percentage of total sales during the initial release window, 1/10 of those were from Argentina. I believe he stated in another comment that according to the download data, 75% of those who purchased the game from Argentina did not live in Argentina.
This also affects more than just the devs/pubs too. Steam and payment processors are also likely taking hits from the regional abuse which is likely the driving cause behind Valve changing things up. It stinks for people in these regions since the policy of 'something instead of nothing' is only applicable so long as abuse of the system isn't out of control.
Sadly, those participating in this type of thing likely don't care that they've completely messed it up for others.
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I'm seeing an wave of argentine users migrating to Brazilian Reais... Many people stopped buying just because prices are unrealistic to their realities, imagine with USD being a standard for now?
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There are 3 sides of this story
One is the consumer(1) in Argentina/Turkey who is heavily affected by the macroeconomic conditions and the instability of their currency, which makes it difficult to afford games if he has to pay the current exchange rate
Another is the developer(2) who believes he's not getting fair compensation for his work, or spends too much time adjusting prices for a volatile currency
Also the abuser(3) who exploits this situation, changes store country to get an illicit massive discount on Steam games
Most probably (3) forced Valve to prioritize (2) to the detriment of (1)
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Exactly, as always honest people get the short stick while region hoppers still get massive advantages.
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The whole concept of regional prices is that selling 100 units for a $10 profit each still beats selling 5 units for a $50 profit
That goes to space once (A)the developer updates the price, but days later it needs adjustment again and (B)you're losing sales in EUR/USD for people using ARS/TRY
You also don't wanna crack down too hard on region hoppers. They're paying customers, and it's very hard to establish who's exploting the system and who's a legitimate changer
So Valve takes the easiest route
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In the end people who live in countries with high double digit or even triple digit inflation rates won't spend their income on luxuries like Steam games. The initial idea of regional pricing was to get something instead of nothing at all. Valve's Mr.Newell aka GabeN admitted as much in an interview.
I expect a huge influx in the black sail ship crews. In the meantime customers in richer countries will have to pay even more to subsidize the exploiters masquerading as living in poor economies.
Looking at your fine image of a banknote I'm always reminded of Kenneth Galbraith, who said every paper currency will reach its intrinsic value sooner or later i.e. the worth of paper it's printed on.
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The only silver lining of all of this is that region locks/gifting might be reduced. I've won a game before from a bordering country but couldn't receive a gift thru Steam because there was a ~20% difference between prices
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I will add the 4th side of the story which is many countries never got fair Steam game prices, while others got too generous Steam game prices. This includes all Balkan countries which apparently will never get fair game prices, and many in the MENA/LATAM region which are finally getting some regional pricing despite nothing like what ARG/TR had.
A huge amount of region hoppers come from poorer countries actually, in general the well paid western people couldn't be bothered to go through all that trouble and risk.
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So melodramatic.
From my perspective, the ROW subsidizes reduced regional pricing. I don't object to that ending.
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it didnt reduce the price, the prices will be increased by around 80% for turkey and argentina.
and i am pretty sure you'd be "melodramatic" if new games cost 150+ dollars, i mean people were crying because the prices went from 60$ to 70$ a year ago.
but yeah, it's not the end of the world.
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As well they should increase in Argentina and Turkey. Which is actually what I said alresdy lol.
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In relation to purchasing power, new game costs me 260 USD / EUR and with season pass 400 USD / EUR. I would like to see how US citizens pay so much for games and whether they would accept such prices. I'm betting that game sales in the US would then be close to zero.
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To be fair abuse of buying from Turkish accounts is unreal. Sucks for real Turkey community though
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what's weird is that they're making 1 region for 25 countries, where in some you can make 50$ a month, then some have around 500$ average, and a couple that can be around 1k or more.
the pricing now should be fair to the devs and publishers since it's a never changing % of the global price, but the % itself is super lazily implemented and thought about,
honestly it's so lazy to the point where it only serves any westerner who wants to get a 50% extra sale, and for steam to spread them across 25 countries so the devs wont notice they're getting way more sales from 2 very specific countries.
like the dead cells dev once said "the % of our total sales from a given country will roughly equal the % of our total players from that country. For Argentina & Turkey, their % of total sales is 3-4x the amount of the % of their total players."
now steam is just gonna spread them across 25 more countries so nobody would notice so that the difference.
but hey, it's a step in the right direction, we only need 10 more years for a revision in their pricing policies.
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I always wondered why ultra-rich countries like Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and U.A.E. don't have their own region. Not only that, their recommended price is only about half of the standard one from EU/US.
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yeah, i remember seeing regional pricing for them and i am like, bruh, these people make as much if not more than most americans lol,
and they're getting good discounts too.
for a multibillion dollar company, steam is the laziest least caring about it's business/customers company i have ever seen, but they have a monopoly over the market so they don't really care.
imagine if it was epic games doing any of this.
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uhh. steam is not the one setting the price. all they provide is a "recommendation" for a region, that's all. price is set by the developers/publishers
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While factually correct it can be expected most will follow Steams advice without themselves hiring analysts to assess the economic situation in the countries in question.
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steam IS the one setting the prices, publishers can CHOOSE to completely ignore it or update it to a different value.
they followed steam's recommended prices for years till 3 years ago after covid when many economies started crashing,
that's when many started setting their own prices, and some just completely ignored the pricing, looked at the current exchange rate and set it to that.
the part about "steam is the laziest least caring about it's business/customers company i have ever seen"
isn't about steam SETTING the prices,
it's about steam not doing anything about it for almost a decade,
barely adding any new regions,
barely updating the prices,
not doing enough market research to find a fair price -they literally put 27 countries where some earn 10 times as much as the other in the same pricing bracket-,
not caring about many westerners abusing this system to get an extreme sale on all games.
you wanna know how lazy and not caring steam is?
they literally don't apply their own pricing to csgo prime and kept gradually increasing the price for 2 years till it's now a 1:1 ratio,
want one more?
after they implemented the new "lowest price/discount" policy a couple of months ago, they didn't update the prices of some their old games and items, so when the sale came all these games were removed from certain regions because their pricing was lower than steam's own guidelines,
they literally made a new pricing rule and forgot to adjust their own product to it.
15 years ago, yeah maybe it was a good company and the sales meant something,
but now they're just a multibillion dollar monopoly where almost every single game goes on sale 12 times a year + 4 seasonal sales and for almost the same amount of discount too.
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I'm far from being knowledgeable about socioeconomic of those countries, but are there actually that many super wealthy people there, or extreme wealth centralized in the hand of a few(ish)?
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And players from countries like mine and yours pay more for games than players from Qatar. Absurd.
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One of the benefits of re-electing Erdogan and his mad financial policy. Without his lasting inflation this wouldn't have happened.
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"Over"? Come on, stop pretending you are poor.
Let's see wiki to see monthly average wage.
Ukraine:
Gross: $402 Net: $323
Turkey:
Gross: $919 Net: $542
Hmm. Seems like turkey has much better wages.
Let's see current prices in steam. For example, Cities: Skylines II :
Ukrainian Hryvnia 1219₴ / $33.26
Turkish Lira ₺649,00 / $23.08
Wow! Indeed, if prices in Turkey will become higher, it's over for them! They won't be richer country with lower prices anymore! And, worse of all, they won't be able to abuse steam trading card system to get games for free!
UPD. Didn't notice that wiki shows wages in EUR for Ukraine and USD for Turkey. Fixed it now, global picture didn't change from it.
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the average salary in turkey isnt 919$, that's almost as close as the country's GDP per capita.
and steam's prices were set last year when the exchange rate was around 18:1
at the time steam's rate was around 10:1
around 55% of real value
for ukraine it was around 37:1
steam's was 22.5:1
around 60% of real value
so it was pretty much the same prices for both countries.
but the question is, why are you fighting over who is poorer?
did he say he is the poorest person in existence and no one else is suffering?
he is literally someone talking about something personal happening to him, he doesnt have to mention every single country in the world that gets paid less than 1000$ a month.
you're literally fighting over 5% pricing difference that only increased lately because the currency lost more value.
logically you should be complaining to steam, not to OP as if he's making 10 times more money as you but pays less for games, all 3 of us are getting shit pay and have over priced games relative to our economy.
but yeah, to give you something to be happy about, as all of our countries' currencies lose value, the games will become cheaper for you in ukraine, but it will be more expensive to the 25 new countries since they need to pay in USD, but you'll pay in your own currency.
at least till steam decides to switch you to USD too if your economy falls to a certain degree.
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My point is that saying "it's officially over" is overreaction. It's normal and fair regulation of prices, and it's normal to switch to more stable currency if local currency is too hard to track. And I won't be surprised at all if Ukrainian currency will be removed next. It may be bad for me, as in, I will have to pay more, but I won't create topics on SG to complain about it.
Also, please, don't tell me about "same prices for both countries". Turkey and Argentina were countries where people still were able to abuse steam trading cards (i.e. you buy a game, you sell trading cards, and you now have more money than before). And not only Turkish people did that, abusers from many countries created Turkish accounts to exploit that.
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why is it an overreaction?
he knows, you know, i know that the economy isnt getting any better, so every single day that goes by the prices increase for you,
a AAA game last year using steam's pricing was 500 TL, with the new prices it will be 850, that's 50% increase in prices, that's a 50% increase, and since it's in USD, it will pretty much keep going up and up.
so to him, it is over because he knows if he waits for a 50% discount, by the next sale the price may already be double what it was.
so financially for him he may be able to afford games up to the 200 300 TL mark, but after that it becomes too much of a financial burden on him.
when a couple of games' prices increased from 60$ to 70$ everyone was crying about it and making posts about how expensive games are becoming too expensive, for an amount that you can make working an hour or less at minimum wage, so when every single game's price increase by a big margin i'd say it's ok to post about it a gaming related forum, i mean where else would he vent about his annoyance?
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Abuse is over, indeed. Now he will have to pay adequate price. It's not the end of the world. You may be surprised, but discounts of up to 90% are common in steam, so all those cries "oh no, I can't afford it" are just ridiculous. Games are not necessity, it's entertainment, if you can't afford it - you won't die, just will have to wait a year or two before playing the game you like. And he is literally in best position then the rest of world, because he could purchase games extremely cheap until now, and now he can't, and the rest of world was never able to buy games extremely cheap until now, and they still can't. I understand that one can be a bit sad in such situation, I would be sad for sure, but I would never dare to actually complain and use strong words like "it's over".
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i didnt want to "argue" but, oh well.
"Abuse is over, indeed."
"the rest of world was never able to buy games extremely cheap"
says the guy with 3300 "abusely priced" games in his steam library.
also are you sure you still live in ukraine?
because not a single sane person living in a poor country would say that, the only people who say that are ignorant people from richer countries who look at games and be like "oh, they pay 20$ instead of 60$ for that game? that's extreeeeemly cheap, i make that in an hour at work" not realizing 20$ for that person could be a few days worth of work.
"Now he will have to pay adequate price"
adequate according to whom?
if you want "adequate" pricing then make it as a relation to the % of the average salary in said countries, that is "adequate" pricing.
"It's not the end of the world"
who said it is?
did he say he started doing drugs and drinking since he read the anouncement?
did he divorce his wife and left his home?
the dude is literally talking about a certain aspect of his life, GAMING, in a gaming forum, that's literally it.
as you said yourself
"I understand that one can be a bit sad in such situation, I would be sad for sure"
so he is sad about gaming, where is he gonna talk about it?
at work? to the post office dude? to his mom?
or maybe, just maaaaybe, on a gaming forum?
this is someone who has seen prices go up by almost a 1000% in a short period of time, ofcourse he would be extremely upset.
prices went from 60$ to 70$ for a handful of games and everyone in the west lost their minds for a 15% increase in price for literally a couple of games, articles and videos and posts and tweets everywhere about it, and a 1000% increase is just "meh" to you?
but yeah, the solution is to wait 10~20 years for a 90% discount to buy games, 10 years for a 50% dark souls discount, OP just gotta wait 10 more to get that juicy bandai namco 75% sale and play the game.
or wait for an online game to die and go for a 90% sale then he and all developing countries peeps can finally play it together and have fun.
great solutions right there.
the solution isn't strict moderation from Steam to assure publishers there's almost 0% abusers in their system and their games are actually being sold to developing countries gamers at "adequate" prices, nope, the solution is to make a region of 25 countries of different economical background and give them one fixed price and tell them to wait for a 90% discount, because that's how you maximize your profits.
honestly your comment is only missing the "it's not steam's fault that your economy is bad" when it's not even relevant to the discussion.
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says the guy with 3300 "abusely priced" games in his steam library.
Most of those games are from giveaways, some purchased for money received from selling steam trading cards and other steam in-game items, and some from cheap bundles. On the actual steam I've spent
also are you sure you still live in ukraine?
because not a single sane person living in a poor country would say that, the only people who say that are ignorant people from richer countries who look at games and be like "oh, they pay 20$ instead of 60$ for that game? that's extreeeeemly cheap, i make that in an hour at work" not realizing 20$ for that person could be a few days worth of work. Only about $150 were actually spent in steam for all the years. Did I abuse steam? Sure, a little bit in the past, when prices where so low that trading cards costed more than actual game, so I know how it works. But I never did it massively, as some people, who have hundreds and thousands of accounts just for abuse.
because not a single sane person living in a poor country would say that,
Let's fact check that. I said that, I'm sane, and I live in a poor country. It means you are a liar.
Also, you seem to don't understand difference between "no regional pricing at all" and "fair regional pricing". Nobody removes regional pricing from Turkey, they just make this pricing fair.
the only people who say that are ignorant people from richer countries who look at games and be like "oh, they pay 20$ instead of 60$ for that game? that's extreeeeemly cheap, i make that in an hour at work" not realizing 20$ for that person could be a few days worth of work.
Look, my situation is opposite - their income is HIGHER than in Ukraine, and their prices are LOWER than in UKraine (before those changes). Don't you thing prices should correlate with salary?
if you want "adequate" pricing then make it as a relation to the % of the average salary in said countries, that is "adequate" pricing.
Oh look, that's exactly what happening!
who said it is?
"So it's officially over". It's only over when the world is ending. For now it's only balanced.
this is someone who has seen prices go up by almost a 1000% in a short period of time, ofcourse he would be extremely upset.
Except they didn't rise for a 1000%. They just went from negative (when you get money when buying a game) to positive (when you actually spend money on game).
great solutions right there.
Oh wow, so they work for me but not for him? Dude, you're a hypocrite.
honestly your comment is only missing the "it's not steam's fault that your economy is bad" when it's not even relevant to the discussion.
Honestly your comment is only missing "games should be free for everyone" when it's not even relevant to common sense.
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"Most of those games are from giveaways"
most of the 3300+ games you have are from giveaways?
you have won 3000 games? do you live breathe and sleep winning giveaways?
" some purchased for money received from selling steam trading cards"
so you were accusing OP and his people of doing that and abusing the system, while in reality it was you doing it?
the literal definition of the kettle calling the pot black.
"Let's fact check that. I said that, I'm sane, and I live in a poor country. It means you are a liar."
or more realistically, it means that your facts didnt check very well.
because no sane person living in a poor country would call games or anything "cheap" when it's relatively expensive.
because what you make in a week, someone from a richer country could easily make in a day, so if that person happens to be ignorant of how economies work they'd say "that's very cheap" but you know you worked a freaking week to get that amount of money and it's expensive af.
"you seem to don't understand difference between "no regional pricing at all" and "fair regional pricing""
i literally wrote "adequate according to whom?"
which you didnt answer
how can a country earning less than 100$ and another earning 1000$ be in the same region and pay the same amount of money?
because according to you turkish, egyptian, palestenians, and bahrani people are paying a "fair regional pricing" when in some cases one of those countries are earning almost 10 times as the other on average
so please explain to me how is that fair according to your own reasoning?
"Look, my situation is opposite - their income is HIGHER than in Ukraine, and their prices are LOWER than in UKraine"
sooo,
what you're saying is that you've been really jealous of turkish gamers for the past 3 years because they were getting games for cheaper than you even though they earn more than you?
" Don't you thing prices should correlate with salary?"
yes, in a perfect world that is how it should be,
so the question is why are you mad at another country instead of finding a solution that works for you both?
why is your solution "make turkey pay more" instead of "make us pay less"?
don't you think it's more reasonable to want fair prices for you instead of the childish view of you wanting them to pay more out of jealousy and spite?
""So it's officially over". It's only over when the world is ending. For now it's only balanced."
really?
that's honestly borderline trolling at this point.
so i don't even know if i should bother with continuing this conversation or not.
"Oh wow, so they work for me but not for him? Dude, you're a hypocrite."
not really,
the problem is that you're fighting him,
the only justice for you is for him to suffer,
the idea of both of you getting "fair prices" isn't even a part of your thinking at this moment,
you want him to pay more so you can feel you're not being mistreated,
when in reality you should be wanting to pay less than him, not for him to pay much more than what he's currently paying.
like i said, in an ideal world there would be no one abusing the system and companies wont care if they sold their 60$ game for 5$ in certain regions because that's more sales to them for people from thoise countries that are paying good money they wouldnt otherwise pay if the game was anymore expensive.
and of course have a nice day man and remember this isnt a fight between you and him, he doesnt need to suffer more for you to win, you can both win and have real fair prices.
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you have won 3000 games? do you live breathe and sleep winning giveaways?
Jealous, are we?
so you were accusing OP and his people of doing that and abusing the system, while in reality it was you doing it?
Are you an idiot? Getting game for 10$ and then selling cards for 1$ is slightly different than getting game for 0.3$ and then selling cards for 1$. First one is intended mechanics, second one is abuse. Difference is so subtle I'm sure you will be unable to understand it.
Not going even to read the rest. You are driven by emotions, not logic, so it makes no sense to read your bullshit. Have a nice day.
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"You are driven by emotions, not logic, so it makes no sense to read your bullshit. Have a nice day."
says the dude who has nothing to say except insults and accusing others of shady stuff he is already doing.
and i do know you read the rest because you childishly wrote "Jealous" because you read it at the very end of my response and just wanted to say it back to me.
anyway, like i said above, have a nice day and enjoy being jealous and spiteful instead of requesting more reasonable prices for you, you'd rather see everyone else suffer, and from your childish responses i honestly doubt that view will ever change.
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and i do know you read the rest because you childishly wrote "Jealous" because you read it at the very end of my response and just wanted to say it back to me.
Lol, man, this joke really made my day, Sure you know better what I read and what I didn't. Lol.
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and thanks for the blacklist?
which is not really that useful in this conversation because it doesnt stop us from talking to each other.
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Mate what the hell are you on about? I the op am not in a good situation, I stopped being able to afford games long ago, Literally just google "world's least valued currency" and you'll know my situation, Also brining up an "average" income is incredibly irrelevant and goes to show how unaware of statistics and economy you are, An "average" alone does not help in this context as the value is offset greatly by the top 5% of the pyramid.
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Who cares about average? 60% citizens of my country earn minimum wage, 4 times less than minimum wage in e.g. Germany, and prices on Steam are the same or even higher for us.
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Imagine a country with two citizens one is a USD billionaire the other sleeps under a bridge. This country would be viewed as insanely rich. I want to illustrate statistical averages draw a very limited picture of the real situation.
Please don't make this a contest about who lives in the poorest nation.
As an outsider I'd say both countries are poor and in both cases as a normal citizen I'd have better things to do with my very limited funds as to buy some computer games. Besides, to run Skylines II smoothly with acceptable graphics you'd need a beefy rig costing you many months of average income in both countries so it's not the best example.
Steam and developers want to earn more from region hoppers and the woes caused to the actual population is just collateral damage to them.
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You missed the point. I'm not saying that prices should exactly correlate with average wages. But some correlation must exist, otherwise what's the reason to have regional prices? That's exactly this "this country is more poor, let's make games more affordable - this way our income will be better". I'm just saying that prices in Turkey were obviously TOO low, and people actually abused them, and not only people of Turkey, people of other regions as well. It makes perfect sense to fix prices to the level of other countries with other more or less same income. And because of inflation it also makes sense to switch from regional currency to USD - I won't be surprised if next time steam will remove regional currency for Ukraine too. My main point is that it's fair and normal process, and saying that "it's over" is inadequate reaction, unless you mean "abuse is over".
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Thanks for your explanation now i understand your views a little better. As a business I wouldn't touch Ukrainian or Turkish currency for international transactions and the move to a more stable currency as is the USD right now is understandable.
I think the whole pricing/region problem is presented quite good in this comment https://www.steamgifts.com/go/comment/QUcrkEd
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It is far more complex than that, as it involves depreciation of the currency. This isn't about "who's poorer" but about a game costing a significantly larger, disproportional amount of your monthly income
I was honestly expecting more solidarity with our Turkish/Argentinian friends from someone from Ukraine as it lost the exchange peg just recently and the budget shortfall is in the tune of ~6 billion a month
There's a significant chance this scenario plays out in Ukraine on a much larger scale, although Steam games should be the least of your concerns
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Man, once again, prices where so low that people got INCOME from buying games. Do you honestly think it's fair? I never said they should not have regional pricing, and guess what - they still will! How adequate those prices will be greatly depends on publishers, but according to inside info from devs on reddit - recommended prices are pretty much the same as for CIS region, where countries are more poor, so I can't say that recommended prices are inadequate.
There's a significant chance this scenario plays out in Ukraine on a much larger scale, although Steam games should be the least of your concerns
I know that it can happen. And I will only say that it's fair. And yes, it's least of my concerns, that's for sure, so I'm surprised that someone from a richer country concerned about it so much.
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Regional prices reflect the reality of exchange rate/real income/purchasing power. They're not perfect as the values are dynamic. But it is a real, honest attempt to include people in the market
The goal is not "fairness". You pay significantly cheaper prices than me - more power to you. I'm happy people in Ukraine are able to afford games. I don't want to see people excluded, whether they're from Turkey, Argentina or Venezuela with a $6 USD minimum wage
Unfortunately people exploting the system ruined it for everyone
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Bulgarian market is full price Euro....so stop complaining....
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All of the Balkans, I'd say it's worse for, say, Albanians too. They never bothered to introduce fair prices here, and even now they introduce 25 new countries to cheaper USD prices, but still nothing about the Balkans.
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Same for Moldova. Also sucks for Eastern Europe who has the same prices a the Western Europe. Unfortunately I don't see this problem being ever solved, even less chances considering the topic of the discussion.
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Bulgaria has a fixed exchange rate to the euro since the day the euro was introduced, so don't say that you are in a bad situation because your salaries have been increasing for 20 years and the exchange rate is the same as 20 years ago and now Bulgaria wants to adopt the euro as its currency.
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Bulgarian minimum salary = around 400 euros.
French minimum salary= around 1500 euros.
AAA games 60-70 euros, for both markets.....So you you know where you can put your fixed rate....
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Hungary has almost the exact same minimum, it's an entirely different system than western europe, it's already laughable to pay the same euro prices.
And other countries in the region have it even worse. It's generally not a good enough market for the west and big corporations to bother with.
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Just FYI, Turkish pensioners up until 5-6 years ago or so were buying property in Bulgaria with their pensions, while Bulgarian pensioners could barely pay the bills and afford minimum food unless their family helped. Minimum salary now might be 400 EUR, but it was about 150 EUR 5-6 years ago again, and then the games cost the same as they cost now.
No one ever bothered with Eastern Europe, none of the Balkan countries nor Moldova as mentioned earlier. The fact Bulgaria has a currency board with the EUR is mostly great as no extreme inflation happened since then, although we have a damn cool national memory of 1997 when we had 1058.37% inflation. The salaries are nothing remotely similar to what they are in Western Europe though, and we are still the poorest country in the EU while paying the same prices for digital games.
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https://www.google.com/search?q=1+usd+to+try
first, they increased prices by 666%
then they introduced USD.
it is over.
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I believe this topic should be closed as too sensitive according to new rules. Especially since we have the other one made in much more neutral tone.
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it was neutral so far, until you started dragging its tone in your comments, arguing over who is poorer and suffering more..
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As of now there's a new notice in steam saying Turkish prices and wallets will be converted to USD on Nov 20th....
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