Use a universal currency for the market to fight currency fragmentation.

[Dan loeb]

Issue:
Post a market item for XX cents USD return.
Have a person from a country with a less fragemented currency then you purchase the item.
Get extra penny(ies)
Other issue:
Post item for XX cents USD return, lower than existing items.
Person in country with highly fragmented currency can underbid you in smaller increments.
your listing becomes lowered because they have essentially listed their item in say, Sri Lankan cents, which you need almost 200 of to equal a one cent USD change. so they can regain the top of the list and all you see is the same cent value you posted at hours ago, but now they are above you. An Armenian Luma is about 400 pennies.
I know currency fragmentation is normally only really high in crap economies, but when placing foils or other items on the market of significant value, it is annoying to watch you item for days to weeks at the top spot, then have it fall as someone else has put theirs a fraction of the lowest possible amount of your currency lower. I'm fine when it's visible to me. but having a system where underbids can be invisible to certain currencies due to fragmentation is horrible.

I think steam should institute a new currency for the market, since the steam wallet is already useless outside of steam anyways. a hyper fragmented currency would level the playing field, and promote realistic item values for many items. since almost every common emote shows up for me as 3 cents, when people post them MUCH much lower than that in their own currency.

I know this may come off super entitled, but let's face it. if you're on steam, regardless of country, odds are you have a 500$+ gaming pc. Fragmented currency or not, steam users are not lacking essential needs. and extra wallet funds are only valuable within the context of steam anyways. seeing as how many people have certain items in a high volume, particularly backgrounds and emoticons, it would enable far more movement of these items within the market. since many less fragmented currency users would now be willing to buy these items as the prices would be leveled.

Thanks for reading, I tried to space out the text wall.

[Satoru]

Weve heard you and decided to unify pricing across all regions

Pricing will now all be pegged to the Australian Dollar

Be careful what you wish for. You'll get what you asked. Not what you want

[Dan loeb]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Satoru:

Weve heard you and decided to unify pricing across all regions

Pricing will now all be pegged to the Australian Dollar

Be careful what you wish for. You'll get what you asked. Not what you want

Meh. I'd be fine with the market being limited to one currency. the store on the other hand? I dont want to feel the pain of $120 games. holy crap!

[Toff]

I just came here to suggest the same thing.

Valve should simply use USD as the base currency for determining the minimal incremental step ($0.01) and set the very same minimal step for other currencies based on the Steam conversion rate.

The current system isn't fair, as explained above, and gives advantages to people with cheaper national currencies.

It even leads to such ridiculous things like some orders aren't even being displayed for me because their price is set lower than the current minimum step for my currency.

Here's what I'm talking about. Same item, different regions:

USD[i.imgur.com] vs RUB[i.imgur.com].

This is just wrong, and a unified incremental step based on USD will just solve these problems and make things fair for everyone.

The other solution would be to isolate markets based on currencies, but no one would want that, so I think a unification based on USD is a better option.
People with cheaper currencies will be against that, but that is to be expected considering their position right now.

There would still be a bit of unfairness left because of variable wages in different countries, but I'm afraid it's impossible to solve by implementing regional prices similarly to how it's done for the store.

P.S.: I'm not an American, I live in Ukraine, my local currency (UAH) is not implemented yet, but even if it was I would still vote for market currency unification based on USD.

[Start_Running]

Stema would not be allowed to do that. Any must be given sufficient internation regulatory scrutiny. In short Steam cannot just creat it's own currency. I mean that's what Bitcoin tried and they're not doing so well.

[Dan loeb]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Toff:

I just came here to suggest the same thing.

Valve should simply use USD as the base currency for determining the minimal incremental step ($0.01) and set the very same minimal step for other currencies based on the Steam conversion rate.

The current system isn't fair, as explained above, and gives advantages to people with cheaper national currencies.

It even leads to such ridiculous things like some orders aren't even being displayed for me because their price is set lower than the current the minimum step for my currency.

Here's what I'm talking about. Same item, different regions:

USD[i.imgur.com] vs RUB[i.imgur.com].

This is just wrong, and a unified incremental step based on USD will just solve these problems and make things fair for everyone.

The other solution would be to isolate markets based on currencies, but no one would want that, so I think a unification based on USD is a better option.
People with cheaper currencies will be against that, but that is to be expected considering their position right now.

P.S.: I'm not an American, I live in Ukraine, my local currency (UAH) is not implemented yet, but even if it was I would still vote for market currency unification based on USD.

thanks for the reply, I did work hard on this topic and it just faded into obscurity, I guess the recent events on friday sparked bit more debate. I think operating on maybe a half or quarter penny universal increment would be more ideal, allowing more competition on those 3 cent and other lower items. but the bigger issue is that the currency seperation between different ones causes major display issues as you said. I can't compete with any 3 cent USD items because my currency is stronger than most. say I post something super common, A tf2 crate at 3 cents, my listing with be one page 2000+ because others are placing them at 15 (insert fragmented currency) which is a fraction of a cent. it's kind of ridiculous.

[Dan loeb]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Start_Running:

Stema would not be allowed to do that. Any must be given sufficient internation regulatory scrutiny. In short Steam cannot just creat it's own currency. I mean that's what Bitcoin tried and they're not doing so well.

except they already do this with steam wallet funds. they technically aren't real dollars or any money, and are only usable on the site itself. lots of stores and sites do this already, nintendo e-shop points. facebook coins, etc. bitcoin isn't doing so well because it's a universal crypto currency that is hard to track and can be exchanged anywhere. it has no regulatory limits or limited use. steam wallet funds are already limited to within steam, and have no real value outside of it.

[Start_Running]

Nope, Steam Wallet funds are basically akin to store credit and they are linked to whatever currency is set by your steam wallet. I,.e. If you wallet curency is set to US your wallet funds are in US dollars, if you're Euro it's given in EUros

[Toff]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Pepper:

I think operating on maybe a half or quarter penny universal increment would be more ideal, allowing more competition on those 3 cent and other lower items.

Oh, that actually makes even more sense. Since we're operating a virtual currency anyway, it can be split into smaller increments. Then maybe allowing orders to be shown as $0.004, for example, would be a more universal solution than a unified currency.

Basically, everyone needs to be able to see orders lower than 0.01 of their local currency, and the option to adjust their own orders/offers accordingly.

[Dan loeb]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Start_Running:

Nope, Steam Wallet funds are basically akin to store credit and they are linked to whatever currency is set by your steam wallet. I,.e. If you wallet curency is set to US your wallet funds are in US dollars, if you're Euro it's given in EUros

and that is a problem. there's a reason the new york stock exchange operates on dollars and the london markets operate on pounds and etc. multiple currencies on the same market leaves large loopholes with currency fragmentation and exchange. also steam wallet doesnt have to be tied to the market, lets assume we use a universal points system. you would list an item for xxx points, then you could choose to convert those points to wallet funds after the sale. bam simple and allows all global currencies to be competitive.

[Toff]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Toff:

Basically, everyone needs to be able to see orders lower than 0.01 of their local currency, and the option to adjust their own orders/offers accordingly.

Actually, I take that back. You can't allow orders lower than 0.01 for every currency because then there will be a fight of who has more digits after a dot. Americans will use $0.004, Russians will use 0.19999, Americans will then use 0.00399999999 etc.
So I guess there is no alternative to currency unification. Or I would rather call it 'incremental step unification'.

[HLCinSC]

The trend in the industry has been to shift away from proprietary points systems, like XB Live or Bioware points, in favor for straight native currency

[Dan loeb]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von #Let Girls Learn #Sunshine Week:

The trend in the industry has been to shift away from proprietary points systems, like XB Live or Bioware points, in favor for straight native currency

does ps4/xbone/wii u do this? I've only seen that on mobile

[Satoru]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Pepper:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von #Let Girls Learn #Sunshine Week:

The trend in the industry has been to shift away from proprietary points systems, like XB Live or Bioware points, in favor for straight native currency

does ps4/xbone/wii u do this? I've only seen that on mobile

PSN/Xbox/Wii have all moved to real money stores and have abandoned points systems.

[HLCinSC]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Pepper:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von #Let Girls Learn #Sunshine Week:

The trend in the industry has been to shift away from proprietary points systems, like XB Live or Bioware points, in favor for straight native currency

does ps4/xbone/wii u do this? I've only seen that on mobile

XB Live switched away from MS points or whatever they were called around 2 years ago (I think), PSN has used direct currency for a long time. I want to say Nintendo still uses a point system but I have no WiiU and have not fired up the Wii for awhile.

Mobile wise iOS and Google Play have been on currency system from the start I believe. MS made the switch away from points on WP after WP8 I believe

[Dan loeb]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von #Let Girls Learn #Sunshine Week:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Pepper:

does ps4/xbone/wii u do this? I've only seen that on mobile

XB Live switched away from MS points or whatever they were called around 2 years ago (I think), PSN has used direct currency for a long time. I want to say Nintendo still uses a point system but I have no WiiU and have not fired up the Wii for awhile.

Mobile wise iOS and Google Play have been on currency system from the start I believe. MS made the switch away from points on WP after WP8 I believe

but it's still not able to turned back into money right? I've read some of the EULAs and they all seem to say that the stored funds do not represent real money, and are not refundable.

do you have any suggests to fix this? just curious.