I actually think ramping up their gift card distribution to more countries might be more effective imo, since people have access to cash or payment systems at physical stores.
Gift cards is ab obvious way to bypass regional pricing, so a low-income country like mine could get more harm than good (as in fraud increases and the storefront gives up ın regional pricing from that point on).
Also, when convenience of online shopping is lost, why would I bother wearing my shoes and get out to sun to purchase a gift card, while I can buy a physical copy of the game instead?
For a lot of games, especially games with low budgets that don’t make physical distribution possible (most indies on PC), they’re reliant on digital distribution, and Steam is the place for the majority of PC gamers to obtain their library. Also generally speaking for PC, physical distribution (apart from pirated files and niche scenarios), is basically already dead.
As for the regional pricing issue, Steam/Valve already looks at IP and regional activity (say a NA user temporarily VPN’s into Ukraine for a cheap price and then kills the VPN and plays from an NA ip afterwards) to flag accounts and restrict them from purchasing games in the future or gifting them to others. Because of that, I don’t think an increased volume of gift cards would be the issue (stolen credit cards are far more of a headache for Valve).
do they still make physical copies? if so, I’m pretty sure most indie developers cannot afford that…
teuniac_@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Tbh I could not be arsed to go somewhere to buy a gift card to then use it. I’m more likely to use another platform to buy a game.
It’s not that I don’t have values. I just don’t feel strongly enough about using Steam to make that trip just for a gift card.
Digital gift cards would be okay though.
TheBat@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
They already exist
WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 21 hours ago
you don’t have to make a trip just for that. you can just visit the shop next time you’re nearby.
teuniac_@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
Of course, but that would mean delaying a purchase by a day or more
Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
That’s fair. The ball is in Paypal’s court anyway, but I guess digital/prepaid gift cards could also be on the table as well.