This crap is so annoying, when Valve changed the currency for my country, a lot of games got more expensive, some games straight up don't have the price for my currency so I can't buy them, cards give much less money now as I have to sell them in my currency and basically it sucks. I'd much rather buy it in dollars, why is this forced upon us? I can still buy in dollars from other stores, so there's at least that, but this is such an unnecessary hassle.
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Yes, we'll see how it turns out here. There's another month, so it could all change again.
We already miss out on a number of games that are banned by Australia's over-protective government -- everyone knows adults don't play games, right!? -- but one assumes there will be a fair few games that will, at least initially, not have AUD pricing, so they'll disappear from the store.
It certainly makes the third party stores seem a bit more attractive to me, anyway.
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Games that don't have prices don't disappear, they're just there without an option to purchase.
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Ah yes, you're right. It's effectively the same for someone who wants to buy them, though. :)
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then friend, from a row region can buy it them, often cheaper :)
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steam blocks gifting between regions if the price difference is to much. i would think a 21% difference would be "to much"
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that is bit weird policy in there. seen many cases with no rule to draw (as there is no price in the recepient store, hard to say what is base for calulating difference)
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I for one wont be supporting and developers that choose to push this predatory, anti consumer ideology on to customers.
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You can't opt out of this, unless you mean Valve itself, because the moment this change occurs, any game that doesn't set a relevant currency price on the game, there'll be no option to buy the game.
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I had similar thoughts about them implementing the changes just before Christmas :(
I am not looking forward to the mess this might create. Always a lot of posts from other users when they have had local currencies implemented. Most common complaint was "why are the games so much more expensive", quickly followed by "why can I not by game XX? There is no buy button."
I do pay a fee if I buy on steam, but only the conversion fee from my bank So a $4 purchase has a 12 cent conversion fee added (not too bad).
I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens
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Eh, we'll get fucked over either way, which is the main reason I stopped buying directly from Steam if I can avoid it. I've had $26 USD sitting in my account for well over 6 months now, & the only reason it's in there is because I was given a $50 Steam gift card. Steam & greedy publishers are the sole reason I buy from the grey market(or authorized key sellers).
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Yeah, that's a good attitude I guess. Almost everything I buy on Steam gets bundled before I play it anyway. I should use this as an excuse to stop buying, but I know that won't happen. Probably.
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Hold on to ya butts. Not long till the shit storm starts.
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Hang on are they going to update the pricing matrix for all countries? Or just add AUD.
"Before the pricing matrix change, Steam would recommend a $US10 game be sold at $11.95. Now, Valve's algorithm would recommend that same game be sold at $14.50." ($14.50 / $11.95 = 121.3%)
I'm in NZD and we currently get the $11.95 pricing. Even though our exchange rate is worse than the AUD one.
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Just AUD, now that the court battle (Steam VS Australia) is over. NZ already has the price listed since forever.
I might be wrong though.
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Yep, NZ has had pricing for a few years. Recently though I've seen some of the big companies fuck up regional pricing, Capcom, Namco, etc, charging twice the US$ price for some games, rather than setting currency pricing.
...and we used to have some of the cheapest pricing (outside of Brazil & Russia of course)
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Ahh, reminds me of that feeling of getting a 50 dollar gift card and waiting with dread to see how far that dropped when converted.
Not the same, but still -- getting screwed over in Aus?
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Cowbungah! Should I change my Steam Store Country? I don't really want to do that but that 20% increase is going to strain my poor student budget
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Gotta find a cheaper region first though, as now it essentially gets on us parity.
There are not really many row countries with lower prices than that around.
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What happens to the USD steam wallet balance that Australians have on their accounts?
Edit: found it
https://store.steampowered.com/aud
What a load of crap.
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My concern is the rate that they convert wallet funds at. I have a lot of money in my wallet, so it will make a big difference.
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a $US10 game be sold at $11.95. Now, Valve's algorithm would recommend that same game be sold at $14.50." ($14.50 / $11.95 = 121.3%)[alledged increase didn't happen]
Compared to actual current exchange rates it's only about 1.5% worse
i.e. you were lucky [in an acceptable situation] to pay 15% less same as US and 20-60% 15-45% less than EU for the past decade
[and prices will stay similar]
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I checked few random games (W3, Doom, Deponia, Ghost of a Tale, Dishonored 2, Hollow Knight) and they are all 17% cheaper compared to EU. So yeah, this change in exchange matrix will make them simply pay the same as other 1st world countries do in EU.
I noticed that UK and Canada also have -17% prices. So their matrix should be adjusted as well. Looks bad to put them in the same price region as Costa Rica or Vietnam.
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Not sure where you’re checking. Ghost of a Tale, for instance, is currently $US24.99 in Australia, which is about 5% less than the EU price, and equal to the US price.
If the Kotaku article is correct, the price under the new matrix will be about $AU36, which will be equal to EU (as you note) and higher than anywhere else, including other first world countries.
Steamdb has a lower AU conversion than the Kotaku article, for some reason (1,3 rather than 1.4-1.45).
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I checked prices on SteamDB. And it shown that there is 17% price difference for those games. Well Ghost has -10% only versus EU price. So may be that SteamDB has slightly off conversion rate?
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Yeah, SteamDB was wrong. Prices are live now.
Ghost of a Tale isn’t even purchasable; the publisher mustn’t have set an AU price.
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Yeah, you're right, SteamDB didn't update prices.
Now games vary. Doom is 10% more expensive than in EU, Deponia is -5% and Hollow Knight is -8%. So not all devs just auto-accepted new price matrix, otherwise there wouldn't be that much differences.
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Probably due to currency rates. But the difference Canada and US is 5 to 10%, EU seems to have overly high prices. The game prices haven't changed but the percentage differences can be decieving.
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i.e. you were lucky to pay 15% less than US and 20-60% less than EU for the past decade
No, we paid the same or more compared to the US.
Although a recommended conversion for AUD existed on the backend, AUD was not actually implemented so that conversion was meaningless.
Instead, the vast majority of publishers charged the US price in USD, while a few publishers charged more than the US price.
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Hmm. I don't think there's ever been a non-mistake price that was cheaper in Australia than on the USA store, but I'm happy to be corrected if you know otherwise. There have been some examples of price gouging in Australia by certain publishers, though (Beyond Earth, anyone?). But generally we've paid the same as USA until now.
I'm sorry; I haven't done more than glance at EU pricing, so I don't know anything about pricing there. That sucks if you have to pay more. :-(
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Ah, I remember the glorious Watch_Dogs price error of a few years ago. For a few hours we could get the complete version for about $6.
The Tom Clancy games are cheaper for us, for some reason. Most though, as you say, are the same as the US, except for certain publishers who gouge us (Rockstar, Ubisoft, 2K and a few others).
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Sega had a bunch of games cheaper on the steam store im not sure if its still the case but it maybe. Like sonic lost world is $24 instead of $30 for some unknown reason and most old sega games are just 10 - 20% cheaper and im not sure why.
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We have payed more than the US for most things for decades because we pay in USD we need to pay conversion fees and most publishers increase the AU price because they can. The reason prices are high in EU is because you guys have huge sales tax like 20% plus which is why steam set USD = Euro most of the time to compensate.
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Valve doesn't set USD=EUR tho. That's always developer decisions.
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valve doesnt set prices for non valve games i dont get your point. If im a dev who needs to pay 15% more tax im gonna put up the price 15% whats the issue? When i say steam sets USD=EUR i dont mean valve i mean just developers who publish on steam.
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Um, Australians have not been paying less than Americans. We get our own pricing, it's just that it has been in US dollars. For instance, Sid Meier's Civilization® V was $69.99 USD for Australians and $29.99 USD for Americans.
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Hmm, not enough in my wallet to buy anything I want to play.
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Prices are live now. Looks like a roughly 25% change from US to AU - just checked a few $US20 games; they’re now $AU25.
That’s not too bad given the conversion rate and fees.
I’m sure some games will be overpriced though, and I’ve seen a few which don’t have prices set.
Edit: make that a stack of games without prices set. Many of them quite new games, too. The upcoming sale will be a shambles if they aren’t fixed soon.
Further edit: Okay, prices are all over the place.
Five $US20 games:
Bayonetta and Yakuza 0 are $AU25
Batman: Arkham Knight is $AU29
Might & Magic: Heroes VI and Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines $AU30.
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As a lovely example of prices, take Civ V. $70 AUD.
40% more than USD
50% more than the UK
Wonderful. Nevermind that that straight currency conversion should make it only $41 AUD ($29 USD), but this is an example that distributors charge whatever the hell they want in regional pricing.
EDIT: Even worse a whopping 184 of the games on my wishlist can no longer be purchased.
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What happened to the 184 games that can no longer be purchased, Spazfrag?
Edit: Nvm, i just saw the link pooksalot posted
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Sounds like this will just drive more sales off the Steam store to other stores and marketplaces.
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Looks like some publishers are still making adjustments as Civ V is now A$ 29.95 on the aussie store.
Who knows what pricing rates different publishers will settle on but from some investigation it currently ranges from AU$1 = US$0.50 (example: Might and Magic Heroes VII Deluxe is AU$60 when the actual US price of $30 in AUD is $41, so this one is a rip off) to AU$1 = US$0.70 (example: Rust is AU$50. The US price is $35 which converts to AU$48.50, so it's close enough/fair).
I'd say wait and see how things look when it settles down, but I wont be surprised if certain publishers end up ripping off their aussie customers even more then before.
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Well that's something at least. My biggest concern is that I foresee many games never been available again. Due to games not being available unless the Dev manually sets the price, if the Dev is the "set it and leave it" type like many indie devs are, it will forever be unavailable.
What a mess.
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Prices are all over the place. Oddly enough, some publishers which used to gouge us are now giving us cheaper prices (eg Shadow of War and LA Noire).
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Haha, wtf. Civ 5 is now AU$29.95 while its US price is US$29.99. Knowing 2K Games though, this won't last long. It'll be back to price-gouging as soon as they notice and fix it.
The average conversion of US to AU prices seems to be about 143 to 144 percent. e.g. US$14.99 to AU$21.50.
The conversion of the US to AUD balance though is closer to 138%.
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As if Australians don't get rooted hard enough already with Steam pricing.
Feel for you guys...
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Looks like the market is still in usd (for now? ). I was worried how the price of really low value items (cards etc) would be affected.
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It’s coming up as AUD for me.
The minimum price still seems to be 3 cents.
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Ooh, that's a bit of a worry. Now I want to get home and see what it's done with my existing USD listings. :-/
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So we lose out again. Further 20-30% loss in value, receiving 1 cent AUD instead of 1 cent USD. And people in USD will pay 3 cents USD, steam take 2, then give us 0.7-0.8 cents USD and call it '1'.
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Yes, that sucks. But on the plus side you can now buy things for the min price of AU$0.03 instead of US$0.03.
Also, I'm fairly sure that users who have a currency that has a small unit compared to the US cent (e.g. rubles) will see our AU$0.03 items listed as cheaper than US$0.03 items so they should sell sooner. The opposite end of this spectrum is something like the UK pound, where users of that currency would have trouble ever selling something for £0.03 if there are already heaps of listings for US$0.03.
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yep, it's changed now. This sucks, I knew the approximate, nice round value of a lot of items in USD. Now it's all a bunch of obscure numbers that will be constantly changing with the exchange rate. Which I'm sure steam has skewed in their favour.
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It was expected this would be the end result of such a conversion turnover but i'd give it time to settle at least. And adhering to the Kotaku article, I'm sure Fatshark would get to it in a matter of days regardless.
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Yeah, I'm sure the majority will be added before the Christmas sale, but I'm still surprised at the scale. :-D
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GTA 5 instead of going for the 30% addition thought they would add 60% because why not good guy R*
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So my USD steam wallet is shorter than it should be. OF COURSE.
37.87AUD =
27.3861
USD
1 USD = 1.38282 AUD
1 AUD = 0.723162 USD
I have around $29 USD in there. So according to xe.com I've already lost $1.50 ish USD in conversion. Scammy Steam.
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That's curious. Mine is about $2 short as well, but I had a hell of a lot more in my wallet - if we had the same conversion rate, I should be missing a lot more.
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Your help request: I have charges from Steam that I didn't make
Related to: Steam
Charge Date: 11/21/2018
Charge Amount: 2.00
Hi, I had around $29 USD in my wallet.
Today it is $37.87 AUD.
According to xe.com, that is $27.38 USD.
Where is my $1.50 USD that is missing??
Also it seems my sale listings have been incorrectly set to AUD prices. I was selling them for 1 cent USD. Not 1 cent AUD. How can you think they are worth different prices for different regions?? It is not like 1 cent USD = 1.2 / 1.3 cents AUD.
I had $29.34 USD according my account details prior to conversion. This should be: $40.56 AUD according to xe.com . $37.87 AUD to USD = $27.39 USD. So I've lost out over $1.50 USD (almost $2 USD) in this 'conversion' process and it appears more to come. Stores are jacking their prices up more than direct exchange rate prices from USD to AUD, my community sales are now worth EVEN LESS than 1 cent USD (0.7-0.8x it seems..) and I have lost out dearly in this conversion.
Can I please have the money you stole from me back!
This is really dodgy. Where can I see the conversion rate?? I click on ' currency conversion ' in account details it doesn't show exactly WHAT conversion rate was applied.
Furthermore, there is a news item that reads 'the entire steam catalog is now priced in Australian dollars' however a lot of items AREN'T are now are not able to be sold. WTH!?
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I see the conversion rate for the USD to AUD wallet balance was about 1AUD = 0.72547 USD
Heaps of stuff in the store can't be purchased as it doesn't have an AU price. I'd estimated about a quarter of my wishlist is in this boat.
All community market listings were auto-cancelled. Valve gave no warning of that in the email they sent out.
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Yeah, that was odd and unthoughtful of them before they flipped the switch. I had about 12 to 13 pages worth of items on the market but that can be easily rectified.
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Really? I had about 17 pages of junk from the last big sale (all my card crafting leftovers :(
Never even noticed that. Damn.
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Is the listed price inclusive of 10% GST. In the past I've bought (non-game) software and the price quoted didn't include tax. They tacked that bit on during checkout. (Anything else we purchase, all the taxes are included in the price - no nasty surprises)
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Don't quote me on this but I'm pretty sure it's required by law to show prices inclusive of GST. For some time now (at least a year as far as I can tell) Valve have been including 10% "VAT" for Aussie purchases which I have assumed is their way of charging GST. I guess they couldn't be arsed re-wording it to "GST".
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I know that when they started collecting VAT for EU, it's been included since day one. Maybe you can add something to checkout and see what happens...
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Nah. For first few years Steam added VAT in checkout. It only changed when EUR was added.
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They have been charging the 10% since it came into law and it is included in the price shown. I think when they started taking it was july 2017 start of the 17/18 financial year.
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That’s correct; it’s appeared in receipts ever since 1 July 2017.
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Have been asking devs to update the missing prices on some games so we can buy them once more. Mostly quick responses. Seems Valve also needs to approve the change once they make it as well.
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So I've been watching news about Valve's introduction of Australian Dollar (AUD) support into Steam with some trepidation and was actually starting to relax, thinking that I'd been worrying about nothing. Then today I saw this: https://www.kotaku.com.au/2018/10/more-news-not-all-good-on-steams-aussie-dollar-change/
Now you may or may not trust what you read on Kotaku, but if we take at face value the statement that Valve has updated the Steam pricing matrix for AUD, which determines the suggested Australian pricing for developers, then games that use that suggested pricing are about to increase by approximately 21% once the AUD pricing goes live on Steam:
"Before the pricing matrix change, Steam would recommend a $US10 game be sold at $11.95. Now, Valve's algorithm would recommend that same game be sold at $14.50." ($14.50 / $11.95 = 121.3%)
The article goes on to try to diminish the pain by talking about bank fees for currency conversion that will no longer have to be paid, but if you're like me and you've never paid bank fees on anything you've bought on Steam anyway, then it's an extra 21% straight out of your wallet compared to what you might have been expecting based on previous news. Edit: Compared to actual current exchange rates it's only about 1.5% worse, so maybe you won't care. It's still a big disappointment compared to what had previously been postulated. sigh
It's an extra shame they're bringing it in only a month before the Christmas sale -- it's scheduled for November 21st, apparently, and the article states that any titles that don't have AUD prices set will simply be unavailable to Australians after that date -- but realistically I suppose there would never be a good time.
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