Unannounced price increase in Turkey

[Faun]

I had bought the game for full price on pre-order for 70₺, right before the release date. Now I see the price is updated for 160₺, being more than the double of original price. Why is that?

[Razzle]

Publicado originalmente por Vexillarius:

Publicado originalmente por Faun:

That is the whole point of regional pricing, it's because the value of Turkish Lira is significantly lower than dollars, people cannot afford paying $25 to this game in here.

And if the devs decided to increase their pricing in Turkey so that people from other countries wouldn't trick the system by region hopping and purchasing the game for cheaper, then this shows how much the devs care about the legitimate people from this region. Because this game was sold for 70₺ pre-release, and now it is 160₺, which is not worth compared to other games in that price range.

The game is alright, the devs seem like they've put a lot of effort in it. But the price change does not feel fair to honest players from this region.

Your still only paying $12.80 in Australian currency and the game costs $35.95 here. Your getting it for dirt cheap and massively benefiting from regional pricing. With 80% inflation your going to be paying double for everything so it's not like this is on steam or the devs.

keep in mind
$100 in Australia and in Turkey
have completely different values so using google to convert and thinking you figured it out is not how this works.
put in count inflation and what the prices of things costs there.
the game's price is usually the equilivant of what it would be in America or anywhere else with some difference.
if your game is $20 you cant price it $20 for every other region, example being my home country, $20 there would be the equivalent of $60 for an American
you price it (less) and if you do not, people will pirate your game in those regions or buy it from cheap reseller websites, either shady or official ones (HB/GMG) etc etc etc

the truth will remain that they do get their games slightly cheaper than your region probably and thats just how it is, only greedy AAA corps dont do good regional pricing
and considering this game came out with a pre-purchase FOMO with an exclusive skin, comes out with a DLC already and exclusive twitch content + an unholy amount of bugs ..it already ticked all the boxes of an AAA greedy practice, so honestly now that i think about it them upping the price makes sense for them.

[Ardenian]

Publicado originalmente por Faun:

(...) if the devs decided to increase their pricing in Turkey so that people from other countries wouldn't trick the system by region hopping and purchasing the game for cheaper, then this shows how much the devs care about the legitimate people from this region. (...)

The game is alright, the devs seem like they've put a lot of effort in it. But the price change does not feel fair to honest players from this region.

Ultimately, it appears to be a lose-lose situation for developers/publishers. You can either remain in the status quo and lose out on a part of your income or you can try to combat that and lose some goodwill of (potential) customers.

I like how the developers of Dead Cells commented on the issue, as they also adjusted their pricing recently:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/588650/view/3346757662555863561

[Razör]

Publicado originalmente por Ardenian:

Publicado originalmente por Faun:

(...) if the devs decided to increase their pricing in Turkey so that people from other countries wouldn't trick the system by region hopping and purchasing the game for cheaper, then this shows how much the devs care about the legitimate people from this region. (...)

The game is alright, the devs seem like they've put a lot of effort in it. But the price change does not feel fair to honest players from this region.

Ultimately, it appears to be a lose-lose situation for developers/publishers. You can either remain in the status quo and lose out on a part of your income or you can try to combat that and lose some goodwill of (potential) customers.

I like how the developers of Dead Cells commented on the issue, as they also adjusted their pricing recently:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/588650/view/3346757662555863561

Sponsored by NordVPN

[YumoS]

i saw another thread were the devs responded. they basically said that in this region there were a lot of problems with resellers and stuff like that.
i dont understand their reasoning behind it. its not like you can resell the game to another region? greedy as ♥♥♥♥. thats why. they probably left it at the steam suggested price and then later changed it because the currency is not strong.

[Razzle]

Publicado originalmente por YumoS:

i saw another thread were the devs responded. they basically said that in this region there were a lot of problems with resellers and stuff like that.
i dont understand their reasoning behind it. its not like you can resell the game to another region? greedy as ♥♥♥♥. thats why. they probably left it at the steam suggested price and then later changed it because the currency is not strong.

hi mate, im sorry that this upsets you, i understand how you're feeling.
To explain it
People figured out they can change their location to yours by using a vpn or whatever, and buying the game much cheaper, then switching back to their original place
so the statistics they get from Turkey is (this game was bought 100 times but no one has played it) As an example
they see sales and sales but the player count does not match

thats why they did it

KEEP IN MIND
To change your location to get cheaper games breaks steam TOS and it will get your account terminated if they find out.

[WaterMelwin]

have a better currency

[YumoS]

Publicado originalmente por Razzle:

Publicado originalmente por YumoS:

i saw another thread were the devs responded. they basically said that in this region there were a lot of problems with resellers and stuff like that.
i dont understand their reasoning behind it. its not like you can resell the game to another region? greedy as ♥♥♥♥. thats why. they probably left it at the steam suggested price and then later changed it because the currency is not strong.

hi mate, im sorry that this upsets you, i understand how you're feeling.
To explain it
People figured out they can change their location to yours by using a vpn or whatever, and buying the game much cheaper, then switching back to their original place
so the statistics they get from Turkey is (this game was bought 100 times but no one has played it) As an example
they see sales and sales but the player count does not match

thats why they did it

KEEP IN MIND
To change your location to get cheaper games breaks steam TOS and it will get your account terminated if they find out.

As far as i know you cant just change your location. You need a valid payment method within the country. after that you can change it. its not as easy as switching your vpn on and off.
Also even if there were shady things like that going on, why punish an entire country for the deeds of a few bad people that arent even living in that country? Indie devs were very reasonable with their pricing mehtods and only triple a studios are asking for insane prices that match the 60 dollar price. But now some indies also do this. how can you expect any sale if you are asking ridiculous prices no normal person could afford? Are only 100 sales for lots of money good or thousands for little money? Whatever. i will not support this bussiness model. There are plenty of reasonable priced games out here. Just voicing my opinion to make things clear. not everyone is rich and not ever country can have high living standards like europe or america.

[Razzle]

Publicado originalmente por YumoS:

Publicado originalmente por Razzle:

hi mate, im sorry that this upsets you, i understand how you're feeling.
To explain it
People figured out they can change their location to yours by using a vpn or whatever, and buying the game much cheaper, then switching back to their original place
so the statistics they get from Turkey is (this game was bought 100 times but no one has played it) As an example
they see sales and sales but the player count does not match

thats why they did it

KEEP IN MIND
To change your location to get cheaper games breaks steam TOS and it will get your account terminated if they find out.

As far as i know you cant just change your location. You need a valid payment method within the country. after that you can change it. its not as easy as switching your vpn on and off.
Also even if there were shady things like that going on, why punish an entire country for the deeds of a few bad people that arent even living in that country? Indie devs were very reasonable with their pricing mehtods and only triple a studios are asking for insane prices that match the 60 dollar price. But now some indies also do this. how can you expect any sale if you are asking ridiculous prices no normal person could afford? Are only 100 sales for lots of money good or thousands for little money? Whatever. i will not support this bussiness model. There are plenty of reasonable priced games out here. Just voicing my opinion to make things clear. not everyone is rich and not ever country can have high living standards like europe or america.

you totally can do that
you dont need a bank account there, just steam wallet fund (That you added with steam gift cards or whatever)
which will convert from USD To that currency and will be much muhc more in that currency meaning they can buy more games with it

but i get what you're saying, its not fair to be punished for something people in other countries did.
and to my knowledge the developers dont have a say in this, all pricing and sales are handled by the publisher devolver digital and they aint that friendly with this stuff.

[Varenvel The Festive Dinosaur]

Publicado originalmente por FrozenStar:

Steam is responsible, not devs.

steam does not regulate or sets prizes of any games exept valve published titles.

[Varenvel The Festive Dinosaur]

Publicado originalmente por Razzle:

Publicado originalmente por YumoS:

As far as i know you cant just change your location. You need a valid payment method within the country. after that you can change it. its not as easy as switching your vpn on and off.
Also even if there were shady things like that going on, why punish an entire country for the deeds of a few bad people that arent even living in that country? Indie devs were very reasonable with their pricing mehtods and only triple a studios are asking for insane prices that match the 60 dollar price. But now some indies also do this. how can you expect any sale if you are asking ridiculous prices no normal person could afford? Are only 100 sales for lots of money good or thousands for little money? Whatever. i will not support this bussiness model. There are plenty of reasonable priced games out here. Just voicing my opinion to make things clear. not everyone is rich and not ever country can have high living standards like europe or america.

you totally can do that
you dont need a bank account there, just steam wallet fund (That you added with steam gift cards or whatever)
which will convert from USD To that currency and will be much muhc more in that currency meaning they can buy more games with it

but i get what you're saying, its not fair to be punished for something people in other countries did.
and to my knowledge the developers dont have a say in this, all pricing and sales are handled by the publisher devolver digital and they aint that friendly with this stuff.

what you say will do nothing , worse you will lose money as covering currency is always done at loss , only gains you potentialy have is when their prize fluctuates (like dollar being cheaper this month and your currency expensive)

noone can buy more games becouse you convert currency from A to B

only way you could do that if you would set diffrent region for your steam account , and that will get you banned. (you can do it by support but goodluck as its dificult)

[Varenvel The Festive Dinosaur]

Publicado originalmente por YumoS:

Publicado originalmente por Razzle:

hi mate, im sorry that this upsets you, i understand how you're feeling.
To explain it
People figured out they can change their location to yours by using a vpn or whatever, and buying the game much cheaper, then switching back to their original place
so the statistics they get from Turkey is (this game was bought 100 times but no one has played it) As an example
they see sales and sales but the player count does not match

thats why they did it

KEEP IN MIND
To change your location to get cheaper games breaks steam TOS and it will get your account terminated if they find out.

As far as i know you cant just change your location. You need a valid payment method within the country. after that you can change it. its not as easy as switching your vpn on and off.
Also even if there were shady things like that going on, why punish an entire country for the deeds of a few bad people that arent even living in that country? Indie devs were very reasonable with their pricing mehtods and only triple a studios are asking for insane prices that match the 60 dollar price. But now some indies also do this. how can you expect any sale if you are asking ridiculous prices no normal person could afford? Are only 100 sales for lots of money good or thousands for little money? Whatever. i will not support this bussiness model. There are plenty of reasonable priced games out here. Just voicing my opinion to make things clear. not everyone is rich and not ever country can have high living standards like europe or america.

not really , steam will alweys prioriretize region you actualy are , you can potentialy ask to change it(if you lived there and steam registered you played/buyed games from there)

otherwise you will need to contact support and its long painstaking process who can ultimatly fail if they think you want to set region to just buy cheap games

reason these things are in place are not becouse steam is having a fit as long ago rules were more lose , but EU and few other countries began to enforce tax laws on steam , and steam has to deduct taxes in all countries now

meaning at least by cheating your region with VPN your breaking steam tos , at worst your commiting tax froud.

as who idea it was its propobly publisher(i dont say alweys becouse it depends on publishing deal , in some devs retein rights to set prize and other things) so it could be ether dev or publisher unless somone goes ask ether of them

[Razzle]

Publicado originalmente por Varenvel The Festive Dinosaur:

Publicado originalmente por Razzle:

you totally can do that
you dont need a bank account there, just steam wallet fund (That you added with steam gift cards or whatever)
which will convert from USD To that currency and will be much muhc more in that currency meaning they can buy more games with it

but i get what you're saying, its not fair to be punished for something people in other countries did.
and to my knowledge the developers dont have a say in this, all pricing and sales are handled by the publisher devolver digital and they aint that friendly with this stuff.

what you say will do nothing , worse you will lose money as covering currency is always done at loss , only gains you potentialy have is when their prize fluctuates (like dollar being cheaper this month and your currency expensive)

noone can buy more games becouse you convert currency from A to B

only way you could do that if you would set diffrent region for your steam account , and that will get you banned. (you can do it by support but goodluck as its dificult)

just saying all the info you're saying is really false aside from the part where you'd get banned, that is true, as i said before this is against TOS but people do it
hence the dead cells developer announcement.

I wont share more information about why you are wrong and post facts because it'd probably be breaking rules to share how its done and I don't do that myself nor should anyone risk their account being locked for this.

[Kito Ballard]

Here's also Revita's dev talking about the fact his publisher hiked the prices for their game:

Publicado originalmente por BenstarDev:

After discussing it with our publisher It basically comes down to the fact that our publisher has noticed a huge spike in people buying keys from Turkey, Argentina and other regions (since they are extremely cheap comparatively, like 1-2 bucks at most when converted) and then reselling them via key reseller websites, which unfortunately has a high likely hood of crashing the market value of the game. :

So our only way to currently try to prevent that, since you can't just stop the sale of a game in a certain region, is to hike up the prices in those regions to keep people from reselling keys in mass. Its upsettingly at the detriment of players living in Turkey, etc who just want to buy the game, but considering the situation, our current options are extremely limited and we obviously want to ensure that the game can prosper going forward.

We hope things might change in the future, but for now that was sadly our only way to combat this issue, especially considering the game just launched. I hope that is understandable and we'll share any news if the situation ends up changing :(

He's also not a fan of the idea:

Publicado originalmente por BenstarDev:

Also very much appreciate everyone being very calm about this! As of updates, sadly nothing to say as of now, since I am still in discussion with the publishers about this in regards to what the best option, etc would be moving forward. Hope that is understandable and that I can't make any promises. I know this is a very ♥♥♥♥♥♥ situation for a lot of people who would have really loved to play the game and I really hope no one buys the game at these increased prices, as I too wouldn't be comfortable knowing that someone did, however too my knowledge and again I am not super involved when it comes to the deeper stuff in regards to steam, this seems to be the best way to circumvent the bigger issue according to our publisher.

[Dragon_sissiy]

Publicado originalmente por Faun:

Why are you comparing Australian currency to Turkish though? We are not paid by Australian currency here, so $12.80 is not dirt cheap for us. That is the reason regional pricing exist, to help people from all over the world can pay for games, no matter how good or bad economy of their countries is.

If the price was 160₺ from the beginning, I'd just say "Alright, that's an expensive game." and moved on. But it was 70₺ at first, and how is it fair for others to be asked to pay 160₺ when I (and many others) were able to buy it for less than half the current price? Not to mention there is no explanation to this unexpected price increase from anyone either, so people might not even know about it.

Just doesn't feel right, and I'm here voicing my concerns about it, that's all.

If this is a concern, maybe you should be focused on stocking up on needed items instead of purchasing video games lol. But I agree that the price increase for yall is really ♥♥♥♥♥♥.

[YumoS]

Publicado originalmente por Razzle:

Publicado originalmente por YumoS:

As far as i know you cant just change your location. You need a valid payment method within the country. after that you can change it. its not as easy as switching your vpn on and off.
Also even if there were shady things like that going on, why punish an entire country for the deeds of a few bad people that arent even living in that country? Indie devs were very reasonable with their pricing mehtods and only triple a studios are asking for insane prices that match the 60 dollar price. But now some indies also do this. how can you expect any sale if you are asking ridiculous prices no normal person could afford? Are only 100 sales for lots of money good or thousands for little money? Whatever. i will not support this bussiness model. There are plenty of reasonable priced games out here. Just voicing my opinion to make things clear. not everyone is rich and not ever country can have high living standards like europe or america.

you totally can do that
you dont need a bank account there, just steam wallet fund (That you added with steam gift cards or whatever)
which will convert from USD To that currency and will be much muhc more in that currency meaning they can buy more games with it

but i get what you're saying, its not fair to be punished for something people in other countries did.
and to my knowledge the developers dont have a say in this, all pricing and sales are handled by the publisher devolver digital and they aint that friendly with this stuff.

nope you cant... you need a credit or debit card from that region. no wallet will help you with that. look it up if you dont believe me.