Revise pricing policy in Ukraine (price match GOG)

[Toff]

Prices for Ukraine on Steam are displayed in USD, while our national currency is UAH.
Originally, the prices in Ukraine were set as USD equivalent of prices in Russia according to the pre-2008 RUB to USD exchange rate (following the logic of having similar, if not worse, economic conditions in Ukraine compared to Russia). Since that time the exchange rate of USD to UAH has increased dramatically due to global economic crisis, instantly making the prices on Steam twice higher for Ukrainians in conversion to UAH (while the paying capacity of the population remained the same). The pricing has never been revised since those times by Valve, while Steam competitors (GOG, Origin, Uplay) made a much smarter move by linking the prices for Ukraine to current RUB to USD exchange rate. As a result, most of Steam Store prices for Ukraine are now twice higher than on GOG, which is beyond ridiculous. If the prices on Steam were originally set in UAH, this problem could've been avoided entirely.
The recent Steam gifting changes made this issue a pressing matter to address if Valve cares about their Ukrainian clients.

P.S.: Other countries are facing similar issues, which shows that the recent gifting policy change demands Valve to carefully revise their pricing policy on a per-country basis and do it ASAP before they start losing clients in many countries with messed up regional prices to competitors who treat their pricing policy with higher responsibility and attention.

[Moderate my posterior.]

Publishers set the price, not valve, valve cannot help you here.

[Toff]

Socialist Butterfly eredeti hozzászólása:

Publishers set the price, not valve, valve cannot help you here.

Are you saying that publishers set twice higher prices on Steam than on GOG? Oh, please. They have the final saying in this, yes, but I'm pretty sure they just follow the service recommendations most of the time.

[Spawn of Totoro]

Toff eredeti hozzászólása:

Are you saying that publishers set twice higher prices on Steam than on GOG? Oh, please.

Quite possibly, yes.

Valve does not set prices except for games they have made. If prices are 2x higher, then that is due to the developers decision.

I know how it is with Valve, I do not know how it is with GOG. If the prices are diffrent simply due to the diffrent currancies, then that is a diffrent issue then Steam simply being 2x higher. May want to either suggest your region being placed under RUB or for Steam to accept UAH directly.

[cinedine]

A currency conversion wouldn't help at all. If your currency loses half it's value you are making retailers half the money. So they have to double the prices to remain even.

Whatever GOG does is their business. As a Polish company CD Project RED has probably also business relationships with Russian banks, so a move to ruble might not be as bad.
But Steam is USD and EUR primarily.

[HLCinSC]

Toff eredeti hozzászólása:

Socialist Butterfly eredeti hozzászólása:

Publishers set the price, not valve, valve cannot help you here.

Are you saying that publishers set twice higher prices on Steam than on GOG? Oh, please. They have the final saying in this, yes, but I'm pretty sure they just follow the service recommendations most of the time.

Sounds to me more like they are not updating their prices. Have the games you noticed been added more recently to GOG? Or maybe GOG has some tool for them to automatically update prices in some interval?

[Toff]

Spawn of Totoro eredeti hozzászólása:

I know how it is with Valve, I do not know how it is with GOG. If the prices are diffrent simply due to the diffrent currancies, then that is a diffrent issue then Steam simply being 2x higher. May want to either suggest your region being placed under RUB or for Steam to accept UAH directly.

People have been asking for UAH for years, since before 2008. Adding UAH was in Valve's roadmap at some point, but then misteriously vanished and hasn't been mentioned since.

CharlestONE eredeti hozzászólása:

Toff eredeti hozzászólása:

Are you saying that publishers set twice higher prices on Steam than on GOG? Oh, please. They have the final saying in this, yes, but I'm pretty sure they just follow the service recommendations most of the time.

Sounds to me more like they are not updating their prices. Have the games you noticed been added more recently to GOG? Or maybe GOG has some tool for them to automatically update prices in some interval?

I imagine the publishers on Steam just have a checkbox "Use regional prices", that fills in all the regional prices automatically according to the US price they entered, with an option to edit each of those. Whatever it is, Valve can and should change this, or their prices will remain extremely uncompetitive here.

As for your quesiton, sure, here's an example with Little Nightmares:
http://i.imgur.com/hoppyXF.png

Who in their sane mind would buy on Steam if it stays like this?

[HLCinSC]

Well I guess you could try contacting some of the publishers to help pinpoint the cause. Unless that is under some kind of trade secret related NDA

[cinedine]

Toff eredeti hozzászólása:

Who in their sane mine would buy on Steam if it stays like this?

What do you care?
Buy where it's cheapet for you. That's your prerogative as customer.

[Gwarsbane]

Toff eredeti hozzászólása:

People have been asking for UAH for years, since before 2008. Adding UAH was in Valve's roadmap at some point, but then misteriously vanished and hasn't been mentioned since.

Not so mysterious. Russia invaded the Ukraine. So till everything is settled there Valve took that stuff off the board.

[HLCinSC]

cinedine eredeti hozzászólása:

Toff eredeti hozzászólása:

Who in their sane mine would buy on Steam if it stays like this?

What do you care?
Buy where it's cheapet for you. That's your prerogative as customer.

Maybe he likes Steam and is just trying to bring what is an issue he feels he is having to their attention

[The End]

Toff eredeti hozzászólása:

As for your quesiton, sure, here's an example with Little Nightmares:
http://i.imgur.com/hoppyXF.png

Who in their sane mine would buy on Steam if it stays like this?

In my case, Steam is the cheapest.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=921895888

Your GOG price could be an error?

[Toff]

CharlestONE eredeti hozzászólása:

cinedine eredeti hozzászólása:

What do you care?
Buy where it's cheapet for you. That's your prerogative as customer.

Maybe he likes Steam and is just trying to bring what is an issue he feels he is having to their attention

Exactly, I love Steam and Valve and don't want to be forced to switch platforms because of this, I also like to keep all of my games in a single service. I want someone from Valve to notice and address this issue that (especially with the recent changes to the gifting system) makes them lose clients and revenue in Ukraine because of what I believe is simple negligence on their part.

Rockon⛔ eredeti hozzászólása:

In my case, Steam is the cheapest.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=921895888

Your GOG price could be an error?

My post is about the pricing policy in Ukraine, your country is simply unaffected by this. The "error" here is the price on Steam, not on GOG. And it was just a random example, it's the same for almost every other game.