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https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/price-changes-in-selected-territories-updated-december-2022.1424549/page-4#post-28680500
blame rich people who wanna save a few dollars and VPN into your country to buy it cheap. (and also maybe blame the EU, they ruined regional prices within europe)
hard to imagine though that enough people do that for it to be worth it for companies to shaft regions with less purchasing power. and/or that companies don't take action against people who do it on a large scale to make a profit.
They absolutely do, it's a staggering amount of money devs and Valve lose to cross region fraud. There's a reason why Valve made a big push to get developers to all update their regional pricing, and most of the games I play and follow all did update to the new regional standards, or close to the official recommendations.
The regions aren't really "shafted" though, the prices are based on their economy and wages. People will just always complain and talk about how unfair it is when they have to pay more for something than they did yesterday. Just look at all the drama that happens when gas prices go up a few cents. Whether it's still affordable or is now comparable to % of wages other regions pay is irrelevant to them, it costs more so it sucks. Fair enough. It had to happen though.
From what i gather it depends a lot on the region we are talking about. For some of the more extreme regions people are making claims that buying a single game now costs their whole monthly income, so (assuming people aren't outright lying) i'd say they are rather shafted.
But at the end of the day games are luxury goods rather then necessities, so they can set whatever price they want without anyone suffering actual harm over it.
You can google minimum wage for the countries that are worst off, like Argentina the game costs ARS$ 2600 and current minimum wage is AR S65,427 per month. Turkey the game costs ₺340 and current minimum wage is ₺8,506 per month. US for comparison the game costs $40 and minimum wage is $1160. So the game is about 3.5-3.9% of monthly minimum wage in all three examples.
Now obviously if somebody doesn't have a "real" full time job where they are earning hourly income they might be well below those numbers, but people barely scraping by like that probably aren't playing games, and this goes for any country including the US.
This.
And with all the prices going up due to the energy crisis and inflation world wide pretty much, i can understand some having actual issues and having to manage their consumer goods and amenities economy more strictly irl..
Normally personally i don't mind buying full games/DLC's i like in full price from Steam or the game company directly, but only now when having some crazy electric bills and food price gone up noticeably here also a purchase like that can sting for a moment. Still went and bought just earlier 3 more Stellaris DLC with 50eur. And no regrets, money well spent and supporting the game company that does them feels good, i always love when company makes new updates and DLC often so gets new toys to play with.
And the value is really good, be it in sale or full price, compared to a lot of other things, like eating at a restaurant or going to movies. With these purchases, i can play the game and it's DLC i have for years or like rest of my life if feel like it. So it has good value compared to a lot of other things or forms of entertainment, that are mostly fleeting moments that are gone after consumed once.
I have now 200h in the game, already worth it for the price and since fell in love with the game i'll probably play it for years together with my "main game" that i play for raiding and social stuff, but Stellaris so good when just wanna chill. Did install it on my laptop so can play in bed too lol. Yes, so addicted that gotta play on bed also until eyes don't stay open anymore. :D
PS. I don't even know what DLC from the last ones i bought did give the Soldier Advisor voice, but i love it and her voice fits perfectly for my latest Fanatic Authoritarian/Militarist game.
Not sure about switching between regions, but i doubt Steam could do anything if you simply lied about your location from the start.
Since using a VPN tells the outside world your computer is in the region of the VPN server you are using, i doubt Steam can somehow see past that.
But as mentioned if someone is lying from the start they aren't switching (thus no "different region than before").
they are 100% shafted. i have plenty of friends in eastern europe with incomes around $500-600, games costing $50-60 is just prohibitively expensive. just look at OP, his prices doubled and there is no way that is because the standard of living in his country doubled.
on the other hand, stuff like this does mean that you can make a living in eastern europe/venuzuela/etc from farming selling in game gold. i did wow boosting for a while and for me it was just a fun way to earn some extra gold on the side and i would never risk my account by selling the gold since it was so little money, meanwhile the guys in that community who were doing in 10 hours a day and selling the gold were earning above median wage in their country from it.