I would be okay with this if Steam had a much better regional pricing policy. Many Eastern European countries are really not much better off financially than Brazil or Russia and yet they have to pay 20% more than Steam's US consumers do. For countries like Latvia, Serbia, Romania and others, cross-region gifting was their chance at fair pricing.
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All Russian/Brazillian (or similar) games on Steam now have regional activation locks
- Thread starter Salsa
- Start date
Sentenza
Member
I live in Italy. The minimum wages here aren't higher than in US or UK. In fact they are lower.
And yet when it comes to tech and software the prices are sensibly higher.
Prophet Steve
Member
I think this can still happen. The games bought in their countries have a regionlock, not the ones outside of it.
I was thinking of Northern/Western Europe, sorry.
The South has some issues that are special.
Can you elaborate a bit? It's very possible that I'm wrong but from what I understand the region lock means that a game bought in the RU or BR region can no longer be activated on accounts that aren't tied to the same region, regardless of whether it's gifted or traded. So a Romanian user wouldn't be able to get a game at its Russian price.
The countries he listed don't fall under Valve's definition of Eastern Europe, which is: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Republic of Moldova, Russian Federation, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. As far as Steam is concerned, Latvia, Serbia, etc. are rest-of-world territories and as such users therein will also be prevented from activating a gift purchased from the Russian store.
Prophet Steve
Member
Oh no, you wouldn't be able to get the Russian price, but if your trouble is that you would have to pay more than the US, you would still be able to get a copy from the US.
Well no, that's not what I was getting at.
Latvia, Serbia, Romania and others are on the European region. They get the same euro prices as everybody else in Europe.
I'm from Latvia. In-store prices for electronics & software have always been higher here actually. Adopting the Euro didn't change shit about that as well
Dusk Golem
A 21st Century Rockefeller
Is this true? I visited Italy early this year and by my standards almost everything was more expensive than I was used too.
Not as expensive as Switzerland, but yai.
it will stay this way
lashman
Steam-GAF's Official Ambassador to Gaming-GAF
1000? hahaha ... yeah, right ... I personally don't know ANYONE who makes anything even remotely close to 1000 per month .... trust me - 1000 is NOT an average!!
GoodMorningPluto
Member
Funny how just a while ago it was cheaper for us Russians to buy in US store.
Sentenza
Member
Well, I guess it depends from what are your standards and what places you visited, specifically?
And yes, a lot of stuff is expensive in Italy, which doesn't mean everyone on Italy can afford it consistently, in fact.
According to few charts from the UE our country rates quite low even compared to other Europeans countries when it comes to wealth distribution and so on.
IdreamofHIME
Member
I posted a while ago about Russian PSN, so I figured out where my problem was getting the prices in rubles.
I can confirm the prices on Russian PSN are still in rubles.
If there is a way, I think at this point it makes sense opening a Russian PSN account for your purchases. You'll need to get a Russian payment card though.
GTA5
37.77
$47.21
DA: Inquisition
35.41
$44.26
Far Cry 4
30,69
$38.36
The Evil Within
17.70
$22.12
Lmao, its like a better than half price sale compared to UK prices.
Oh for fucks sake.
I don't even want to go into why subsidies and protectionism harm more than they hurt. The evidence is overwhelming and well documented.
For everyone who benefits for paying less by getting things "cheaper" than others, it is paid for elsewhere. In this case, we have had a system which enabled global trade. It broke down barriers and was an example of how free markets help many people.
If I lived in Russia or a country where games are cheaper I would have been trading so I could buy games too. The right to trade gifts enabled those who may not have had the means to afford as many games to get them and make a little profit on the process. Now they cannot. Yes Valve are perfectly allowed to bow to publishers (and looming capital controls in Russia) on this, but it makes their trading platform irrelevant and I'm sure that they'll be doing this without any joy in doing so.
The fact that so many people swallow corporate nonsense and would glldly enact short sighted policies that would end up harming them is saddening.
ClosingADoor
Member
Some agree with it, some don't. But you are making strange arguments. Earlier you called it a 'right' to trade stuff, while that has nothing to do with anything. You are comparing production in cheaper countries to digital sales, which is not the same thing. Now you are saying protectionism hurts, yet you advocate for that protectionism by saying making cheaper products in other countries is bad. You are all over the place, so it seems like you are just angry you can't get your games cheap anymore.
1615 in Spain? That image is sooooo wrong.
ClosingADoor
Member
Average is always higher in these things, since someone making a million makes up for tons of people living in poverty. Median might be better to see wages: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_median_wage
Aztechnology
Member
Seems some people have never heard the phrase "what the market will bear".
Meanwhile in the Steam store, TF2 key prices:
Should've sold my few keys when they were going for 2€.
I think Valve has pushed two updates to their pricing schema that does the currency conversions in the last week to try and combat this a bit.
Knowing how bad the Russian Ruble has gotten in the last few months, or even week, I'm not suprised Valve did this is a temporary solution. I'm sure they can't just dictate pricing, and don't want to shut down the store in that region, so this should keep the publishers they serve happy with minimal to no impact to normal customers.
So Russian traders will no longer be able to sell/trade games on steam but they will still be able to run cd key reselling websites?
TheBaronOfNA
Banned
This
I could not buy suff from Humble Bundle after the change of currency.
PetriP-TNT
Member
My heart goes out to the little russian trader who worked his ass off on the trading factory just that he'd have a just even one game to bring to the christmas table.
"Dada, I..."
"Where's the game Dmitri? Where's the..."
"Dada...
* one small tear falls down the fathers cheek while he looks at his son*
What a sob story. It breaks my heart, really.
You understand those that benefit from keeping the exploits in the Brazillian/Russian regions are a minority right? I've never traded a single steam stuff for profit in my entire life, and I don't know anyone that lives here that does. Those that do are a minority. I'd rather keep what we have, then have a minority bring in a profit through an exploit.
OminoMichelin
Member
It really depends on the zone. The difference between North and South and town sizes is huge.
YianGaruga
Banned
A majority of the games sold on Steam are not available as retail CD keys though.
YianGaruga
Banned
Nuuvem sells keys, this change only applies to gifts bought from Steam directly.
And enhanced Steam has a million other features besides currency comparison.
Wiktor
Member
In this case they're all positives. The only negative is your hurt ego.
GodlyTwins
Member
Well, damn.
Absolutely! DRM info, price/bundle history, links to stats and wiki pages, and much more.
Data is a couple of years out of date for several countries
SSPssp
Member
Just to add to this, Steam collects sales tax if you live in the state of Washington. They don't have a physical presence in other states, so they don't have to collect any sales tax from other locations.
ScaryBrandon
Banned
This. I barely play games on Steam any more, I have it open though to talk to friends I have there. Origin and Uplay get all my game time these days.
Games purchased in the "expensive" regions can still be gifted to the "cheap" regions, can't they?
The Brazilian currency has devaluated quite a bit in the past months too. It's not despair inducing like the Russian ruble but it's enough to eat into Valve's pockets.
PetriP-TNT
Member
This conversation is so absurd and hilarious that I'll just save it here under: what the hell am I reading on 2014
SmokedMeat
Gamer™
Probably has to do with the Ruble going down the toilet. No more keys
That would be my guess. Russian versions would be dirt cheap.