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

I guess that's part of the "Globalization is for big business, not customers!" textbook. Apparently it's totally fine for a US company to ship your job to Vietnam because wages there are a fraction of what they are here, but if a customer goes "Ok, I can make that work for me too, and shop where it's cheaper!", the same companies go "Oh no, YOU can't do that. Only WE can!"

Too funny.

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.

Yeah, we're talking about digital goods. For which the price of distribution approaches zero. So, what's a "fair" price? There is none, there is only income maximization. The rationale for regional pricing is much the same as the rationale for a Steam sale: You do a cheaper price for people who aren't going to pay more than that, and you make sales you wouldn't have made, collecting a small amount of money instead of zero money.
Basically, all prices for digital goods are arbitrary and fake. Regional pricing just makes it a bit more obvious.

Quoting: F.Ultra

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.

The small indie doesn't have the marketing to sell gajillions of copies, though. I don't think they're in a position to happily lose sales.

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: F.Ultra

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.

The small indie doesn't have the marketing to sell gajillions of copies, though. I don't think they're in a position to happily lose sales.

Of course, I was more thinking in the terms of a single dev indie studio does not have to sell that many copies in order to keep afloat as compared with when you have an actual team of people that needs wages and so forth. Could have worded it better since of course not all indies are of the single dev type.

Quoting: slapinWell, 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...

What do you mean by "Sony Playstation managed to do it right"? AFAIK they have both regional locking and prices.

Quoting: KimyrielleI guess that's part of the "Globalization is for big business, not customers!" textbook. Apparently it's totally fine for a US company to ship your job to Vietnam because wages there are a fraction of what they are here, but if a customer goes "Ok, I can make that work for me too, and shop where it's cheaper!", the same companies go "Oh no, YOU can't do that. Only WE can!"

Too funny.

Getting slightly off-topic, but I disagree a lot with how this is framed. This "Americans lose jobs to people that receive lower wages" is a load of bull; the person receiving poverty wages is not "taking your job", they are being exploited by your country. If an American wants that job, he can take it - I assure you immigration is a lot easier in that direction. As a bonus, you get their prices for videogames... People in the US benefit the most from the cost reductions of exploited labor; implying that US customers, of all the people in the world, can't benefit from globalization is not quite right.

This is a very literal "first world problem"...

Yes, globalization is for big businesses. They can set up a company in the US, pay taxes in Ireland, dispose of their garbage in China, exploit workers in Mexico, and get IT support from India. But for the people whose country is the one with all the big businesses, the right thing is to have more solidarity for the fellow workers of other countries, not thinking about how they get "cheaper" (not really) videogames.


Last edited by eldaking on 1 August 2020 at 3:40 pm UTC

Quoting: The_Aquabatwwwow I'm surprised how many people have a stereotype of third world countries, many here think that they are like a slum dumpster. Third world is a Cold War definition you should update your definitions, here for example, GDP is comparable to a Scandinavian country (but yeah with double population) and GDP per capita is comparable to some eastern european countries like Ukranie, or Poland. We are not even a low income country considering statistics just a middle income. I'm not saying there is no poverty which there is but the mayority of my country is quite nice. Sad that you have that picture of some countries. I hope that stereotype don't stick and maybe you should come to take a tour . It's just that cost of living is quite a less here even for the CIA factbook Argentina is ranked quite good in therms of Purchase Power Parity.

but likewise I guess it's understandable, I'm totally ignorant of countries like Estonia, Latvia, Lithuanie, Hungary, lots of countries for me are like "exotic", I guess Argentina is likewise exotic for some people in Europe or North America.

Not entirely sure where this is coming from, just to check I went through all the posts in this thread so far and yours is the only one that contained the term "third world". Also I see exactly zero people comparing Argentina with "a slum dumpster" or anything even near in comparison.

edit: And btw Argentinas GDP per capita is 62% of that of Poland and 255% of that of Ukraine so not sure where "GDP per capita is comparable to some eastern european countries like Ukranie, or Poland" is sourced from. And Argentina have 4 times the population of the highest populated Scandinavian country (Sweden).

I used the Wikipedia numbers for reference.


Last edited by F.Ultra on 1 August 2020 at 9:21 pm UTC

Quoting: The_Aquabat

Quoting: F.Ultraedit: And btw Argentinas GDP per capita is 62% of that of Poland and 255% of that of Ukraine so not sure where "GDP per capita is comparable to some eastern european countries like Ukranie, or Poland" is sourced from. And Argentina have 4 times the population of the highest populated Scandinavian country (Sweden).

I used the Wikipedia numbers for reference.

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that's outdated, now we are probably a middle-middle income not high-middle income, we have some fluctuations here. in economics the pandemia has been catastrophic here, more than the average.

What is the source though? Wikipedia uses the IMF estimates for 2019 so hardly "outdated" since that would be the very latest available data possible.

Completely off topic though since this is not a thread about the Economic siltation in Argentina (a topic that you for some reason brought to this thread). And if you didn't get it from my prior post you cannot say that Argentina is like Poland or Ukraine when there is a huge difference between Poland and Ukraine to begin with.


Last edited by F.Ultra on 1 August 2020 at 9:52 pm UTC

Quoting: The_Aquabat

Quoting: F.UltraWhat is the source though? Wikipedia uses the IMF estimates for 2019 so hardly "outdated" since that would be the very latest available data possible.

Completely off topic though since this is not a thread about the Economic siltation in Argentina (a topic that you for some reason brought to this thread).

it's data from the world bank here it's more updated.
 
https://miro.medium.com/max/1000/1*w9cdWPA7xFDkieFNLre_hg.png

yes I know it is not the topic but if you follow up the linked thread to ResetEra there's some mentioning that, I'm sorry I went off topic.

And if you use the comparison function on the World Bank site: https://data.worldbank.org/?locations=AR-PL-UA you see the same differences that I quoted earlier from Wikipedia.

edit: And more to the topic at hand, looking at the GDP per capita between Sweden, Argentina, Poland and Ukraine show why game devs wants to apply different prices in different regions: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?end=2019&locations=SE-AR-PL-UA&start=1960


Last edited by F.Ultra on 1 August 2020 at 10:25 pm UTC

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: slapinWell, 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...

What do you mean by "Sony Playstation managed to do it right"? AFAIK they have both regional locking and prices.

Sony made sure everyone gets the same content for regional prices, so you do not get poorly localized version without ability to switch to original language. On playstation you get the same game with all the stuff in it, not crippled version.