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[texhnolyze]

As far as I know, Steam is the only PC games storefront that offer gift cards to topup their customers' wallet. Why is this important? Because most of Asia Pacific (and maybe many other countries in other regions as well) customers are still not accustomed to credit cards, and gift cards are basically their only option to purchase video games. There's already PSN/XBL/Google gift cards available out there, but why haven't Origin, Uplay, GOG, etc started to follow suit?

I found this article:

Asia Pacific is one of the fastest rising eCommerce markets in the world. According to a 2014 yStats eCommerce report, the region is expected to grow by 20% annually until 2018, surpassing North America in terms of online B2C sales.1 But while developing markets like China and Indonesia have led eCommerce expansion in 2013 with growth rates of 71% and 65% respectively,2 low credit card penetration in the Asia Pacific region has made it challenging for online retailers to make conventional in-roads towards developing markets.

In India, more than 60% of all transactions are still cash based.7 In Indonesia, more than 80% of online shopping payments are still done by bank transfer.8 In Vietnam, offline payments still account for 81% for all online orders,9 while in Thailand, 70% of online shoppers still prefer CoD.

Also this article:

Despite being one of the world’s second largest economy, China still has one of the biggest unbanked adult population worldwide. Only 79% of the adult population have bank accounts while there are still 234 million adults without any accounts. This accounts for 12% of the world’s overall unbanked adult population. Such low financial inclusion is furthermore evident in China’s credit card transaction and debit card transaction rates of 13.80% and 17.30% respectively. Less than half of the country’s banked adult population own a debit card.

Now, let's take a look at the geography of GTA V on Steamspy:

There's so much they can gain by giving Asia Pacific (and many other 'credit card-less' countries) the option to buy the games from their storefronts, which is gift cards. It doesn't matter if it's digital or physica, as long as there's gift cards for a storefront, there'll be resellers selling them. Gift cards resellers are flourishing over here, I can even easily buy one from the nearest minimarket. Credit card is not an option for many of us, and these companies can't seem to grasp that idea yet. Many times I'm tempted by the discounts offered by Origin, Uplay, GOG, etc, but well too bad, I can't buy them.

With regional pricing and gift cards, 'Steam or bust' is not a joke for many of us.

 

[Poetic.Injustice]

They also overcharge on Steam cards when you look directly at the exchange rates in certain countries. That's just offputting.

It's the same with PSN store cards as well.

 

[Pop On Arrival]

steam recently started doing shady shit over here in the Philippines too when sales would pop up. They'd add like $20 to the original price making the game $80 and give us a "%10" discount.

I wonder if that shit actually works? You'd have to be a complete idiot to fall for it.

 

[texhnolyze]

They also overcharge on Steam cards when you look directly at the exchange rates in certain countries. That's just offputting.

It's the same with PSN store cards as well.

On Steam, there's at least regional pricing. I also usually buy $ version of gift cards so they automatically convert to my currency, which ended up much cheaper compared to buy my local gift cards.

steam recently started doing shady shit over here in the Philippines too when sales would pop up. They'd add like $20 to the original price making the game $80 and give us a "%10" discount.

I wonder if that shit actually works? You'd have to be a complete idiot to fall for it.

Lol, what game is that?

I remember GTA V doing similar stunt but it's not that much. Some games have also hiked in price before release, but I've never seen something like that on my store.

 

[JaseC]

steam recently started doing shady shit over here in the Philippines too when sales would pop up. They'd add like $20 to the original price making the game $80 and give us a "%10" discount.

I wonder if that shit actually works? You'd have to be a complete idiot to fall for it.

As far as I'm aware, that's only happened with GTAV (R* temporarily removed the ability to purchase the game on its own -- Shark Card bundles were the only option) and Warframe's Summer Sale Pack, sort of (it slightly jumped up in price a couple of weeks before the Summer Sale but has stayed there since). Price adjustments are one of the few things that have to be manually approved by Valve, so publishers can't actually increase/decrease their prices willy-nilly to fake better deals.

 

[Pop On Arrival]

Pretty sure it was a bunch of other games. I remember whining about it on here before, and it definitely wasn't just GTA V, but I do remember that too.

 

[JaseC]

Pretty sure it was a bunch of other games. I remember whining about it on here before, and it definitely wasn't just GTA V, but I do remember that too.

Out of curiosity, I took a poke around your post history and you mentioned the Call of Duty series last September. That doesn't seem to be the case, though (click Philippine Peso to load a price history graph, situated beneath the currency list):

- Call of Duty
- Call of Duty 2
- Call of Duty: United Offensive
- Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
- Call of Duty: World at War
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
- Call of Duty: Black Ops
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 2
- Call of Duty: Ghosts

Advanced Warfare saw a price hike on April 8th last year, which was probably what you had in mind at the time, but this was apparently corrected hours if not minutes later (on the same day) and didn't occur while it was discounted.

Late edit: Upon closer inspection, ₱3160 is the price of the Digital Pro Edition, so, yeah, someone just accidentally raised the price of the standard edition and quickly corrected their mistake.