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Steam: New Pricing Needed For Argentina and Turkey by November 20th (steamcommunity.com)

submitted 1 year ago by mounderfod@lemmy.sdf.org to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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I suspect piracy will become increasingly popular in these countries

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[-] Terramaris@lemmy.dbzer0.com 75 points 1 year ago

At first when I saw the title, I thought this was done to stop people who VPN swap stores. The article however paints a different picture: Developers do not want Lira or Pesos since they are too unstable. Doesn't make sense to price a game at X Argentine Peso if next month X is now 30% less valuable. If you have too much inflation, no one wants your currency. Even the Argentine government or presidential candidates said something along the lines of wanting to swap to the USD too.

[-] anzo@programming.dev 36 points 1 year ago

There's a running candidate that said that, but that's the same candidate that said so many crazy shit and lies. So, you can take it with a grain of salt. Even if that candidate won the upcoming elections, I hope that dissolving Argentina's central bank is not going to happen because of many reasons, but also because the country has a parliament... They shouldn't allow it.

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[-] deanne@iusearchlinux.fyi 45 points 1 year ago

turkish here, piracy is already a big thing for any kind of media/games here, but steam almost ended piracy for gaming. i've not pirated a game since like 4 years, but i suspect i'll go back to it after this change, i'd like to support the devs but i just can't afford it,sorry.

[-] iso@lemy.lol 13 points 1 year ago

Same. I guess we will both install the game and also listen some cool music 😄

[-] wahming@monyet.cc 5 points 11 months ago

The prices are still regionalised, they’re just in USD/Euro instead of the equivalent local currency

[-] botorfj@lemdro.id 2 points 11 months ago

same, I can no longer buy a game from steam at this point.

[-] lupec@lemm.ee 25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

As someone from a developing country, I'm painfully aware of how most big publishers choose to ignore recommended prices and just go with a straight USD conversion most of the time so I can only hope this doesn't screw them even further.

I really wish it was viable for Valve to enforce a ceiling on suggested prices or something along those lines, it's about the only way I see that ever changing. Well, that, or everyone just becoming a full-time sailor, I suppose!

[-] WeLoveCastingSpellz@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

As a Turkish person this fucking sucks. I was a pirate anyway but guess I will never get to buy games

[-] Paradachshund@lemmy.today 4 points 11 months ago

Forgive my ignorance, but what does it do to your experience practically speaking? Are the prices going up? Is it difficult to purchase things in USD because of having to convert currency?

[-] WeLoveCastingSpellz@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 11 months ago

The game prices are scaled to our "purchasing power" to some extent before the change, meaning they're still expensive but steam is making the games more affordable for us to some extent, the change to USD means the scaling is not up to steam, there is recommended prices and if companies abide to those some games might even get cheaper but big studios tend to not do that meaning we almost get games at the price of a cheaper gaming PC before our economy went to shit.

[-] Paradachshund@lemmy.today 2 points 11 months ago

Ah I see. Sorry to hear that! Thanks for explaining.

[-] Lojcs@lemm.ee 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I hope they don't expect people to actually pay in usd and instead offer the conversion themselves. Because I can't imagine people maintaining usd credit cards just to purchase games from steam.

Otherwise, this could be a positive change as publishers can now set prices without the "what if the currency loses half its value tomorrow" insurance margin.

Edit: steamdb has a chart of the new regional pricing. It's 50% higher than the current one for tl and 150% higher for peso.

[-] XTornado@lemmy.ml 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I mean... If the currency is that unstable... I would expect people doing that and having accounts with dollars or euros, saving money in a currency that moves more than a rollercoaster it's not great.

[-] Lojcs@lemm.ee 2 points 11 months ago

They have savings accounts in dollars or pinned to the dollar, not spending accounts. But looking it up it seems tl credit cards can pay in usd + maybe a conversion fee so I guess it wouldn't be such a deal breaker

[-] Luisp@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 1 year ago

Wow fuck them

6000 is the cost of a aaa game on sale = 5 usd, 80 dollars is almost half of a salary, no more original games I guess

[-] ollie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 1 year ago

whats steam to do? adjust the price every week?

[-] 131sean131@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago

Yeah idk why people are salt at steam. It should be fuck my government for not being able to run a economy and currency.

[-] CosmicGrizzly@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

We are implementing this with two new pricing regions: LATAM-USD (which includes Argentina) and MENA-USD (which includes Turkey)

The prices will be denominated in USD. But unique to the region. Unless the developer is lazy and doesn't set a price for the newly created regions.

[-] mounderfod@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 11 months ago

It's still a big increase in pricing iirc

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[-] Sethayy@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago

Yk I've always wodnered what starting a charity to donate computers to countries with the worst steam pricing would do for piracy

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[-] catsup@lemmy.one 8 points 1 year ago

Please login to Steamworks to add your USD pricing for your game(s) in the new LATAM-USD and MENA-USD pricing section of the Price Management Tool before November 20th, 2023. If you do not add a USD price to these columns for your game before November 20th, we will default to the standard USD pricing you already have in Steamworks.

Los precios de steam se están por ir a la recontra mierda.

[-] Kurante@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

La concha de la lora

[-] jherazob@beehaw.org 8 points 11 months ago

It's understandable why they did this, but now on all those countries game piracy will start anew, people won't buy legally if they can't afford it

[-] wahming@monyet.cc 4 points 11 months ago

The prices are still regionalised, they're just in USD instead of the equivalent local currency

[-] iso@lemy.lol 3 points 1 year ago

Welp back to the seas 🏴‍☠️

[-] simon574@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago

This doesn't necessarily increase prices, if anything it makes it easier for publishers to offer games in these regions.

[-] bioemerl@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

May all regional pricing end. I do not want to subsidize development costs for third world nations.

[-] blacknails@sh.itjust.works 17 points 1 year ago

I suspect you'll gladly accept their seriously undercharged labor though

[-] bioemerl@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'd rather force companies to not use third world labor so they stop suppressing our salaries and pushing down investment in first world labor productivity.

[-] conciselyverbose@kbin.social 9 points 11 months ago

Do you really think they're going to make more revenue by making the pricing more than they're willing/able to pay?

Because if publishers did, they wouldn't offer regional pricing.

[-] bioemerl@kbin.social 1 points 11 months ago

Oh I think they are making more revenue by charging the first world more, but I also think they shouldn't be able to get away with it.

[-] conciselyverbose@kbin.social 4 points 11 months ago

"Making more revenue with negligible cost of distribution" and "we're subsidizing poor countries" are not compatible.

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[-] blindsight@beehaw.org 8 points 11 months ago

Wow. That's definitely a take.

I'm sure you'll be pleased to hear that you aren't subsidizing anything. Lower regional pricing in developing nations has absolutely no effect on the price in developing nations for games. There is no subsidizing because there aren't any costs to subsidize.

[-] bioemerl@kbin.social 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

there aren’t any costs to subsidize.

Literally the entire development cost. Games don't appear for free. They are developed with the money you pay.

Regional pricing is basically saying that for some reason video games should cost more because you have more money to spend on them.

That's just asinine. Every other industry that tries it gets widely criticized for it. If you want to get more money out of people with more money, give them more stuff. Don't arbitrarily decide something costs more in one country than it doesn't another even though the distribution costs are identical and the development costs are identical between them.

[-] shrippen@feddit.de 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Well... How do you think a price for a product is found in capitalism? You try to find the sweet spot between too cheap and too expensive. When you are cheap more people buy, if you are expensive less people buy. Therefore there is a sweet spot where you make the most money. This obviously is dependent on the people in the market and the money they have. Of course the game publisher can go to the poor people and say that they want 500 money for their stuff. But they don't have that, so they won't pay it because they literally can't.

Long story short, this is not subsidising, this is publishers extracting the most amount of money from that specific market. Its called capitalism. Love it or hate it.

And of course products cost different amount of money around the world. Every market is different.

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[-] csolisr@communities.azkware.net 2 points 1 year ago

Expecting Colombia, Peru, Chile and South Africa to be next on the pumping

[-] Gorgeous_Sloth@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

Meh idk. Heard everyone say piracy was going to increase after Netflix increased its prices. Well guess what, it may have a little (but I quite doubt it), but clearly not enough as it’s doing it again. They know what they’re doing.

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