Changing your country on Steam has been made harder to battle VPNs

I'm actually in favour of such a solution, as opposed to the blanket blocking of VPNs, which is how it's done by Netflix and their ilk. There it doesn't matter if you're VPN-ing from your resident country, you're still blocked on general principle.

That said, there may be issues of infrastructure and delivery (I can imagine some) that could potentially make this issue a bit more tricky to work around for a streaming service than a storefront.

It's pretty fair as solution, we just need to hope that publisher not abuse to higher the price of games too. But they didn't did it before so there are no much reason.

For Streaming services it's more a license issue because there are region restriction because other infrastructure may have the show/movie. But it's sure there are some stupid things like having S1 but not S2 but it's not available in the country at all...

I hope on day we get rid of region license but it's not for soon sadly...

Thats strange, I don't think this is that new. I live in germany, and I tried to buy "Dying Light" about 2 years ago (not available in steam here) via VPN and it didn't work. Steam only accepted payment from the (VPN) country I am at. I only tried payment with paypal. ( ... so I had to get the game elsewhere :-/ )


Last edited by fryk on 31 July 2020 at 9:37 am UTC

Quoting: frykThats strange, I don't think this is that new.

Neither do I. My family lives in another country that crosses the Steam pricing region. When I was buying a game while visiting, Steam showed me a warning, and asked to confirm which country I actually live in. That was a few years ago.


Last edited by Linas on 31 July 2020 at 10:25 am UTC

Quoting: Linas

Quoting: frykThats strange, I don't think this is that new.

Neither do I. My family lives in another country that crosses the Steam pricing region. When I was buying a game while visiting, Steam showed me a warning, and asked to confirm which country I actually live in. That was a few years ago.

The difference is now, it's being properly enforced. Before they had things like temporary country-change cooldowns, now it won't let you do anything until you make a purchase with something registered in that country.

Quoting: AppelsinI'm actually in favour of such a solution, as opposed to the blanket blocking of VPNs, which is how it's done by Netflix and their ilk. There it doesn't matter if you're VPN-ing from your resident country, you're still blocked on general principle.

That said, there may be issues of infrastructure and delivery (I can imagine some) that could potentially make this issue a bit more tricky to work around for a streaming service than a storefront.

the thing about Netflix and co is they have to do it because of stupid licensing... Country-x might have the "rights" to broadcast something and as a result no one else may and that includes streaming. PITA but its stupid exclusive broadcasting issues.

for games and software its different and yes this makes sense. the subtly in the valve costing was abused by Epic and their PR against why they are cheaper and give more back to developers

To be honest, it has always escaped me how games in e.g. Russia cost like 10% of what we pay in the EU. I mean, I do get that purchasing power and salaries are very different, but we are talking about digital goods. It takes whatever amount of money it takes to make a game, in whatever country is was made. It's not like the prices in Russia are lower because it is somehow cheaper to distribute them in Russia. Somehow feels arbitrary and fake in the global economy.

Quoting: LinasTo be honest, it has always escaped me how games in e.g. Russia cost like 10% of what we pay in the EU. I mean, I do get that purchasing power and salaries are very different, but we are talking about digital goods. It takes whatever amount of money it takes to make a game, in whatever country is was made. It's not like the prices in Russia are lower because it is somehow cheaper to distribute them in Russia. Somehow feels arbitrary and fake in the global economy.

Well, you sell people things at the price at which they'll buy it, not at the price that's fair.

Quoting: The_Aquabat

Quoting: LinasIt's not like the prices in Russia are lower because it is somehow cheaper to distribute them in Russia.

maybe it has something to do with piracy? here piracy is as bad as Russia.

It's not related to piracy. It's just related with the concept of marginal cost and marginal revenue in software.

Marginal cost defines the cost associated to produce one extra unit of my product (the extra money I have to pay to produce a new unit). Marginal revenue is the revenue that I get by selling one extra copy. What it's important to note here is that MC & MR usually aren't constant.

Now, if you move to a software scenario you will see that the marginal cost tends to be zero, which implies that the marginal revenue will always be bigger that MC (each time you sell an extra copy, you will always get revenue). So, taking this results to a supply and demand curve, you will find that the total revenue is proportional to the number of units you can sell at a specific price in a specific region, making the maximum profit directly proportional to the selling price you set in that region.

In more human friendly words: in software the max revenue point for a selling price varies between countries so if you want to maximize your global revenue you have to maximize the [Unit Sold] X [Unit Price] equation of each country. So that's why regional prices exists.

Worth mention: a big factor here is Steam. They are the ones that makes possible that the distribution of a game in a new region has zero cost for the publisher.

How about gifting across region?

My opinion is that the price should be the price, and that should be converted to the real-time equivalent for the currency you're buying in.

So game = £10. At time of writing:

• UK: £10


• USA: $13.15


• Japan: ¥1386


• Europe: €11.12

etc. Then apply whatever local tax applies (which is probably where most of the pressure on Valve comes from, taxperson always wants their cut...).

Quoting: WorMzyMy opinion is that the price should be the price, and that should be converted to the real-time equivalent for the currency you're buying in.

So game = £10. At time of writing:

• UK: £10


• USA: $13.15


• Japan: ¥1386


• Europe: €11.12

etc. Then apply whatever local tax applies (which is probably where most of the pressure on Valve comes from, taxperson always wants their cut...).

If you have fixed prices then you will loose lots of sales in countries where income is low while you get next to nothing from countries that can afford to pay. Now if you are a small indie and can price your game sufficiently cheap then this might work but not for big titles that costs billions to develop.

Quoting: LinasTo be honest, it has always escaped me how games in e.g. Russia cost like 10% of what we pay in the EU. I mean, I do get that purchasing power and salaries are very different, but we are talking about digital goods. It takes whatever amount of money it takes to make a game, in whatever country is was made. It's not like the prices in Russia are lower because it is somehow cheaper to distribute them in Russia. Somehow feels arbitrary and fake in the global economy.

It's 10% in Russia because that is where you have to be in order to sell any games, and it is 100% in EU since we in the EU both have a higher income and have a higher incentive to buy games so if you don't take 100% here then you are loosing potential income.

It's not always just income however, e.g traditionally HIFI is cheaper in Germany than in Sweden because HIFI is seen as a luxury item in Sweden so we tend to pay more while Germans see it as more of a commodity while computers are cheaper in Sweden than in Germany due to Swedes seeing computers as a commodity and not as the luxury item that the Germans do (at least this was how it was some decades ago).

Quoting: WorMzyMy opinion is that the price should be the price, and that should be converted to the real-time equivalent for the currency you're buying in.

So game = £10. At time of writing:

• UK: £10


• USA: $13.15


• Japan: ¥1386


• Europe: €11.12

etc. Then apply whatever local tax applies (which is probably where most of the pressure on Valve comes from, taxperson always wants their cut...).

This looks like you never had to deal with currency exchange. Exchange rates fluctuate wildly, and it is just not feasible to have prices jump around that much. Checking prices daily to see if something is cheaper, not being able to wait for a sale because who knows how much it will cost by then, speculating about the economy to know if it will go up or down in the next few months... nothing works like this. It would be better to just leave the prices in the original currency and let people "import" stuff.

And this is just for the "real-time" part. Exchange rates are not at all a good representation of how much things cost in different countries. Wages aren't proportional, cost of living isn't proportional, the cost of other products is not proportional. People aren't going to pay half their monthly wages for a dumb game that costs USD40, just because geopolitical concerns about the oil industry devalued their currency in the last year. They will buy other things instead, the things that have normal prices. It isn't even about "being nice to people in poor countries" - it is supply and demand; there isn't enough demand for games at this price point, so it is only rational to decrease the price. (See the post by x_wing for a better discussion)

It's correct, nice catch from Valve

Using VPN is like traveling to another country, but in virtual sense. If digital stores want to use physical market analogy and segment the market in virtual space, why are they against people using the physical analogy of travel in the same virtual space? Do they charge foreigners more when they come to a physical store in another country? If they do, that would be considered some weird discrimination. So why are they OK with it in virtual case?

I personally don't shop like that, but if something is only available through VPN, I don't see an issue.


Last edited by Shmerl on 31 July 2020 at 3:42 pm UTC

Quoting: ShmerlUsing VPN is like traveling to another country, but in virtual sense. If digital stores want to use physical market analogy and segment the market in virtual space, why are they against people using the physical analogy of travel in the same virtual space? Do they charge foreigners more when they come to a physical store in another country? If they do, that would be considered some weird discrimination. So why are they OK with it in virtual case?

I personally don't shop like that, but if something is only available through VPN, I don't see an issue.

Then you'd have to go through customs and pay import fees, and there might be strict restrictions on how long you can use the VPN and what activities you can do (such as working), it might require background checks and proof of income, and you might be denied a visa and deported... better not to dig this hole until we tackle the much bigger injustices in border control.

Well, in case of Ubisoft or when you either VPN or torrent, this choice will bias things towards torrent which I don't like. I wonder why Sony Playstation managed to do it right and Steam can't do it...

I would be much happier to buy game for higher price but without region restrictions.

Quoting: The_AquabatI can tell because I'm from Argentina some AAA at release were the most expensive of the world, that happened to Resident Evil 3 which was as expensive as Israel. When normally we are like averaging the cheapest of the world in prices. The thing with Horizon Zero Dawn was disturbing it multiply the price by four, in one day, just because some people were recommending to do that.

(edit) you can see here https://web.archive.org/web/20200409141732/https://steamdb.info/app/952060/

because at that price you have to add a tax of 30% so it was the most expensive with Israel.

This is bizarre. In Brazil with a currency less destroyed by inflation and devaluation, games are up to 30% cheaper.
I think this continent is lost. Our currencies are useless in the long run. The Brazilian currency has lost five times its power over the past 25 years. For a country like mine (Brazil), this is unacceptable.

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