Egyptians really need EGP as a currency on Steam. Games are extremely expensive due to our weak economy and the situation will not get any better soon for us.

[Omar]

Hello, my name is Omar and I'm from Egypt. I love playing games and I absolutely love Steam, but I can't buy a lot of games because Egypt's store is in USD, not EGP.

Currently in Egypt, we're badly affected by inflation and our currency is very weak and it's suffering. A single US dollar used to be 7-8 Egyptian Pounds but since November 2016, it's 17.6 and as of January 2019, it's 17.91 per USD and it will stay like that for a very long time.

Many Egyptians don't buy games on Steam just because of how expensive games are here for us. Many people would buy games from Steam WAY more if we pay in EGP instead of USD and we get a discounted price like other countries like Argentina and Russia. Proof of that would be that as of the day I posted this, 1,600 people have signed the petition and are willing to buy more on Steam if Egypt got EGP as a currency on Steam.

In the Middle East there are stores in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and UAE. We, Egyptians, want to have a store that's in Egyptian Pounds.

There's a petition that I'm trying to share around in order to get a store for Egypt that's in EGP and that isn't just a direct translation from USD to EGP. We Egyptians really want to be able to buy games for a cheaper price using our own currency.



Here's the petition: https://www.change.org/p/valve-petition-to-have-an-egyptian-steam-store-in-egp?recruiter=681685061&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_abi.pacific_email_copy_en_gb_4.v1.pacific_email_copy_en_us_3.control.pacific_post_sap_share_gmail_abi.gmail_abi.pacific_email_copy_en_us_5.v1.lightning_2primary_share_options_more.fake_control

Thank you for reading this and I hope to hear back from you :)

[Crazy Tiger]

Be careful about your wish. The Australians recently got their own currency added and we've seen a lot of complaints about it.

Do keep in mind that price changes will not be as you think, they can be priced higher than you think. Also keep in mind that developers and publisher will need to set up the price in your currency and if they don't do that, the game will not be available for sale.

[Zefar]

Just gonna say this, publishers set the prices and even if you get your local currency there is no guarantee that it'll be cheaper.

In Europe it's still generally 1$ = 1€ even though the two are worth a different amount.

[Omar]

The thing is that other companies like Microsoft and Google are doing this for Egypt, they know our economy is very weak right now, so here are a few examples:



Microsoft's store cuts prices in half for all their games for Egyptians to allow more Egyptians to buy the games.


Google's Play Store drops prices A LOT for Egyptians. We can rent movies for 30EGP (around 2 dollars) and games are generally 90% cheaper, which does infact help sales because no one would rent a movie for 15 USD here in Egypt, it's too expensive for us.


If a developer doesn't setup regional pricing in Egypt, then the price should be directly converted from USD to EGP. So the developer and Steam don't lose anything and the end-user still has access to those games.

I don't think games will cost more if we got EGP as a currency because Austrailia doesn't have a weak economy like us, so there is literally no reason to make Egyptians pay more than they already do.

We should get some prices similar to Russia because Egypt and Russia have a weak currency and people struggle to buy games from there, untill they added regional prices.

[Omar]

But if it's 18 EGP = 1USD, then wouldn't the publishes have to set a regional price so we don't get a 60 dollar AAA game for 60EGP (which is like 4 dollars)?

[Crazy Tiger]

Originally posted by Omar:

If a developer doesn't setup regional pricing in Egypt, then the price should be directly converted from USD to EGP. So the developer and Steam don't lose anything and the end-user still has access to those games.

It doesn't work that way. Developers/publishers set the prices. Valve can not put the price as they don't decide what the price will be, they're not their games.
It's all up to the developers/publishers and if they don't set up the price, the end-user will not be able to purchase them.

Again, just look at other countries who got their own currency in the past years.

Originally posted by Omar:

But if it's 18 EGP = 1USD, then wouldn't the publishes have to set a regional price so we don't get a 60 dollar AAA game for 60EGP (which is like 4 dollars)?

They don't have to. They can set any price they want, actually.

[Omar]

Originally posted by Crazy Tiger:

Originally posted by Omar:

If a developer doesn't setup regional pricing in Egypt, then the price should be directly converted from USD to EGP. So the developer and Steam don't lose anything and the end-user still has access to those games.

It doesn't work that way. Developers/publishers set the prices. Valve can not put the price as they don't decide what the price will be, they're not their games.
It's all up to the developers/publishers and if they don't set up the price, the end-user will not be able to purchase them.

Again, just look at other countries who got their own currency in the past years.

Originally posted by Omar:

But if it's 18 EGP = 1USD, then wouldn't the publishes have to set a regional price so we don't get a 60 dollar AAA game for 60EGP (which is like 4 dollars)?

They don't have to. They can set any price they want, actually.

I see your point, but I still think that Egypt should get its own currency on Steam. A lot of games would be cheaper and I think a lot of big developers do care about having their games available in all regions, if they forgot (like what happened with Austrailia), they'll probably add it in a few weeks.

[Cathulhu]

Originally posted by Omar:

I see your point, but I still think that Egypt should get its own currency on Steam. A lot of games would be cheaper and I think a lot of big developers do care about having their games available in all regions, if they forgot (like what happened with Austrailia), they'll probably add it in a few weeks.

That's what the australians thought too. Turns out, they weren't cheaper and some weren't even purchasable. Some can't even be bought today, two months after the introduction.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/10/1735468061759468104/

[Satoru]

Steam constantly evaluates whether they can support new currencies. Those determinations are based on a ton of factors. You’ll have to be patient to see if Egypt will be supported.

Note that “our economy sucks” isnt a major factor as you could make a much better case for that argument in probably a few dozen other countries