Regional pricing feedback for the ‘less-wealthy half’ of Europe

[smileyhead]

Hi,

This is a suggestion I proposed to Valve directly through Steam Support first, and while the support member was kind enough to forward my message to the appropriate department, they had also suggested me to post it in this forum, so here it is.
Below is my original message, as written to Steam Support:

Currently, Europe all seems to be in the same pricing region, despite the vastly different economical statuses of the countries within it. The European regional pricing is very high to some of us in Middle- and Eastern Europe.

I live in Hungary. Here, the minimum wage is HUF 1,150 per hour (note that we do not even use Euros, despite the Steam Store listing prices in that currency). Assuming twenty-two 8-hour work-days, this means HUF 202,400 for an entire month. If we take an example ‘full-price’ game, Half-Life Alyx, it is priced at EUR 58.99, which translates into HUF 22,756 or 11.2% of somebody's monthly earnings, which is very high.

The US federal minimum wage is USD 7.25 per hour. Continuing with the aforementioned example, this means USD 1,276 per month, so Half-Life Alyx, currently priced at USD 59.99, is only 4.7% of somebody's monthly earnings.

For comparison, I will bring up another European country, one which actually uses Euros as their currency, Germany. The minimum wage there is EUR 12.00 per hour or EUR 2,112 per month, which would mean purchasing Half-Life Alyx at EUR 58.99 there would only cost someone 2.7% of their monthly earnings.

Based on the statistics above, I would like to request that you take into account the ‘less wealthy’ countries of Europe when calculating regional pricing. Please, either make new regions for each country in their local currencies and adjust prices to their local economy, or at the very least, create a second Euro-region with lower prices.

Thank you very much in advance.

[Supafly]

Devs set their prices. Valve has no say it how they price their games. you need to contact the devs

[Crazy Tiger]

Valve adds currencies at their own pacing. And while you consider your market to be important, you have to take into account that Valve, and likely also game developers/publishers, might not consider it an important market.

Also, always keep in mind that should Valve add the currency, it might not actually deliver the results you hope for. Prices might still be higher than you think because developers/publishers set the prices and can ignore the suggested regional pricing (as happens with the turkish lira currently, especially AAA publishers do so). Games also will be unavailable for purchase until the developers/publishers have set a price in the new currency, that doesn't happen automatically.

[RiO]

Originally posted by smileyhead:

at the very least, create a second Euro-region with lower prices.

That would be illegal. The EU doesn't allow for geo-fencing within the internal market of the Union to control pricing levels in different regions.

That's the major point why you're not seeing cheaper prices in poorer regions.
It would be illegal for Valve to try and block other EU residents from buying from the poorer region at the cheaper price; thus everyone would just do that and the publishers that chose to have their games sold through Steam by Valve would lose unacceptable levels of income.

[Brian9824]

Valve DID offer this, but they were sued by the EU and forced to stop. So yeah blame the EU for this one.

Originally posted by RiO:

the publishers that chose to have their games sold through Steam by Valve would lose unacceptable levels of income.

Except the publishers themselves WANTED and DID use this feature. Valve already has methods in place to reduce the fraud, and they lose sales by not being able to sell copies cheaper in regions with less buying power.

I mean its not like the publishers if they didn't want different prices per region couldn't simply have sold it for the same price in every region in the EU afterall.....

[MalikQayum]

Originally posted by RiO:

Originally posted by smileyhead:

at the very least, create a second Euro-region with lower prices.

That would be illegal. The EU doesn't allow for geo-fencing within the internal market of the Union to control pricing levels in different regions.

That's the major point why you're not seeing cheaper prices in poorer regions.
It would be illegal for Valve to try and block other EU residents from buying from the poorer region at the cheaper price; thus everyone would just do that and the publishers that chose to have their games sold through Steam by Valve would lose unacceptable levels of income.

RIO got it right.
it is part of our right of free movement and trade agreement within the EU.
which basically blocks valve from doing it, this is a good thing. unfurtunately this just happen to have a few side effects.
nothing stops you from seeking out third party services that offers a serial key format that will activate on steam.

you can not compare an EU country with an European country, those 2 things are not the same.

[RiO]

Originally posted by brian9824:

Valve DID offer this, but they were sued by the EU and forced to stop. So yeah blame the EU for this one.

Originally posted by RiO:

the publishers that chose to have their games sold through Steam by Valve would lose unacceptable levels of income.

Except the publishers themselves WANTED and DID use this feature.

Ok; so maybe I need to explain this a bit slower for it to sink in:

The feature to geo-fence within the EU market to price-discriminate is illegal. (5 major publishers that used it were in fact brought to court over it by the EU, along with Steam for facilitating them.)

Valve could reinstate the feature to have different prices for various regions within the EU. But they would not be allowed to geo-fence it - i.e. they would not be legally allowed to keep EU residents from richer areas out. Those would not be allowed to be blocked from purchasing via the store regions set-up with the pricing for the poorer areas.

Thus any consumer in the richer areas of the EU that's not a complete idiot, would purchase from the cheap poor area. And that is what would lead to an unacceptable drop in income for publishers.

So, from the publishers' perspective that's a no-go. And thus they don't bother to price- discriminate at all and keep the entirety of the EU on the rich-area price. They would rather lose out on sales to the poorer economic areas; than lose out on full-price sales to the richer areas.

[Brian9824]

Originally posted by MalikQayum:

Originally posted by RiO:

That would be illegal. The EU doesn't allow for geo-fencing within the internal market of the Union to control pricing levels in different regions.

That's the major point why you're not seeing cheaper prices in poorer regions.
It would be illegal for Valve to try and block other EU residents from buying from the poorer region at the cheaper price; thus everyone would just do that and the publishers that chose to have their games sold through Steam by Valve would lose unacceptable levels of income.

RIO got it right.
it is part of our right of free movement and trade agreement within the EU.
which basically blocks valve from doing it, this is a good thing. unfurtunately this just happen to have a few side effects.
nothing stops you from seeking out third party services that offers a serial key format that will activate on steam.

you can not compare an EU country with an European country, those 2 things are not the same.

Well the part about publishers losing money is flat out wrong as publishers/devs are free to use regional pricing or not so if they felt they would lose money by it they would be free to not use it.

Perfect case of Anti-Consumerism from the EU - Steam USED to offer it until the EU fined and sued multiple people which stopped them from being able to offer games at lower prices to regions like the OP's.

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_21_170

[Brian9824]

Originally posted by RiO:

Ok; so maybe I need to explain this

No need, already understood it as previously mentioned, and the point stands. Valve used to offer what the OP wanted, and developers/publishers had no issues with it as they weren't forced to use it.

The EU took objection with it and put an end to it, and the consumers were hurt in the process. I mean under the old system they could offer tailored prices to each region with minimal fraud which is far superior to having to offer a single price across vastly different economic regions.

[RiO]

Originally posted by brian9824:

Perfect case of Anti-Consumerism from the EU

You would do well to actually read up on the full motivation and effects that this particular legislation has; such as promoting sales from local manufacturers in poorer regions of the EU towards the richer economic areas that naturally seek a cheap deal, thus over time improving income in the poorer areas until income and economic power is equalized.

Originally posted by brian9824:

fraud

Fraud requires violating laws.
Which is what publishers did and Valve faciltiated, by geo-fencing the internal EU market.

Publishers have ample recourse to legally dissuade consumers from richer economic areas of the EU from purchasing from weaker areas. E.g. they could offer the weaker areas specifically catered builds of a game that only supports their regional language for on-screen texts.

[Brian9824]

Originally posted by RiO:

Originally posted by brian9824:

Perfect case of Anti-Consumerism from the EU

You would do well to actually read up on the full motivation and effects that this particular legislation has; such as promoting sales from local manufacturers in poorer regions of the EU towards the richer economic areas that naturally seek a cheap deal, thus over time improving income in the poorer areas until income and economic power is equalized.

Doesn't matter what the intent was, what matters is the result from it which is the OP has to pay the same price now as countries that make far more then him and removing the ability for developers and producers to decide what a fair price of their product is per region.

The EU is a big body and the law completely falls apart with digital goods and its very unpopular with people like the OP and all the others stuck in his situation. Nor do developers enjoy not being able to provide their services for competitive prices based on region.

The road to hell is paved in good intentions...

[RiO]

Originally posted by brian9824:

The road to hell is paved in good intentions...

And I guess those pesky legislators also make a good scape-goat and excuse where publishers are not looking to invest into legally allowed solutions for the problem either.

Just blame the legislator for the pricing and take what you can.

[Brian9824]

Originally posted by RiO:

Originally posted by brian9824:

The road to hell is paved in good intentions...

And I guess those pesky legislators also make a good scape-goat and excuse where publishers are not looking to invest into legally allowed solutions for the problem either.

Just blame the legislator for the pricing and take what you can.

Not much the publishers can do when they are required to sell at the same price to a country whose average salary is $20,000 as a country whose average salary is $80,000.

Of course that also isn't related to the OP's question. He asked why it can't be done, and the reason is the EU passed a law that in this case is extremely anti-consumer to people in his situation unfortunately. It worked perfectly fine before those pesky legislators changed the laws and didn't take into account digital goods and people in the OP's situation.

So makes sense to blame the ones who passed the laws creating the OP's situation and stopping businesses from making those unimportant decisions like being able to price their own product....

[MalikQayum]

I had to be sure about this, but i would appear that any EU country that does not use the Euro currency could get their own regional pricings.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Non-euro_currencies_of_the_European_Union

so these 7 countries would be able to get around that.
poland already have their own currency on steam.
(valve would have to add these currencies, there was some stipulations if i recall wrong, about hungary, romania, sweden and denmark getting their own currencies on steam store.)
but the remaining ones that uses euro as their currency, can not get regional pricings.

[RiO]

Originally posted by MalikQayum:

I had to be sure about this, but i would appear that any EU country that does not use the Euro currency could get their own regional pricings.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Non-euro_currencies_of_the_European_Union

Yes, but afaik the acts regarding the single internal market are for the entire Union, not simply the Eurozone. So while you could set separate prices just fine, it would still be illegal to block consumers from rich areas of the EU, to buy in poorer areas against cheaper prices.

What I proposed earlier: publishers selling catered builds that only support the regional languages of those poorer areas for on-screen text, would be a very suitable means of dissuading consumers from rich areas to buy in those poorer areas. And it would solve the problem.

[MalikQayum]

yep i get that which is why i am dumbfounded by why poland has been allowed this.

https://twitter.com/SteamDB/status/1379696523999592449

but then you get this later:

https://twitter.com/SteamDB/status/1481558976349224961/photo/1

so one could make the assumption that they got blocked from doing this and perhaps the polish currency has just gone under the radar and unnoticed, who knows.

https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/pricing/currencies