Price Increase

[JVAHF]

With the recent price increase, Dark Souls III now costs 1/4 of a minimum wage in my country.
Imagine working a whole week without spending anything just to buy a 7 years old game.
What do you fellow steam users think: is it fair or is it greedy for companies to increase the price of 5+ years old games that do not receive updates since a long time ago?
And if it's fair, should the price increase be steep as it was (over 30%) or should it be a light one, just to equate the price increase in energy/server service costs?

[Willheart]

I didn't realise bytes were affected by inflation, do I need a bigger hard-drive for that?

[Sparhawk 59]

its about your countries economics and the price to Dollar that is affected
https://steamcommunity.com/app/374320/discussions/0/3768985348692201918/
same issue for Elden ring for a thai person
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1245620/discussions/0/3758852682831207627/

[Willheart]

Originally posted by Sparhawk 57:

its about your countries economics and the price to Dollar that is affected

OP seems to realise that.

Regional prices are supposed to be "what players pay for goods and services in their lives" (steam's recommendations say so anyhow). Sacrificing a week's wage isn't what players would realistically pay normally, much less during a recession, for a 7 year old product the price rivals that of a new premium product (in what industry is that normal?).

The currency against the dollar doesn't account for the entire price increase - there's little justification for that when the product is digitally distributed, just packets of bytes sent over the internet.

When I look at Argentine Peso:
2018 -> 2021
ARS/USD $0.0495 -> $0.0105 = 471% difference
DS3Price $649.99 -> $2999.99 = 462% difference

2021 -> 2023
ARS/USD $0.0105 -> $0.0053 = 198.1% difference
DS3Price $2999.99 -> $8599.00 = 286.6% difference

[Sparhawk 59]

Originally posted by Willheart:

Originally posted by Sparhawk 57:

its about your countries economics and the price to Dollar that is affected

OP seems to realise that.

Regional prices are supposed to be "what players pay for goods and services in their lives" (steam's recommendations say so anyhow). Sacrificing a week's wage isn't what players would realistically pay normally, much less during a recession, for a 7 year old product the price rivals that of a new premium product (in what industry is that normal?).

The currency against the dollar doesn't account for the entire price increase - there's little justification for that when the product is digitally distributed, just packets of bytes sent over the internet.

When I look at Argentine Peso:
2018 -> 2021
ARS/USD $0.0495 -> $0.0105 = 471% difference
DS3Price $649.99 -> $2999.99 = 462% difference

2021 -> 2023
ARS/USD $0.0105 -> $0.0053 = 198.1% difference
DS3Price $2999.99 -> $8599.00 = 286.6% difference

economies have crashed thats what has happend round the world but some countries have it cheaper than others but the avg price is £40 then equate that to countries prices and they are still cheaper than UK

[Willheart]

Originally posted by Sparhawk 57:

economies have crashed thats what has happend round the world but some countries have it cheaper than others but the avg price is £40 then equate that to countries prices and they are still cheaper than UK

(I'm not having a go at you by the way, just want to cement the point)
It might be the case when you convert just currencies.

But let's reverse that thought with actual earnings:
OP says it costs 1 week's minimum wage (I can't verify that).
Let's assume it's 40 hours full-time,
min wage in UK approx £10/h

That's equivalent to £400 - for a 7 year old game, ain't nobody here paying that even for new, and somebody expects Argentinian's to pay their equivalent?

2023, even for minimum wage in Argentina (I spy $65,000~, having risen significantly past year or so) DS3's $8,600 still costs just over half a week's minimum wage there, that would be £200 in GB pound squid.

In 2021 when DS3 price was approx $3,000, minimum wage was $32,000 approx.
It's feasible here, maybe one or two days work, £120 in GB, still more than a hundo pundo.

Raising the price by 3x instead of the currency's 2x increase isn't accessible, and minimum wage is still lagging behind.


My point here is that this increase is different from the other, it isn't scaled properly by currency OR minimum earnings. And hark, once again it's an old game..!

[Sparhawk 59]

I live in Turkey they get £250 a month so i know about wages believe me, im from uk so i see the price diff as for what i pay for against what the turkish pay for. But its not scaled against countries eranings but exchange rates so forget what someone earns. general rule of thumb its £39,99 in uk so whatebcer your currency rate is x by that and with the currencies crashing then yes its expensive, but as i said they dont care what you earn its currency rates that matter

[JVAHF]

Originally posted by Willheart:

OP says it costs 1 week's minimum wage (I can't verify that).
Let's assume it's 40 hours full-time,
min wage in UK approx £10/h

That's equivalent to £400 - for a 7 year old game, ain't nobody here paying that even for new, and somebody expects Argentinian's to pay their equivalent?

I had done a quick calculation but it is actually a bit worse for the complete version.
It would take "only" 6 days of work to buy the base game version though.
Updated minimum wage (it was updated last month) is R$1302 per month, which equals R$ 43,40 per day since it is counted in a 30 days-base.
So 6 days of work would give us R$ 260,40, while the base game DS III is costing an astounding R$257,90 right now.
The DARK SOULS III Deluxe Edition is more than 7 days tho because it currently costs R$364,90.
The problem with changing prices right now is that monetary exchange values are all over the place due to the volatile moment of international crisis. A few years ago even by direct currency exchange rate the Deluxe Edition would be costing ~100 usd.

[Rauaner]

elden ring cheaper than dark souls 3 now in brazil...

Do de L

[Willheart]

Originally posted by JVAHF:

So 6 days of work would give us R$ 260,40, while the base game DS III is costing an astounding R$257,90 right now.

Ah, so it's not so bad. Just starve yourself for five days and then you can enjoy some potato chips with your purchase.

Originally posted by Rauaner:

elden ring cheaper than dark souls 3 now in brazil...

Do de L

If that isn't anomalous I don't know what is.

If there was a marketing department that 'did the research' before implementing this, that would be wild.