Oh, god damn them if they did this on top of the other bullshit.
Edit - Valve this month
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Watch tonight on TV: How The Gaben Stole Christmas.
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All Hail Gab for helping make players all pay what their suppose instead of abusing the system.
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I've seen markups of 450% here. **** that, I can get cheaper on consoles for some of these games.
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At this point, that ripoff isn't available any longer, but it was one of the Call of Duty games, available for US$90 in the Aus / NZ region while it was $20 for US users. We still have rather large prices on some of them though. An example is Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, which goes from US$20 for Americans to US$50 for Aus / NZ. 250% price. Several of the other titles in the series aren't much better.
That is also ignoring other series with the Aus / NZ tax. Activision is one offender, though have given us better prices on some games, though I don't think any of them are still on Steam, all of them having been licensed games. 2K games also tend to mark up our prices locally.
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Pricing should be even, not marketed up for more cash i have also seen shit market up by 6,200% which is just bullshit
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In some cases regional pricing is bs, take EU for example... if you're gonna do regional pricing based on adquisition power of each region... you just can't generalize in eu... I live in spain and the spain economics are fucked up atm, still we have the same pricing as countries like germany or UK which have way higher minimum wage...
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yes. i just wantet to say, that the prices in uk and germany not the same.
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Even if i understand how it affects a lot of ppl the new changes with trading and also having all games being region lock will surelly cause problems , i dont get why all are so mad at valve for taking that action and not at all mad towards the people who abused the system and forced valve to take that action. Tbh i cant believe it took them so long to take action
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I'm mad at such an action because I live in New Zealand, where video games are traditionally marked up extensively. This has included titles on Steam at times, to about 450% on some. They have been making a lot of moves I don't like, but combined are basically out to squeeze every cent they can from customers and reducing options for other choices. I'm already expecting them to introduce more locks once more regional currencies are introduced to the rest of the countries.
I already know that this is on Valve, rather than devs / publishers, since I know even devs that were wondering how to unlock their game for all regions.
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The people mad at it are the ones who forced the changed in general.
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I just realized something. If you bought a game from the Russian Store even though you were living in another country, you were being a cheap ass. Why? Let me explain you something. As example I'll use Russia (and the Russian Store) and Germany (and the German Store).
The average wage in Russia is around 382€.
The average wage in Germany is around 2054€.
Let's take a random game which is currently not on sale: Bloons TD 5.
Bloons TD 5 in Russia: 249 RUB (3,79€)
Bloons TD 5 in Germany: 9,99€ (619 RUB)
Now let's calculate how many times you could buy the game if you would buy it from the store of your country (Russia -> Russian Store, Germany -> German Store)
Russia: 382€ / 3,79€ = 100,79 = ~ 101 times
Germany: 2054€ / 9,99€ = 205,60 ~ 206 times
As you can see, you are able to buy Bloons TD 5 a lot of more times with your average wage in Germany than in Russia. This means that compared to Germany, the games in Russia are way more expensive for the Russians compared to their average wage. Let's calculate how many times you could buy the game with your average German wage if you would purchase the game on the Russian Store.
Germany: 2054€ / 3,79€ = 541,95 = ~ 542 times
This means that you would have been able to buy the game 441 times more often with the average German wage of 2054€ when buying from the Russian store than the people which live in Russia with the average Russian wage of 382€.
In the end, we shouldn't complain that Valve region locked the cheapest countries. Don't complain that it's unfair for users which don't live in Russia. We were abusing a loophole and we were getting games extremly cheap compared to our average wage. And well, we are still able to buy more games with our average wage than the people in Russia, which is still nice.
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Thats another problem. And shal be dealt in another manner (creating more regions with dif. pricings). Not by alowing loopholes such as this.
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wow. will you post this everywhere? have some balls to admit you're gaben in cover. i mean, you have to be gaben. i can't see any other reason to be a fanboy of regional pricing.
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So you know more about their market than their 6 and 7-figure salary economic advisors stocked with countless market data that you can't even access? Amazing...
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key went from 2,01/2,30€ to 1,80€
Tell me the secret master. ;D
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but selling games for pennies on the dollar isn't a business model so they aren't losing anything really and if just a handful of people that were taking advantage of the system buy games in their region they win.
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I guess I missed the joke. Is it really necesssary to be fully literal at all times? How about this: if just a small quantity of people that were taking advantage of the system buy games in their region they win.
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Read my OP again. It's not a handful of people cheating the system, there are a metric ton of those people. I said that if just a handful of those people (the region jumpers) bought games through their home region then Valve would come out ahead even if the rest stopped using steam completely.
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Do you really think it's that large? That it's the world wide governments collectively saying they need a proper tax from Valve Corp? It's not just valve and game developers, but the entire worlds government collectively?
If it were truly that, I don't see why they wouldn't be forcing states to register tax from out of state. Because that's currently not happening.
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Goodbye Steam. I'm perfectly happy with consoles, and if they are going to region lock anyway, I'll stick with Sony. They have treated my country better than other companies.
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I find waiting for sales works wonders. Just so you know, they aren't exclusive to Steam. PSN have had multiple sales with $1 games, the PS3 games I bought have region free except for one game (Atlus didn't want the Persona 4 fighting game region free), and since hardware is always the same, I don't have to deal with the occasional game that just refuses to run no matter what I try.
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Console games in third world countries actually are cheaper.
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Just ignore this junkie, he is a faggot with no life apart of smoking weed attempting to troll.
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actually sometimes yes, for the playsation anniversary there were quite a lot of games at discounted price, I bought Ni No Kuni for just 5€ on the psn, plus here there's a local electronic store that does great prices on games. I'm waiting for them to restock and buy Kingdom Hearts 1,5 hd remix for just 10€. In the past I've even bought games from them for just 2,5€ (sonic 06, split second) and much more, like Catherine for 5€, all brand new and sealed :3
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Where can I buy Sonic '06 for PC? I really want it!
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Yup, got confirmation from multiple sources earlier. Store-wide lock
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Will the tf2 keys price drop since it will not be used anymore to buy games from Russians?
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Do none of you kids understand that Steam/Valve/Gabe do not set these things? It's the developer and producers aka Steamworks Partners.
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nothing, they already had implemented "AllowCrossRegionTradingAndGifting=Yes" parameter, so while rubel felt pretty fast, they just changed this parameter to "No" for all games. Pretty much lazy bastards.
They had two options - lock trading or change RUB to USD, but that way there will be no russians which will buy games (because it looks like they will have pretty hard times).
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Mmm, actually no, we don't have any special region prices. We pay the same prices that people from the US pay. Not even in Origin, or U-play.
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Not anymore, Central America pays Mexico's prices but in dollars, that's in Origin's case. Which had us paying in euros with EU prices, can't think how someone thought that was the brightest idea, Origin is not the smartest but now is the fairest.
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I live in Costa Rica, and I would have to pay $59.99 (american dollars, that is) for Far Cry. Certainly it isn't cheaper for us. For Mexicans maybe, since it seems they can pay in Pesos. But for us, no.
EDIT: I just checked Origin, it seems that we do have the games cheaper over here. My bad. Not in Steam though.
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Does this apply to the rich regions as well?
I can confirm everything I attempt to buy as gift now shows the region lock warning.
I wonder if this is just to spook people or SteamDB has not updated yet.
Well, goodbye trading and gifting. I can only gift non-locked CDKEYs now...
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Not gonna happen - as much as I love having all my games in one place with digital download, auto updating etc - I'm not overpaying 1/3 or even 1/2 for them compared to retail.
Let me give you an example - brand new AAA game usually costs 50EUR on steam. Boxed copy for it in retail store on day 1 will cost you usually 120-140PLN (28.5-33EUR). To buy it cheaper on Steam you'd have to wait for 50% sale - and till it happen it will cost 19-23EUR already in retail stores. As avg wage in Poland is 650Eur (now try comparing it to 2000+Eur you get in Germany, France or UK) PL retailers set price afordable for polish consumers. Steam sets the same price for Polishmen as for Germans who earn over 3 times more than we do.
So no - even with waiting for sales no Steam purchases by me anymore, because Steam pricing in my country is just ridiculously high.
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yes but these cost tend to distribute proportionally - if your country wage is twice as big as mine usual living costs will be up to twice as big as in mine (also not all, as for example petrol will have similar price and it's a part in cost of for example food). So avg frenchie will still have significantly more to spend than avg pole.
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I am your neighbour so I am on the same boat. But for me it is not a big deal cause I have no problem to wait 1/2 of year after some game is released, or even more. I am not I-must-have-it-right-now kind of guy, but I understand what you mean. As long as there will be still sales with 50% and more, I have no problem
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Exactly my point. The differences in purchasing power across all the different EU countries is big, extreme in some cases, and is not properly reflected in the 2 tiers system. At all. Many EU2 countires, based on their incomes should get near to Russian prices.
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In Hungary the average is 828 euro but you only get 542 euro after tax.
It's the same bad amount of money
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I'm in Canada and when i added a game to the cart, there was nothing new. Pretty expensive region (not more than Europe) but definitely more than USA :P
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i just bought my freakin 20 keys :'( "10 minutes ago"
FUUUUUUU
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Dude I have bought around 60 keys and don't know what to do with them. :(
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Looks like Valve is trying to get gank trading outright.
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I live in Canada and games are already pretty expensive for me. Can't imagine living in Europe with these stupid prices :S
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Sale prices are really reasonable in Canada (as far as I know we share the same store with the US, we just have to deal with the small difference in exchange rates). At least we don't have to pay what Australians do for retail games (I hear $100+ for many new games).
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"As most of you know, our developer tools suggest pricing based on market research and purchasing power parity. In the case of territories such as Russia, Brazil, and SE Asia, we suggested pricing that is lower than the direct USD conversion. This is based on our assessment of actual pricing of comparable products in that market. Recently Rubles have hit an all-time low which has been a concern of many game developers. We are still assessing the market to see if suggesting new prices in Russia is right for customers who live in that market. We do not think that pricing based on currency conversion only is the right way to approach the Russian market necessarily.
What we are doing immediately in response to the Ruble drop is limiting trading and gifting from Russia to prevent people from taking advantage of the situation. We have been applying a gifting and trading lock of this type on all newly created packages on Steam since mid-2014. Today we have propped a change that will affect all packages on Steam which will not allow them to be unpacked to an account, if gifted or traded from a lower priced region to a higher priced region. This change is not retroactive and only affects new purchases. It also will not affect customers in that region from gifting a copy to other people in that same region. All customers will have proper warning when they are purchasing a gift prior to checkout in those regions as well. We will continue to assess the situation and make changes if necessary in the future. If you have any questions please feel free to write us via the contact form via the Steamworks Development site - Documentation & Help -> Contact Steam Publishing."
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I was thinking about this too, that this was one of the biggest reasons. you get double rubles for 1€ than you could get last year. Obviously they had to do something, games become too cheap for ppl outside Russia if buying from Russians, 20€ is more than 1300 rub, it used to be like 45€ last year.
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They blame that, but last I checked, only Russia used that currency, yet they are blocking other regions as shown in the opening post.
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Will it be permanent or only temporary while the Ruble price is that low? Pretty sure the first option but who know.. :P
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Seems like someone is extremely butthurt. I think I know why. It's because you added me to your blacklist for no reason! xP
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Every user on my blacklist is for a reason. Just because I don't have a record of why doesn't mean you didn't do something to get there.
And Valves 'excuse' is not a good one. If it was about Rubles, one country would have had all titles region locked. The count shouldn't be in double digits if it was the currency of Russia.
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It's about people manipulating the system in a way that was not intended nor ever encouraged.
And it's still a mistake of you putting me on there -- I have 100% positive rep on any site you can find me on.
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So, you are a fucking sheep that blindly follows the system? lel.
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How it is necessarily a mistake? For example you are on my blacklist for begging and since SteamGifts Plus only has a small amount of space in the memo field I can't refer back to the exact incident(s) that got you blacklisted, but that doesn't make it a mistake. It would seem that you've done more than enough to end up on them and your behavior probably has a lot to do with it.
Also, "positive rep on any site" means less than nothing. In fact it seems you have a lot of negative rep around here. Stop doing things to make yourself a target and you might have better success.
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It's a copy-paste from the dev forum, so there's no direct link available.
Posted as a response to an earlier comment.
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damn if they actually do that, even in same region , we have the same region lock as Malaysia,... but still have to pay with ROW price
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This is true. When I saw the news today about Russia's economy, my first thought was how cheap can I get games from them now... It's a mad world....
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The ruble has gone to shit. It's half what it was a few weeks ago. Apple have stopped selling on their Russian website. It's been coming for the last few days. The ruble is absolutely worthless. $1 is now 70rub. €1 is now 90rub. Fucking Putin and his fucking Crimea bullshit. That's the end of my gamecount march.
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So it's ruble fault? I think it's understandable if only russian get region locked, but for SEA, South America and other cheap region get locked too, I think it's just reason for "greedy act" from valve.
Damn I can't create giveaway for christmas :(
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The ruble was the catalyst. I think they've been wanting to do this for a long time. Now they have an actual reason to.
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True story, this is like the perfect excuse to give the last shot to a dying body called Trading.
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SHUT UP IDIOT. You sitting on your fat ass and dont know what's happening in world
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Yeah g2a was very happy, since they actually sell Steam gifts too, I saw lots of Steam Gifts selling there after the Steam Autumn Sale ended. Since they just send it to email, it doesn't affected them at all that it had that 30 days thingy, they made tons of profit by buying for example Tomb Raider GotY at 2.5€ in Russia and then selling it for 4-6€ each.
And as for scammers, now scammers receive their games just for free since when someone gifts them a game, for Valve this means this person just made them a present, and giving free games to others is obviously not a scam.
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ROFL You think G2A buys Russian games and resells them? WOW You have no idea how things work.
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why not? how they get cheaper steam gifts(not keys) then? if the only profitable price to get more money than then spent by selling it is Russia, g2a is a Polish website, it won't be hard to them to buy games from CIS and RU, well now since games are region locked they can't do this anymore, if they're not directly stealing games.
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Might be because you are in America. They don't need to lock that region yet.
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Shit! I live in the SEA region so this affected me too T_T
Damn Steam!!!!!
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Well holy fucksticks, tickle my arse and call me Fred, that's not very good news. Got 18 keys, glad I didn't go through with my planned purchase of at least 10 more.
Don't know what I'm going to do with these now :( Dispenser.tf maybe, and buy up some of the old stock. Only thing I can think of right now, anyone got any better suggestions?
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If you wanted those keys to buy a game/games, run to steamtrades and buy it/them right now before the old nonregionlocked stock finish.
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I'll check it out now, it's just that most of my experience with traders on there were buy-on-demand guys who never held much of a stock. I'll see what treasures I can find.
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Also probably those TF2 keys will drop in value soon, so, i think you never had better reasons to trade them for games quickly! haha
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From what I've seen, there hasn't been much region locking on the US area.
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Response from dev forum:
"As most of you know, our developer tools suggest pricing based on market research and purchasing power parity. In the case of territories such as Russia, Brazil, and SE Asia, we suggested pricing that is lower than the direct USD conversion. This is based on our assessment of actual pricing of comparable products in that market. Recently Rubles have hit an all-time low which has been a concern of many game developers. We are still assessing the market to see if suggesting new prices in Russia is right for customers who live in that market. We do not think that pricing based on currency conversion only is the right way to approach the Russian market necessarily.
What we are doing immediately in response to the Ruble drop is limiting trading and gifting from Russia to prevent people from taking advantage of the situation. We have been applying a gifting and trading lock of this type on all newly created packages on Steam since mid-2014. Today we have propped a change that will affect all packages on Steam which will not allow them to be unpacked to an account, if gifted or traded from a lower priced region to a higher priced region. This change is not retroactive and only affects new purchases. It also will not affect customers in that region from gifting a copy to other people in that same region. All customers will have proper warning when they are purchasing a gift prior to checkout in those regions as well. We will continue to assess the situation and make changes if necessary in the future. If you have any questions please feel free to write us via the contact form via the Steamworks Development site - Documentation & Help -> Contact Steam Publishing."
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