Why do you have to pay more for games if you live in Europe?

[asd]

1€ is treated as 1€, even though they are not equal at all. So games cost 60 bucks in Europe as well, but instead of $60, they cost 60€. Which is around $68. What is the reason for this?

[Satoru]

İlk olarak VaLiuM tarafından gönderildi:

The 1:1 conversion is bogus, everyone knows that. More money for Valve i'd say and less hassle with proper exchange rates.

And VAT is some magical thing that steam doesn't have to pay? If steam did a pure currency conversion you would be paying a ton more for games since VAT would be accounted for AFTER the conversion

[Magillanica Lou Mayvin]

You think this is bad? In the uk 60$ is 60 pounds when it comes down to game pricing. Meanwhile 60 pounds is 77.37$ so go figure.

While Americans pay 700 dollars for a new GPU I paid about 900+ for same GPU and that's 1200 dollars. Talk about global market. Anything that's bad for EU is worse for UK.

[raythr]

as he said, because you pay it

if gamers united under a flag and stopped buying games altogether until the prices get lowered then *gasp* that would happen

we are the majority of their profits, we call the shots
they couldnt survive with russian and indonesian sales alone LUL

but we dont, we are the idiot that gets pissed on the face and says "thank you" for it

even if they halved the current western prices, theyd still could get their golden ferraris
but they want them made from plat

whatever
i buy a lot less games then before and more indies than others

at least im not supporting ubi or ea, thats the main thing imo
id just wish ppl had a look at their gaming addiction and stopped giving them ANY money

[asd]

İlk olarak raythr tarafından gönderildi:

as he said, because you pay it

if gamers united under a flag and stopped buying games altogether until the prices get lowered then *gasp* that would happen

we are the majority of their profits, we call the shots
they couldnt survive with russian and indonesian sales alone LUL

but we dont, we are the idiot that gets pissed on the face and says "thank you" for it

even if they halved the current western prices, theyd still could get their golden ferraris
but they want them made from plat

whatever
i buy a lot less games then before and more indies than others

at least im not supporting ubi or ea, thats the main thing imo
id just wish ppl had a look at their gaming addiction and stopped giving them ANY money

The last time I bought a game for full price was... long ago.
It's just not worth it. Why pay $60 on release when you could pay half that a few months later and end up with a better game with less bugs? Makes no sense. Unless you are impatient, there is no reason to get a game at release. However, impatience is not exactly a positive trait... but I do understand if there is a really promising game that you want to play it as soon as possible... however I doubt that any Ubisoft or EA games are anywhere near that category....

[Kargor]

İlk olarak Tabus tarafından gönderildi:

1€ is treated as 1€, even though they are not equal at all. So games cost 60 bucks in Europe as well, but instead of $60, they cost 60€. Which is around $68. What is the reason for this?

Because there is no law that requires pricing to be fair.

And, which is even more important, there is no law stopping Valve from treating "globalization" as a strictly one-way thing: they can sell their stuff whereever they want, but they can also restrict ME to buying stuff only where THEY tell me.

And that's not just pricing. I've often bought games elsewhere to avoid censorship (both the legal ones, as in "you shall not fight Nazis in a game", and the publisher-imposed ones as in "in your country, blood is green and people are robots"), but Steam offers censoring at a technical level.

[toruvinn]

İlk olarak Riedy tarafından gönderildi:

Income is also different in Europe, so it evens it out.

Dont think this is entirely true, also bear in mind there are Central/Eastern European countries where avg income is considerably lower (Poland, its eastern neighbours, probably Czech Republic, Slovakia and south) and yet they still have to pay higher prices than the US.

It's just that you cant make everyone happy and having prices relative to average income in each country would be, while perhaps fair, pretty impossible to implement, also asking for some insane abuse, just like the one we could observe with gifts from Russian region.

[Oneeyed]

It's their own fault. Nobody forced them to join the EU or the Euro. All eastern european countries would be so much better of without it. But since the eastern europeans are as degenerateda as western europeans they didn't jack sh!t as they got betrayed by their politicians.

İlk olarak I have no idea what I'm doing tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak Riedy tarafından gönderildi:

Income is also different in Europe, so it evens it out.

Dont think this is entirely true, also bear in mind there are Central/Eastern European countries where avg income is considerably lower (Poland, its eastern neighbours, probably Czech Republic, Slovakia and south) and yet they still have to pay higher prices than the US.

It's just that you cant make everyone happy and having prices relative to average income in each country would be, while perhaps fair, pretty impossible to implement, also asking for some insane abuse, just like the one we could observe with gifts from Russian region.

[VaLiuM]

İlk olarak Satoru tarafından gönderildi:

And VAT is some magical thing that steam doesn't have to pay? If steam did a pure currency conversion you would be paying a ton more for games since VAT would be accounted for AFTER the conversion

You need to stop repeating the VAT excuse in every topic you write on only to defend that shady practice ma dude.

If you add VAT to a lower base game pricing due to proper conversion being made, you pay less since the VAT applied is lower too. How is paying less more expensive in your world?

LMAO.

[Tito Shivan]

İlk olarak VaLiuM tarafından gönderildi:

You need to stop repeating the VAT excuse in every topic you write on only to defend that shady practice ma dude.

If you add VAT to a lower base game pricing due to proper conversion being made, you pay less since the VAT applied is lower too. How is paying less more expensive in your world?

LMAO.

$60 game = 52.67€ (actual exchange rate)
20% VAT of 52.67 = 10.53€
52.67€ + 10.53€ = 63.20€

[VaLiuM]

But that's different to 60$ = 60€ + VAT.

What i mean is 60€ + 12€ VAT = 72€ compared to 60 $.

[wuddih]

İlk olarak VaLiuM tarafından gönderildi:

But that's different to 60$ = 60€ + VAT.

What i mean is 60€ + 12€ VAT = 72€ compared to 60 $.

gameprices in europe include VAT, you dont pay 72€, you pay 60€, Valve pays the tax.

[buckthor]

Because you're European and are willing to pay more for everything.

[asd]

İlk olarak buckthor tarafından gönderildi:

Because you're European and are willing to pay more for everything.

Not with 600€ a month I don't....

[Ganger]

Forget about the $1 = 1euro thingy... its the VAT that boosts the prices of games up. Nothing to do with devs.

I think games in britian are cheap compared to wages earned anyway, can't talk about europe tho on this.

[JamesF0790]

İlk olarak tmwfte tarafından gönderildi:

*waits for Strayans to appear to show real disparity in pricing schemes*

G'day Mates, I'm here to show you what real price disparity is. Not eight bucks a game, sometimes over twice the price.