MENA/LATAM-USD (Turkish/Argentinian) price unset by developer by mistake.

[Yujah]

There are so many threads about the subject already that I didn't want to bury this post in some random one: for a developer comment on the current price when a MENA/LATAM-USD one was not explicitly set by the developer:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/180bdsf/comment/ka50pck/

I.e., they saw and see Steam suggested prices in their pricing tool and thought that in case they agreed with that suggested price that they didn't need to do anything. Only now they see that this was not the case and that they then defaulted to US-USD.

The information as to the price doing precisely such was explicit also beforehand but this developer then seems to be saying that it was in the actual pricing tool confusing. As such that they and then very likely many others simply made a mistake, which they are fixing currently.

To MENA/LATAM users then: fear not or at least less. Undoubtedly many of the prices will see a quick drop again when developers set things correctly this time...

[Cathulhu]

https://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamworks/announcements/detail/3728476412305766958
It seems that dev ignored that announcement.

Let me quote the juicy part:

Please login to Steamworks to add your USD pricing for your game(s) in the new LATAM-USD and MENA-USD pricing section of the Price Management Tool before November 20th, 2023. If you do not add a USD price to these columns for your game before November 20th, we will default to the standard USD pricing you already have in Steamworks.

Oh, and the dev even said that they screwed it up. And that it was even in the mail they got. Those exact words.

[Yujah]

Thing is that that sounds clear but that I can see why things go south after all if you're looking at a bunch of filled-out cells in a table where it's not obvious that one where you type a price is fundamentally different from one where Steam "typed" a suggested price which you agree with....

[Cathulhu]

To quote that gamedev:

EDIT: checked our Steam email again: "If you do not add a USD price to these columns for your game before November 20th, we will default to the standard USD pricing you already have in Steamworks.", seems like manual input was explicitly needed after all, but I'm not the only dev who missed it apparently.

Funny how they put the blame on themselves, not on Valve.

[nullable]

Time heals all PEBKAC wounds.

[Yujah]

Well, I want a screenshot of that "pricing tool" before I give Valve a pass here... ;-)

[Brian9824]

Yep, in a week or two things should stabilize far more once the dev's fix their mistakes

[Brian9824]

Originally posted by Cathulhu:

To quote that gamedev:

EDIT: checked our Steam email again: "If you do not add a USD price to these columns for your game before November 20th, we will default to the standard USD pricing you already have in Steamworks.", seems like manual input was explicitly needed after all, but I'm not the only dev who missed it apparently.

Funny how they put the blame on themselves, not on Valve.

Which dev said that? Got a link to it out of curiosity, gonna be used a lot lol

[nullable]

Originally posted by Yujah:

Well, I want a screenshot of that "pricing tool" before I give Valve a pass here... ;-)

Well thousands of other users manage to use it just fine.... just saying.

[Yujah]

If a software interface is unclear enough to realistically have more than a few users ♥♥♥♥ up it's the interface that is at fault. Or well, that is a fairly useful metric in software development at least -- and judging from the near insane amount of hubbub on these here forums "a few" might not be the case :)

Don't get me wrong; no idea. Was merely picturing myself sitting behind a with changed prices filled out table of pricing regions and missing that ones not filled out by me rather than by Valve would not in fact go through upon hitting the submit button. I can definitely see that happening...

[Yujah]

Originally posted by brian9824:

Which dev said that? Got a link to it out of curiosity, gonna be used a lot lol

It's from the reddit link in the OP.

[Yujah]

Also interesting by the way, from that same developer and thread,

https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/180bdsf/comment/ka55qe2/

Unfortunately, the entire LATAM and MENA region make up for less than 2% of our revenue combined, no matter the price tag we put out, and that's counting all the region-hoppers who are responsible for most purchases from Argentina/Turkey. I go more in detail region-hoppers in <this> other thread.

Long story short: region-hopping is still very, VERY common and pricing our game 95% off in these regions did not result in more revenue, but multiplying those peanut prices by 5x or 6x so it's near Russia or Thailand prices actually did.

The sad truth is that changing prices for LATAM and MENA literally won't change anything for us financially, because short of lowering all country prices to 90% off and running our company to the ground, actual people in these regions will always be tiny minority of actual buyers.

[Brian9824]

Originally posted by Yujah:

Also interesting by the way, from that same developer and thread,

https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/180bdsf/comment/ka55qe2/

Unfortunately, the entire LATAM and MENA region make up for less than 2% of our revenue combined, no matter the price tag we put out, and that's counting all the region-hoppers who are responsible for most purchases from Argentina/Turkey. I go more in detail region-hoppers in <this> other thread.

Long story short: region-hopping is still very, VERY common and pricing our game 95% off in these regions did not result in more revenue, but multiplying those peanut prices by 5x or 6x so it's near Russia or Thailand prices actually did.

The sad truth is that changing prices for LATAM and MENA literally won't change anything for us financially, because short of lowering all country prices to 90% off and running our company to the ground, actual people in these regions will always be tiny minority of actual buyers.

Yeah its not surprising. The entire region is only 2-3% of steam's revenue, in part because their prices are so low compared to everyone else

[Yujah]

Originally posted by brian9824:

Yeah its not surprising. The entire region is only 2-3% of steam's revenue, in part because their prices are so low compared to everyone else

Mmm. I looked up his AppIDs from that thread and it may supposedly also in this case have something to do with a more cultural than financial barrier...

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1151530/Synthetic_Lover/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1883090/The_Symbiant/

[Brian9824]

Originally posted by Yujah:

Originally posted by brian9824:

Yeah its not surprising. The entire region is only 2-3% of steam's revenue, in part because their prices are so low compared to everyone else

Mmm. I looked up his AppIDs from that thread and it may supposedly also in this case have something to do with a more cultural than financial barrier...

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1151530/Synthetic_Lover/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1883090/The_Symbiant/

Probably not, they were cheaper before, and after the change its not the same price as the US which is what happens when they dont update their price

[superaconi]

Well games are not so important to me so if they don’t revert back old prices or at least to be affordable for us in third world countries I won’t be bothered ever to buy them for $70 price so it will be their loss not mine, in the future in 2,3,4 or 5 years when game drops or be on sale for around $20 I will buy it. Developer and publishers who don’t adjust their prices for new regional pricing will only lose potential customers and old ones so it’s their loss.