Something that has been happening for years now, is that people have been switching around their country on Steam and using VPNs to get cheaper prices - Valve looks to have put a stop to it.
Why was this a thing? Thanks to regional pricing, countries that typically have lower incomes can enjoy the same games as others with lower prices to match. Being able to get around that to buy cheaper games using a VPN was a bit of a loophole, which has been sorted by Valve.
Spotted by SteamDB, It's not entirely clear when this actually went live for everyone. Checking it myself, changing country on Steam is now a bit more involved. Previously it was quite easy with a VPN but if you did it too often, Valve would put you on a cool-down from doing so for a while. Now it seems everyone has the same full enforcement. After changing country, you then need to make a purchase from a payment method registered to that country.
It makes sense for Valve to sort it, otherwise developers have had to adjust prices in other regions to match resulting in people from countries with lower incomes ending up with higher prices. This is apparently exactly happened with Horizon Zero Dawn according to VG247, and when you check on SteamDB you can see the prices across countries like Argentina and Turkey rocket upwards.
Using a VPN or proxy to get around it, was actually already against Steam's Terms of Service, with Valve saying if found out they may place "restrictions" on your account.
What are your thoughts on this?
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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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:
etc. Then apply whatever local tax applies (which is probably where most of the pressure on Valve comes from, taxperson always wants their cut...).
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...).
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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.
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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).
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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)
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It's correct, nice catch from Valve
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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
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
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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.
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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...
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I would be much happier to buy game for higher price but without region restrictions.
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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.
Translated By: Google Translate.
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