Steam, you should put a price difference according to the average household income for some countries

[Dreamer]

I recently noticed a conversation that argued that its unfair that prices are different if you are in Europe, in the US, or in another region. I say that its not only fair, but a bigger differentiation should be made according to the average household income at a national level of a certain country.

For example, I live in Romania, where the average salary is about 300 euros officialy, but actually being 200 euros per month. I've heard rumors that in other parts of Europe the average salary could be as high as 2000 euros or more... You can imagine, besides the fact that the prices for food and living are almost the same as the rest of Europe, that we don't have a lot of money left per month for entertainment.

So, a price of 50-60 euro for a game at launch puts me, and most people from my country in a position of being unable to buy it. I, personally, wait for the price to drop and only buy at 75% price reduction, and even then the price can be quite high...

I don't support piracy, but I can understand the temptation, since we have to wait one to two years until there are some daily or weekly deals that would offer us the possibility to buy a game.

I think there should be a price difference according to the country you are in, based on a percentage of the monthly salary. In Romania if there is an average monthly salary of 200 euros, maybe the games could be 20 euros at launch, and in countries with an average income of over 2000 euros to have the prices set at 50 euros.

What do you think?

[MalikQayum]

i say this to u.. if u want games to become cheaper for ur region u should also accept that the games gets region locked to ur country..

why steam hasnt implemented that yet is beyond me..
russians gets the games dirt cheap and then they resell them to europeans trade wise or whatever..so point being is they made the games cheaper for russians but the russians profit from it..because they sell or retrade the non region locked games..just take a look at tf2OP u see how many russians are actually making tons of profit.

and ur wrong a kid lets say a kid age 18 in denmark which is considered a really rich country, can earn about 32000 DKK = 4300€ yearly with a 8 % going to some BS after that he has to pay tax .. which is redicilous high..

so lets say he stays below the tax limit .. so thats 2600-2700 DKK he has monthly see this is without the 8% taken off but lets just give this guy a break.

2700 = 361 euro so thats about 38 hours of work monthly thats about 2 days per week i would reckon..

then this guy has college studies etc and a social life.

so basically u saying because "i" because im one of the ones that is educated and got a job as a economist and earns what he can earn in 1 year without tax in 1 month my pay is about 33000 where tax is taking off about 8k so i get 25000 DKK so he has to get punished because in denmark there are more people like me than him ?

i remember when i was a kid and thats before valve got a client and games costed about 500 DKK which in my time would have been 1/4 of my paycheck..

so now with the steam client and all being digital copies games cost 350-400 which is cheaper, i do give steam that.. but as i pointed out pricings are all wrong because i earn significantly more than others doesnt mean everyone in my country earns that much..

so u cant set the prices by national average incomes.. prices should be equal to everyone if they dont want to do that, they should region lock or remove the option to buy a game as gift in those countries.. to avoid regional bypassing.

and dont tell me no one in romania earns more than 300 euroes u know thats bs and i do too.. difference between our countries is that ur country has less high paid people than DK and dk has less low paid people than romania but that doesnt mean we dont have low paid people and u dont have high paid people.

[Tito Shivan]

Publishers set the pricing. And they've decided that's the ammount they want their games to be sold at Romania.

Also never forget that games are a commodity.

[m]

As European Steam user the € scams has lead me to follow this rules.

• 1. The game is under 10$:

  
  DON'T BUY IT ON STEAM FOR 10€!
  The game will soon be sold in one of many indie bundles where you will be able to pay with USD and get other games along with it.
  
  

• 2. The game is above 10$:

  
  Guess what?
  
  DON'T BUY IT ON STEAM!
  With Halloween, Winter, Summer sales the developers have sales on other sites too. You can get cheper prices for Steam game keys on Green Man Gaming, Amzaon, Gamefly and even if the price is the same you can pay with USD/GBP so it's cheaper in any case

[mP3+Z]

Steam in russian did it, so I suppost to valve can do it in other country, if valve want to.
But it have to set region limit to separate 2-3 levels of price, according by gnp per capita.

[Spawn of Totoro]

Ursprungligen skrivet av AK72:

Ursprungligen skrivet av Tito Shivan:

Publishers set the pricing. And they've decided that's the ammount they want their games to be sold at Romania.

Also never forget that games are a commodity.

actually u wrong its the publisher and valve that decides, its a dialog between both about what would be an ideal price to set for the game on steam.

No, he isn't. Valve may suggest a price, but the Developer has the final say. If Valve suggest 29.99 and the developer wants 49.99, it will be 49.99, reguardless of what Valve has to say about it. That is not an negotiation nor is it having any say in what a price is.
-----
As for the OP:

There is already regional pricing.

Russian keys are usualy region locked. If you want an easy way to identify a RU key, then that would be a better suggestion.

[MalikQayum]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Spawn of Totoro:

Ursprungligen skrivet av AK72:

actually u wrong its the publisher and valve that decides, its a dialog between both about what would be an ideal price to set for the game on steam.

No, he isn't. Valve may suggest a price, but the Developer has the final say. If Valve suggest 29.99 and the developer wants 49.99, it will be 49.99, reguardless of what Valve has to say about it. That is not an negotiation nor is it having any say in what a price is.

well i knew it was along those lines i wasnt that far off but i apologize then for the missinformation i just gave there ;)

[Dreamer]

Ursprungligen skrivet av AK72:

and dont tell me no one in romania earns more than 300 euroes u know thats bs and i do too.. difference between our countries is that ur country has less high paid people than DK and dk has less low paid people than romania but that doesnt mean we dont have low paid people and u dont have high paid people.

This is the known official average salary, but like I was saying, many people get about 200 euros in hand after taxes. And I say that there are many like this, mostly because a lot of people still work for goverment institutions, where the salary is set for most employees to this level.

In my last Master university program, I remember at a conference how a government official said that for a person who starts working, its almost impossible to get a 400 euros salary starting to work in a state governed institution. You can expect to earn a lot of the time 200 euros, reaching 400 as you gather years of work experience. But even those benefits were cut in the last years, in such a way that there was even 35-40% income lost for a lot of government employees, like teachers, so they don't reach that level of 400 anymore... Also, I understand that in the private sector the wages can be even lower for plenty of people.

Sure there are people that earn more, but they are always a minority, as you know.

So the wages are low, prices are high, and we can only hope it will get better as soon as posible. I am powerless to fix the economy, but maybe someone notices my plea here, to give us easier access to entertainment here at least.

Ursprungligen skrivet av mP3+Z:

Steam in russian did it, so I suppost to valve can do it in other country, if valve want to.
But it have to set region limit to separate 2-3 levels of price, according by gnp per capita.

That would be a good idea, I think.

Before starting this thread, I was reading the forums of a game that will launch in about two months, and people were debating about this price difference, that europeans have to pay 60 dollars or more for a game, while americans pay less, and a russian came in the conversation and said that the preorder price for him is 21 dollars.

So, it means that prices can truly be changed based on the region...