I'll start by saying I know you can't give gifts if the price difference is greater than 10% between regions, but I have another layer to this question. This will be context of sending a gift from the US to EU(Spain in this case)

I've noticed that generally that price listings are the same NUMERICALLY for us both. I'll just use a flat 10 USD/EUR for an example here.

But let's think about this for a second though. Taxes are INCLUDED in the list sale price for EU customers(I'm pretty sure this a law there?), but it is added on in check out US where it's whatever your local state's sales tax is.

So what drops into the split between Steam/dev is actually pretty different because VAT is included as part of the list price on the EU side. With my example that’s:

US: $10.00
EU: €7.90

If I look at the exchange rate right now with the amount that goes to Steam/dev €7.90 or $9.16... meaning if I buy a game and give it to my friend in Spain that Steam/dev would actually get more value from me, the $10 vs $9.16, than if he bought it himself. This suggests that the 10% price difference does not account for when tax is applied, my question is why?

Obviously Steam/devs would like more money rather than less, so why isn’t this taken into consideration?

What is even more wild to me? When pricing actually accounts for the exchange rate AKA the price in EURs is slightly less than USDs? (Compared against a game that was 30 USD and 25 EUR) it will let me gift the game, but Steam/dev get even less in terms of value to them from the EU sale. Nice for the customer if it’s an EU buyer, but not for their bottom line.

I’m pretty sure the developer sets their regional sales prices so they could work around the 10% rule if they wanted. I’m just trying to understand why the 10% difference rule doesn’t seem to logically apply to what drops into the payment funnel as it goes into the process of Steam’s cut and then on to the dev.

Bonus factoid, he can gift to me even though it’s less money to Steam/dev.

TLDR: Let me buy things for my friends in the EU because it actually gives Steam and the developer more money or at least tell me why I can’t? Logically allowing me to gift this way would be more money in both Steam and the developer’s pocket at the end of the day.