Im from Argentina and the price increase really really hurt majority of gamers here. Because everytime we bought a game we have to pay an extra of 75% in taxes..so when we bought a game of 1000, we finally pay 1750 for it. And our sallary is 60k 100k a month or around that(minium wage). Games like dead red redemption increased their price to 10.000 if i bought full price it would cost me 17500.... When i go to the market i bought food for the month and i use like 30000....so buying a game that pricey is 1/2 of month for me... I think we get the short stick of this...VPN abusers are the problem.. But steam doesn't do anything about that...well... Im not angry about abusers.... I think steam need to do something, but well... Living in 3rd world country are like playing in hard mode. Not for everyone.
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yes... """"""""""""""""""""""we help the poor"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""(nasty rich politians) because we are so rich that buying a game or paying for netflix makes us rich it seems....
Of course doing this is illegal(legally you cant charge tax in something that already had tax in it.but well...socialist goverments are like this)... I got some screenshots..when u buy a plane ticket....they ticket itself maybe it cost 80000. but you will finally pay 200000(you can search for this, search plane tickets in argentina tax.) because of taxes...
Thanks ♥
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brazil was so envy of argentina's situation, that we are currently pursuing the same bullshit. i hope we reach the same bullshit level you guys reached and i also hope we go even further, because if people choose insanity, i demand nothing less than full madness.
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Oh man!! Forget the games and get those veggies!
Happy Cake day btw :)
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Theres a lot of nuance to that. We can talk abou unbalance, exagerating, neglegting real life or important matters for escapism and in that context its correct. But that would be really excessive.
But 'escapism' itself is essential to the human condition. Its like laughter, dancing, joy, resting- numerous research and historical events in the past (including horrible stories, like cruel experimenting on humans) show just how much we NEED these sorts of things. Even putting the horror stories of deprivation aside, we found out that even small things like a bland hospital room vs a pretty one, or a pretty vista, impacted like 25-40% positively on healing (amount and speed) in patients. Nasa plans, besides some films, sending tabletop games (and ttpgs) for an eventual manned mars mission as CRUCIAL for mental health.
...and theres countless of anedoctes from people suffering with mental health that found some help, relief and even improvements from gaming.
We live in world/system that wants nothing more then work and consuption from us, and that has grow into this culture that anything non-work/career is somehow 'lesser' or not serious... and that wouldnt be such a problem if it were only that. But the hard truth is that we didnt evolve for a life like this. Were peak machines for hunting and gathering on a simple primitive lifestyle, we werent built to live under constant stress and demands from work, bills, political issues/worries, burocracy, ever increasing demands, ever increasing information and speed... We can hardly keep up- and thats why a range of mental health issues have been on the rise, for over a century really (heck, it started with the industrial revolution), but really taking more of a exponential pace in the past few decades. And it only gets worsen- and sadly suicide rates are also amongst those
Excessive escapism is the one bad scenario. BUT even that have 1 big caveat- more often then not that itself is not the 'source' of the problem, but just a consequence; As in if it were excessive gaming it would be another form of escapism, if not that just crippling depression and or suicide. Its a bit like drugs, an alcoholic just not indulging in alcohol (without adressing what led then that way) would as easily become a heroin junkie... or a gaming junkie too. The worst offenders in gaming addiction are escaping from life in the first place for other reasons, and would try to do so any other ways regardless
This is like a ball of yarn of various issues and subjects, each complicated and deep; For example a lot can be discussed on what sorts of pressures or conditions is making an ever increasing number of people isolate thenselves in the modern world (and getting worse each generation)
PS: coming from someone with mental health issues that would have been a gamer addict. Im only not because of my own self-pressure workaholic condition, wich btw all mental health professionals ive been to identified as trespassing whats normal or healthy. When i was just starting gaming more i entered a whole other vibe (university, career, etc) that matched my perfectionism... and ive actually turned that into my 'escapism'. But its the same thing. I cant help but trying to chase 'productivity' and work for works sake as some form of keeping my mind busy and negleting a whole lot, and in my case for little in return (turns out a lot of bosses are more then happy with someone working extra for free to reward it)
Tl;Dr: i wouldnt say gaming addiction turns problems bigger- it only avoids dealing with the issues, but then people dont need games(or any other thing) to avoid then. The main issue is avoiding, and whoever is avoiding would avoid then anyway, one way or another
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Always search for help bro ♥. Psichologist, therapist, friends. Mental health is important, more for men that usually doesn't look for help. Gaming for me is not an issue, actually sometimes i get tired of gaming a lot, i usually game with friends,if not, i do other things. Paint the house, fix things, etc. But good that you are doing well with your issues
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Good points. Youre doing better then me- my addiction or 'escapism' is at least benefitial in some ways but i still neglect a lot (family, friends, even learning toward my goals- i dive into busywork). My main point (i couldve been more suscint but i have a problem doing that) was that all sorts of things can be said route for escapism. Youre fighting yours proper, ive been trying but with mixed results
That said gaming surely is a common form of that, even more so in younger generations. It may be one of the biggest, but i think its still behind much bigger ones (drugs, drinking, porn). Our perception is a little biased making it bigger, after all we are gamers, around gamers online, gamer friends etc- and it surely is huge by numbers (millions, maybe a billion affected?) but statiscally still behind the big ones... it hits harder a specific demographic, while other common ones hit much broader and the same demographic as gaming too.
What i hope is anyone struggling with that (you included) to find a balance- because games have also been found to be helpful the other way around. The issue is addiction, exageration, neglecting self and real life- but without that they help fight depression, anxiety, social isolation, amongst others... its probably a bit like THC/marijuana- we discovered it can have huge mental therapeutic effects, but in good doses- quite different from someone spending all day high neglecting work etc
PS: a tip is to avoid competitive games and or multiplayer timesinks (like mmos), and try other genres. Their design patterns and enviroments are the biggest pushers for 'keep playing', most time consuming, most addictive and so on (even self pressure like 'get gud'). When i fire up tf2 (wich i love) i can clearly notice how time can fly and im actually procastinating in it... On the other hand once upon a time i was never into casual games, nor survival games, but i grabbed Subnautica at one of the worst points in my life- and i can safely say it helped save me. I was so depresed nothing brought me joy, so stressed i couldnt sleep... the game felt like meditating and helped me realize how much changing my state of mind could helpe me navigate that terrible time
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yeah don't worry is not like im playing hours of hours video games :p. i got a GF already 13 years with her, i got friends, we have fun, i go out. I got my job. I tried to say that...if you look closely all this 3rd worlds country you will se a lot of bad things.... Corrupt people, death, goberment doing nothing, just helping the criminals more than innocent people, in Argentina 6 of 10 childs doesn't eat everyday. 50%(or more) are poor... Like i said, mental health is important, but if you start to LOOK really really closely all the bad things thats happens here, you will get sick of what people do. People is stressed out, so is angry, they search for fight, Is like they don't know how to manage their feelings well. just search when Argentina won the world cup how people celetrated that... people died celebrating...like...wtf?
But yeah, you are right, you are saying that people dissociate with the reality. It happens a lot.
Today is my 9 year here,and im sitting at 1999 games on steam. What a coincidence haah
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TBH, when you said Developers suffer from this,
BUT what about the users that suffer from this?
I am not talking about the users from Turkey only, and only this situtation (even though I can see why the majority of them are doing this),
I am talking about those of us who dont have "our" fair regional pricing at all, and are instead being treated like the first world countries,
average salaries in my country are around 300-350 euros, and bigger games are priced at around 60-70 euros,
we are nowhere near for example Germany`s standard, but we are paying the same as them.
So I can see why majority of users are doing that, changing their country, ofc there are some of those who will abuse that, and do it even though they dont need to,
but majority of them is doing it because they dont have fair regional pricing available for their country.
I would do the same, but I can not be bothered by that and probably using all sorts of VPN software's and stuff like that, if it was not that big of a hassle to do, I would honestly do the same, because like I said, its not fair towards many countries out there!
So, until Steam/Valve dont revamp their pricing and make it fair for anyone, then TBH I dont see this changing anytime soon.
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Actually that's not really something you can blame Steam for. You have to pay the same as richer countries in the EU because there is a EU regulation that demands unrestricted access to the best possible deal within the EU for every EU citizen.
This means that if we'd have a price set to adjust to the spare income level in Bulgaria, Steam would have to grant every EU citizen access to the very same price without any greater barriers.
That's the main reason why everyone ends up with the same high prices within the EU.
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@sassdrake Exactly this.
BTW, @Golwar
We were included in this a long before Croatia was part of EU, its just that Steam dont give an f... about this, in all fairness the bigger the price the bigger the cut for Valve, but at the same time, this will keep happening, people will abuse other countries regional pricing because they dont have their own.
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I think they don't give a f* because of number of active users in Balkan who would actually pay for games. As long as they approximate it as this:
[money Balkan users are spending on Steam while EU price is active] > [money Balkan users would spend on Steam with adjusted regional pricing]
I doubt there would be any change to it.
And when this change, we will probably be part of EU. But at least there are still Humble and Fanatical with their bundles.
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I'm not sure that's the correct interpretation of the EU rules. The UK used to have different prices on Steam while they were still in the EU and Poland still has regional pricing. After checking a few random games on steamdb it seems prices for Poland are usually 20-25% lower. Also afaik Epic offers better regional prices to even more EU countries.
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That's sad situation. I don't approve this practice, but it's happening for as long as I'm in steam, and people will keep doing this until steam will do something to prevent it. So far only thing they do is rise prices in cheap regions from time to time, and obviously that's not the solution at all (while prices in Türkiye is way too low indeed).
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I'm one of the rarest people who live in Vietnam that pay for games. Games are prohibited because Asian, you know.
Whenever I want to play games with friends, I have to pirate to play with them because none of my friend would buy games.
We are geting only 300 usd per month (me as a doctor), buying games is an insane act here. And Valve decided that we should pay the same or even more pricy than USA. What should people do? They don't care, keep pirate friends.
Even people who are afford to buy PS, Xbox, Wii here, first thing after bought those console was cracking them so they can play piracy disk.
So instead of getting 0 income from people like my friends, you guys are in a better condition.
In my opinion, what Steam should do is creating Steam pass just like Xbox game pass, because Vietnamese are using Game pass more and more, it's only 2.8 usd per month, it's affordable.
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Not everyone changing their region to pay less. Some people change the region because some games are unavailable in their countries. For example, almost every major publisher (and hundreds of indie studios) removed their games from sale in Russia and Belarus when the war started. While other PC and console stores stopped working completely in those countries. You can't even ask your friends from other countries to buy you the game and gift it since some publishers completely blocked access for Russians. For example, my friend from Japan wanted to gift me Hogwarts Legacy, since she knows that I'm a huge fan of books, but she was unable to do it.
So, that's why a lot of people change their region or create new accounts in other countries. It's better than pirating, I think. But, yeah, it may lead to price increase in countries like Turkey, Kazakhstan, Argentina, etc. The same goes for other countries that suffer from stupid censorship and government regulations. If your country doesn't allow you to play games with violence, nudity, drugs, foul language, LGBTQ+ characters and jokes about religion — no wonder that you will want to bypass those restrictions. Who am I to blame some Chinese or Arabian folks who want to enjoy the same video games, as the rest of the world does?
As for myself, I haven't changed my Steam region, and I'm not planning to do it in the near future for different reasons. For now, I mostly play the old games that I've bought in the last decade. But I've bought the Game Pass via region change for myself and my nephew. And I may reconsider about Steam at some point if the worst-case scenario happens and the war will drag on for years.
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And about people who actually change their region to pay less — I don't think it's such a big problem for the developers as some of them make it to be. The process of changing region in Steam isn't easy, not to mention all the risks. And if people still want to change the region — they, most likely, really can't afford to buy the games with their local prices. There can be different life situations and games nowadays can be unreasonably expensive. If you somehow restrict them from buying games in other regions — they, in the best-case scenario, will just buy less games, choose games from other developers with better pricing, or will wait for significant price drops/discounts/bundles. They also can switch to consoles and buy physical copies of the games, which could be bought used and sold after completion, giving nothing to the developers. Or they may choose alternative distribution models like F2P games or subscriptions (Game Pass, PS+, Humble Choice, etc.) In the case of subscriptions, developers will get even less money than they could've gotten if players have bought them in another region. In the worst-case scenario, those people won't buy any games at all switching to less expensive hobbies or will raise the pirate flag. As for developers, it's better to get less money than to get nothing at all.
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Portugal is a poor country and we pay the same prices as people in the richest countries in the world. Turkey and Argentina had it easy this whole time. It sucks but it is what it is... Plus, it seems the locals are helping the foreigners to change their account location to Turkey by providing them local payment methods, so they're also part of the problem.
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Although they don't live in Turkey, there are Steam users who change their account location to Turkey. This causes game developers to apply a significant price increase to their games because they cannot distinguish non-Turkish users. Game developers suffer financially due to Steam not imposing any sanctions on this issue. What do you think about this matter?
Additionally, I don't think this is an ethical situation, Turkish users who apply these procedures for foreigners should also be legally prosecuted.
They are applying the same situation for Argentina as well
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