Does Valve set the prices? I thought it was the publishers/developers/who ever manages the steam product listing.
"Valve must stop making excuses": Steam under fire for "significant price disparity for PC games," causing regional pricing that's "often 20% to 30% higher than the dollar equivalent"
Submitted 3 weeks ago by themachinestops@lemmy.dbzer0.com to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
squaresinger@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
shneancy@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
it’s the devs/publishers yes
some time ago Palworld devs lowered the regional price for Poland as they noticed it was relatively more expensive for Poles to buy the game, they got a lot of praise for that
squaresinger@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I think Poland is just in the crappy position of not being on developers/publishers radars and being lumped in with other nearby countries when it comes to pricing.
I’ve heard similar complaints of polish people for all sorts of platforms, not only steam.
And I think them not having the euro probably adds to the situation since the value of the polish zloty has been going up compared to the euro.
So if publishers set the price to the euro equivalent in 2022, and the Zloty rose by 20% compared to the Euro in the mean time, you end up with the prices that are there now.
W3dd1e@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
YouTube charges ≈$1.50 USD in some countries and charges $14 USD in the United States. I just thought this was standard. Shitty, but normal.
Little8Lost@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I think what is talked about is coutries like Poland where the currency is weaker than the $ but they still cave to pay more.
Having to pay less when earning less is good but paying more while earning less is bad.
And the problem with at least poland exists now for a few yearsPringles@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
Steam pushing Poland towards the eurozone, wasn’t expecting that one tbh
DarkAri@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
Please don’t post this trash propaganda on lemmy.
Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 3 weeks ago
In theory, this should make games "more accessible to a larger audience." But, as Water CS2 says, "The problem lies in the data Valve uses to make these suggestions." According to the YouTuber, Valve hasn't updated its conversion rates since 2022, when it first introduced the regional pricing system. At that point in time, "the Polish currency was near its weakest" – but Steam is still "using this weak old rate" from three years ago.
JayGray91@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
Maybe I’m just misunderstanding the quote, but I’m pretty sure regional pricing have been around at least since 2010s.
Maybe I should RTFA
Ugurcan@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Fun side note: It’s Yannis Varoufakis, who would later become Greece Finance Minister during the turmoils, started the whole Regional Pricing (and the very first item marketplace with TF2) when he was Valve’s CFO.
stuner@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The Polish price includes 23% VAT, no?
CosmoNova@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
That would mean a $70 game in the US costs $86.10 in Poland. Not $100. The math doesn‘t check out for a lot of games I think.
stuner@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Yes, and it should probably be cheaper in Poland. But it’s really 17% more expensive in this case, not 44% (or 30% as the article calculates).
aeternum@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
cough Australia cough
PattyMcB@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Gonna go to GoG. Sucks to be Steam
AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
In the Reddit thread about the rejected NSFW updates, Crimson Delight have only good things to say about Valve’s handling of the situation. “I have to say the reviewer was kind and forthcoming, we didn’t feel threatened or bullied in any way, and we got the feeling they were trying to do their best to help devs navigate the process,” developer Frenzin writes. “But the fact of the matter is that Valve has payment processors breathing down their neck, and the rules keep getting stricter as time goes on.”
“Valve isn’t the problem here,” Frenzin continues. "The big credit card companies are. If anything, Valve has stood up to them and pushed back. They could’ve simply nuked the 18+ section of Steam, but they didn’t, they stuck up for developers. Obviously adult games make Valve money, but it’s a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of Steam’s catalogue. Silksong itself probably earned Valve more than most NSFW titles put together.
“Given that we’re erogame devs, we’re against any sort of censorship (as long as the content isn’t sexualizing minors or nonconsensual in any way),” the developer comments. “But it’s important to understand where the real problem lies, and it’s not with Valve.”
TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
GoG has regional pricing too…
ripcord@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I mean, definitely use GoG although this isn’t particularly a reason.
whereyaaat@lemmings.world 3 weeks ago
Just sail the high sees like a smart person.
If you really want to support the devs, cut out the middle man and send them money directly.
It’s not a difficult concept.
HertzDentalBar@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
“bawww I come from a rich country and wanna pay less”
All I hear from this trash
LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
The steam sale prices are honestly ridiculous. Barely even discounted. Like 30% off games that are over 5 years old.
windowsphoneguy@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
Publishers set prices.
LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
Makes sense. Crazy what they can get away with.
whereyaaat@lemmings.world 3 weeks ago
Useful idiots deserve to be charged as much as they’re willing to pay.
Anything less, and they will legitimately get upset at the business not ripping them off.
snooggums@piefed.world 3 weeks ago
While I get the underlying point, any schedule for changing prices is going to cause a proportional gap as well. Even changing annually will have points in time where purchasing power relative to the dollar changes.
Plus constantly chaning would seem like they are trying to get more at certain times. Honestly there isn't a pricing scheme that involves the US dollar that isn't just converting local currency to dollars at the time of purchase and that is a whole can of worms too.
echodot@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
The whole thing is stupid anyway.
If I have a game that I’m selling for $30 that doesn’t necessarily mean that I convert into the local currency and sell that game for $30 in Nigeria (I have no idea what currency they use in Nigeria).
I might not be able to sell the game for $30 in Nigeria because that might be 3 months of the annual income. But I don’t want to totally give up on the Nigerian market so I sell the game for $5, that way at least I’m still selling the game for some money.
To be honest I would probably prefer not to be basin my game pricing on the US dollar anyway right now. It doesn’t seem like the most stable currency. Not many never was anyway.
Shiggles@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Sure, but people just set their VPN to Nigeria and bought their games for $5. This isn’t the cleanest solution, but they can’t just do what you said.
Munkisquisher@lemmy.nz 3 weeks ago
But it’s the opposite in NZ and Aus, we pay more when converted back to USD while the spending power is much less.
Keegen@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
I don’t really care what they do, I just want them to do ANYTHING. Either update the regional pricing more regularly or just get rid of the damned thing and let me pay in USD/EUR. There are some rare publishers that will actually go out of their way to manually set the regional pricing to make it reasonable but most of them just follow the default suggested Steam one leading to massively overpriced games. I’m Polish and at this point I only buy games on sales, the final price still often comes close to what the game would cost me in USD/EUR without any sale.
Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 3 weeks ago
It seems like at least changing annually would be better than the current system.
sibachian@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
they changed the model back when the dollar collapsed which ended up like a firesale for those aware. i bought sooo much within those 2 days window lol.