Game pricing and wage in eastern europe

[The Chosen]

Steam does not care about eastern europe?
I was watching Mount and Blade Bannerlord today. The game is 40 € with a 20% discount... in Hungary. I feel Steam does not care about eastern europe. While we are in the eu, we get the games at a price of a western european. On the highest price on the world. While we earn third the money average! The russians get games half the price as us. Turks get it for almost third. We earn less, and the games cost more. This does not make sense! This is why people buy games from g2* and kingui*.

Why Steam does not care about eastern europe?
In Hungary, we have the highest consumer tax in the world, with 27%.
And a really high income tax too.
64%. So for every 100 HUF you get in your hands, you and your employer pay 178 HUF as taxes and other charges. So from a sum of 278, you get 100 HUF.

Polish, Romanians, Slovakians and Croatians what are your opinions about this?

And good luck buying a 40 € game, while on minimum wage. Thank you Steam!

[Brian9824]

引用自 Fushigiri：

its all steams fault, when it came around prices in eu were in dollars but then they switched it to euro( in that time when euro was valued more than dollar , so u paid half more for the same game ), not to mention they make you pay using a local method but dont support local currency , it goes as far as one former valve developer said they do have a word about prices

Once again false, prices in Hungary were never in dollars. Steam has to charge all of the EU the same price regardless if they have different buying power because of the EU rules. They don't want to allow different regions in the EU to be charged different prices so the poorest region in the EU and the most expensive regions have to pay the same.

https://www.sportskeeda.com/esports/valve-sued-european-union-steam-geo-blocking

[Fushigiri]

pices in eu were in dollars when steam launched, even a steam group was created to boycott the 1 dollar = 1 euro
also the article is about geo blocking not pricing in eu

[Brian9824]

引用自 Fushigiri：

pices in eu were in dollars when steam launched, even a steam group was created to boycott the 1 dollar = 1 euro
also the article is about geo blocking not pricing in eu

Yes, if you bothered to read the OP his complaint is that the game in his region is priced the same as it is in other EU regions which are much wealthier. That is because the EU sued and wants steam to enforce 1 price across the entirety of the EU.

So again, OP can blame the EU who forces steam to charge everyone in the EU the same price, so they can't offer the game cheaper to poorer countries in the EU.

[Fushigiri]

again if you bother to research a bit price or should it say value has nothing to do with currency, it can have the same price but different currencies, the fact that they have to use the bank exchange rate which is higher to convert from local currency to euro just injects the price suffered by the customer
also : https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/pricing-payments/index_en.htm
europe says if you want to buy a game made by an american for example , you shouldnt pay more just because u live in eu, it says nothing about the same product tho being sold for a lesser price in eu for countries with lower economy or buying power , it simply states that it shouldnt cost more , not less

[Brian9824]

引用自 Fushigiri：

again if you bother to research a bit price or should it say value has nothing to do with currency, it can have the same price but different currencies, the fact that they have to use the bank exchange rate which is higher to convert from local currency to euro just injects the price suffered by the customer
also : https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/pricing-payments/index_en.htm
europe says if you want to buy a game made by an american for example , you shouldnt pay more just because u live in eu, it says nothing about the same product tho being sold for a lesser price in eu for countries with lower economy or buying power , it simply states that it shouldnt cost more , not less

Please read

引用自 The Chosen：

I feel Steam does not care about eastern europe. While we are in the eu, we get the games at a price of a western european. On the highest price on the world. While we earn third the money average!

His complaint is that his country in the EU does not make as much as countries in Western Europe so he wants the price to be cheaper in eastern Europe. However the EU does not allow price variations for the same item within the EU.

They require all countries in the EU to have the same price, so a country that has an average salary of $30,000 will have the same price as a country that has a salary of $60,000

Once again READ - https://www.sportskeeda.com/esports/valve-sued-european-union-steam-geo-blocking

Steam makes content available and prices it by region, but is that a bad thing?

They used to have a Hungary version of a game priced at X, a germany version of a game priced at Y, etc. Now they have to have just 1 version of the game priced the same across every member of the EU, so developers price it to the strongest economy, because otherwise they'd have to sell it for far less to their biggest markets.

So if the EU stops being idiotic then publishers could offer it at cheaper prices again. In the meantime eastern europe has to pay the same price as western europe because they can't offer it for different prices across the EU. The end result as everyone knew is it screws over the lower income areas of the EU.

[Fushigiri]

your article even say's ,,But the specific issue here has less to do with pricing and more with the availability of specific products through Steam" , steam dosent even let the OP pay in local currency to make it cheaper despite requiring to use a local payment method, also eu allows dual pricing and personalised pricing it always did whatever u buy in a country that has a lower economy is cheaper compared to the same product sold in a more powerful economically country
https://globalcompetitionreview.com/guide/digital-markets-guide/second-edition/article/european-union-restrictions-of-online-sales
https://one.oecd.org/document/DAF/COMP/WD(2018)128/en/pdf

[Fushigiri]

此留言正在等待我们的自动内容检查系统分析。在我们证实其内容无害之前（例如试图窃取信息的钓鱼站点链接），留言将暂时隐藏。

[Bruce]

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.