steam scams us, it takes advantage of globalization but doesn't let us do so (like VPN). Good thing we can still trade.
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Oh, ok, I guess the editors do. I just wasn't going into details because steam is the intermediary that directly faces us in this case, when you pay you give your money to steam, so I was just taking a shortcut.
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Actually, as far as I know, the developer sets the suggested retail price for one region and then Steam handles regional pricing. Skyward Collapse, for example, costs 5 USD on its site no matter where you're from, but Steam does teh whole dollars=euros thing, so it costs more on Steam.
And as other people say, there are other sites (GMG, I believe) that gives you account a credit if they're forced to sell a game at dollars = euros, so why can't Steam?
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Its steam and no one else that sets regional differences. And if you ask them they will tell you that they do this because there is VAT that must be included in EU price (i think in US their state taxes are set on checkout and not in the price).
Anyway 1 eur is above 20% more expensive than 1 usd, but vavle don't mind taking more (25% instead of 20%) than they should :P
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Oh, thanks, so in that case I can say... "Steam scams us, it takes advantage of globalization but doesn't let us do so".
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"Its steam and no one else that sets regional differences."
This is actually not entirely true. Publishers have the option of setting custom prices, but they just don't care or have no idea, so they let Valve take care of things for them. If you're ever part of a community where the devs are active, make sure to inform them of the price stupidity on Steam and ask them to set things manually. It's pretty much the only way we can achieve anything, as Valve certainly aren't going to stop the ripping off willingly anytime soon.
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I think you have to read again the lesson about monetary exchange rates and values. Having a weak currency does not mean that things are more expensive. It's as if I was rich for having 1000k ZWD, which is like, nothing.
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Not sure what you're really talking about. 10$ is about 66 SEK, not 100$. However, we're paying with Euros on Steam and the games that are being sold for 50€ is almost 65$. 60€ games (60$ games in the US Steam store) are about 77.5$. So yeah, we do pay more for games than the US. However, that's all European countries that pay with Euros, not just Sweden.
Still have no idea what you were talking about in the first part though.
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Spotdog ! That's Saaaatan's dawg !! :D:D you know the movie? See Spot run or something like that...Epic epic ! :P ( &^ yeah that dude was a postman,in the movie :P ) also great actors,Anthony Anderson etc.
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yeah, but for example, bread in Italy cost two times more than in Poland (or even worse) and it's not even good...
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Yes, Valve has a regional pricing policy that screws Europeans, and most publishers go with it. It's been happening and protested against for years and it doesn't look like anything will change in the near future.
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I expected someone to come up with that flimsy fanboy excuse. There are a few problems with it:
Different countries have different VAT levels. Some have none. Steam has the same inflated price for all of them.
In relation to 1., lets see if Valve sets a standard markup based on the average VAT across Europe. The average is about 20% (maybe a bit higher), the markup is well over 30%. So that's not it.
Again in relation to 1., lets assume that Valve aren't idiots and are using the loophole that allows them to only pay the VAT rate of the country they're registered in. That's Luxembourg, with a 15% VAT rate. So they're pocketing over half the markup.
Valve didn't implement the regional pricing until 5 years after the law that extended VAT to digital goods came into effect. So they clearly had some legal loophole that allowed them to operate without paying VAT. If that loophole was suddenly closed, or they were contacted by some authorities or whatever, why was it never announced? Why would Valve just shoulder the hate if they have a perfectly valid excuse for ripping off Europeans? Why not redirect the blame towards the EU / local governments?
Amazon, among many other digital distributors, have no trouble servicing Europeans without increasing the price. Perhaps Valve should ask them how they do it.
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Well in the case of buying from amazon you are supposedly residing in the US and paying Taxes in whichever state your adress happens to be.
In the case of physical goods they display the price with VAT of the country they are based on (.co.uk, .it , .fr, .de and .es) and then it's recalculated based on the country you live in to pay your own VAT.
Also I'd bet Steam only pays taxes on Louxembourg. And I've heard that many companies have their base in some English island.
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Also, due to fluctuating exchange rates, valve has to set the price a bit higher in case it changes and they would be losing money. Better for them to skim a few percentages off of every game, than try not to and then a week or two comes along when they are losing 10-15% off of every sale due to exchange rates that happened to greatly fluctuate. It's also much easier to just set an exchange rate for the entire EU region that each country individually.
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Yeah it can be annoying, especially when you are getting heavily scammed.
Can be cheaper sometimes, like here (for UK at least)
(Use this script to get comparison data.)
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It has nothing to do with purchasing power. Some countries in EU have lower PP, lower average income and higher prices.
You should compare Western Europe to Eastern Europe, see the differences.
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Seeing as you apparently understand the concept of purchasing power, could you please explain how it makes sense for Europeans, who have a significantly lower PP than Americans, to get significantly higher prices. Please, I'd love to hear it.
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I'm not complaining about games being expensive ... Where did you read it? ... Nevermind.
Anyway, I prefer good indies (which are usually much cheaper), and I rarely (almost never) buy the big AAA titles, so I dont really care about 10 dollar being 10 euro, I just pointed that out.
And what this all have to do whit layoffs? Its hard to understand, what you really want to say, but I guess, you saying Europe is cheaper then the US? :D
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I'm sure US taxes levied on earnings and fuel are also far more expensive than in the majority of Europe.
Uh... wait.....
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I dont care . I buy from amazon and gmg or other sites hu have prices in dollar .
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EU1 here and feel the same way, that's why I normally only buy games on sale.
I miss paying in $US
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It's not Steam it's the publishers. They first started with $1 = E1 and now it's $1 = E1.xx. Blame EA, Activision etc., not Steam.
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As mentioned above, Steam sets the regional pricing from the base price given to them. And even if that weren't the case, many other websites give your account a credit when purchasing a game that has unfairly different pricing in different regions. Steam doesn't because customers will buy from them anyway.
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As far as I know games in rubles costs way less than in dollars, and costs slightly below the dollar price in brazillian reais. (Not disregarding the Euro = Dollar fact, just adding some curiosity)
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And why is piracy so widespread in Russia? Coz people there are frickin poor... BTW AFAIK they don't have Paypal which makes potential trading harder, riskier and less profitable. I bet if they could have PP accs, Steam would push the prices up :D
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Exactly, but my point is that sometimes regional pricing has a reason and sometimes it doesn't. Australia, for example, has lower purchasing power than the US, but generally pays nearly double for most games, with AAA releases costing 100 dollars easily.
I'm sure it's an artifact from shipping and taxes on boxed copies actually costing more to get to Australia, but now it's become industry standard and people will buy it at that price, so Valve sees no reason to lower the prices despite the nonexistent overhead.
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With Australia it's a problem with physical retailers. I'm fairly sure Steam doesn't encourage price gouging there, and the only publishers who choose to do it are the ones who also sell boxed copies and want to stay friends with the local retailers. And they need to stay friends, because there's no Steam for console games.
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With Australia it's a problem with retailers and software devs.
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No, we are not talking in general how much an American and an Australian can buy. We are talking only about video games. Provided that my assumption above is true, it would make perfect sense for Steam charging Aussies twice as much as in the US.
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You're missing the point. Computer games are a luxury, and therefore bought with whatever money is left after necessities are taken care of. So if Australians make, for a completely made up example, 30% more than Americans, but necessities cost 40% more than in the US, then they have less money left over to spend on games than Americans, and should therefore get lower, not higher, prices.
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Steam and GOG take 30% cut of revenue, the prices are established by the publishers.
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That's the "but I agree with you, some games in EU price are way more expensive even after adding the VAT to the US price" part, if you didn't read it.
Hammerfight: 1.99€, $9.99;
Dawn of War® - Platinum Edition 9.99€, $29.99;
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl 6.99€, $19.99
and so on..
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Except that $1=€1 is the most stupid way imaginable to account for VAT. Not only does it beg the question of what warrants the difference between the 15% VAT and the 30-35% markup, but it encourages suspicion that taxes are just a cover story for greed.
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Not with everything. There's some stuff that are equal for us (mainly indie titles or less well known publishers/developers & Capcom), with a tiny few which are actually cheaper for us.
But when it comes to the big guns like Activision, EA, Bethesda, SEGA, SquareEnix, Ubisoft and even Deep Silver, we generally get ripped even more than the Europeans do.
Apart from AU & NZ, no one really experiences the shock on their face at seeing $90-$100 CoD (and MW2 is STILL $90). Not that I'd buy CoD anyway (FPS games don't appeal to me much), but it's just sad seeing how we have to pay up to 4 times more than the US does.
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Mfw when I checked My account history on Steam and the list is: Retail Store, Retail Store, Retail Store, Retail Store, Gift, Retail Store,.... The first Steam Store item is Ys from latest Holiday sale and because it's only available on Steam.
Thanks Amazon/GMG and random non-region locked polish stores
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1€ ≠ $1 ≠ £1 / Steam Unpowered
Thats why i mostly dont buy from Steam-Shop.
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So, yeah, basically I'm from Poland and saw a strange thing here. As you all know, SG values games based on their value in dollars, rounded to closest thingy. So when for example Magicka costs 10 points, it's worth 10 dollars, possibly 9.99. And It's worth the same in euro, which is more valuable that dollars(4,19 PLN for an euro and 3,24 PLN for a dollar at the moment). What do you think about it? Post.
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