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pampers 20 Aug @ 3:27am
Belarus needs Russian ruble prices, not USA
Hi, I want to point out a clear problem that everyone seems to ignore.
I live in Belarus, and I’m tired of paying insane prices that are not made for my region at all, but for the USA.

Why should I pay $60 for a game (like Lies of P) when the average salary here is only around $500?
In Russia, the same game costs about $40, while salaries there are ~900 USD or more.
Do you not see how unfair this is?

Why are we paying prices designed for countries with salaries TEN times higher than ours?

What’s the problem with simply connecting Belarus to the Russian region?
I’m not even asking for a separate currency (I understand that may be complicated).
I’m just asking to add Belarus to the Russian ruble region (₽), so that games become at least a bit cheaper and people don’t have to choose between food and games!

Please, hear us out!:steamsad:
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Originally posted by nullable:
Originally posted by pampers:
Hi, I want to point out a clear problem that everyone seems to ignore.
I live in Belarus, and I’m tired of paying insane prices that are not made for my region at all, but for the USA.

Why should I pay $60 for a game (like Lies of P) when the average salary here is only around $500?
In Russia, the same game costs about $40, while salaries there are ~900 USD or more.
Do you not see how unfair this is?

Why are we paying prices designed for countries with salaries TEN times higher than ours?

What’s the problem with simply connecting Belarus to the Russian region?
I’m not even asking for a separate currency (I understand that may be complicated).
I’m just asking to add Belarus to the Russian ruble region (₽), so that games become at least a bit cheaper and people don’t have to choose between food and games!

Please, hear us out!:steamsad:

Who is choosing games over food? I mean if that's the choice,doesn't seem like much of a choice. I mean I get your argument that you think prices should be lower for your region. But that sort of hyperbole, or looking at prices somewhere else and being convinced you're owed the same may ignore some of the differences between the countries.

At any rate,

https://steamdb.info/app/1086940/ Baldur's Gate 3, USD-CIS price is about 50% of U.S. price. So your claims don't really add up with any research. And not only that in the case of this game, you're paying less than LATM and MENA regions that include Turkey and Argentina, the previous goto locations for region hoppers.

https://steamdb.info/app/1627720/ Lies of P yeah, looks like the publisher decided to ignore the recommendations. And you not liking that decision may not be a reason to move you to a new region to sidestep publisher/developer decisions. And I'd argue kinda seems like they don't want your money if they're going to price you out. Not really Steam's job to fix that. Plus, nothing is stopping the developer/publisher from changing the Russian prices to be equivalent to whatever USD price/region. Which is what would happen if Valve started playing weird shell games to move countries around to undermine publisher decisions.

It seems simple to you. But your imagination is you want to change one thing, and nothing else will ever change, and that's a bit silly.
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Showing 1-6 of 6 comments
rawWwRrr 20 Aug @ 3:33am 
Valve doesn't set the price on games. If you feel a game is more expensive in your region than it should be, you need to take that up with the publisher of the game.
#1
pampers 20 Aug @ 3:39am 
Originally posted by rawWwRrr:
Valve doesn't set the price on games. If you feel a game is more expensive in your region than it should be, you need to take that up with the publisher of the game.
Yes, game publishers decide the prices for games in different regions. HOWEVER, THERE IS NO SUCH REGION AS "BELARUS". There is a region called "USA", which applies to Belarus. The publisher simply cannot lower the price for us without also lowering it in the United States. This is why I suggest creating a separate region for Belarus or at least merging it with Russia.
#2
Nx Machina 20 Aug @ 4:05am 
Originally posted by pampers:
Yes, game publishers decide the prices for games in different regions. HOWEVER, THERE IS NO SUCH REGION AS "BELARUS". There is a region called "USA", which applies to Belarus. The publisher simply cannot lower the price for us without also lowering it in the United States. This is why I suggest creating a separate region for Belarus or at least merging it with Russia.

You are part of the CIS Region. USD_CIS

We recommend a discounted USD price in the Commonwealth of Independent States and affiliated countries where we don't have local pricing. This is presented as "USD_CIS" in the pricing tools. These countries are: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
#3
rawWwRrr 20 Aug @ 5:19am 
Originally posted by pampers:
Originally posted by rawWwRrr:
Valve doesn't set the price on games. If you feel a game is more expensive in your region than it should be, you need to take that up with the publisher of the game.
Yes, game publishers decide the prices for games in different regions. HOWEVER, THERE IS NO SUCH REGION AS "BELARUS". There is a region called "USA", which applies to Belarus. The publisher simply cannot lower the price for us without also lowering it in the United States. This is why I suggest creating a separate region for Belarus or at least merging it with Russia.
Belarus is definitely not in the same region as the US. The currency might be USD, but that country is in its own region along with a few others in the region. Valve even suggests a lower price for that region, but as publishers are allowed to do they've set it higher than that. So, if you feel a price is higher than it should be for you, take it up with the publisher. Valve has already done the work to allow your region to benefit from a lower price.
#4
Zefar 20 Aug @ 6:49am 
Russia is still under sanctions so using the Russian Ruble is probably not gonna happen until those sanctions are lifted.
#5
The author of this thread has indicated that this post answers the original topic.
nullable 20 Aug @ 7:50am 
Originally posted by pampers:
Hi, I want to point out a clear problem that everyone seems to ignore.
I live in Belarus, and I’m tired of paying insane prices that are not made for my region at all, but for the USA.

Why should I pay $60 for a game (like Lies of P) when the average salary here is only around $500?
In Russia, the same game costs about $40, while salaries there are ~900 USD or more.
Do you not see how unfair this is?

Why are we paying prices designed for countries with salaries TEN times higher than ours?

What’s the problem with simply connecting Belarus to the Russian region?
I’m not even asking for a separate currency (I understand that may be complicated).
I’m just asking to add Belarus to the Russian ruble region (₽), so that games become at least a bit cheaper and people don’t have to choose between food and games!

Please, hear us out!:steamsad:

Who is choosing games over food? I mean if that's the choice,doesn't seem like much of a choice. I mean I get your argument that you think prices should be lower for your region. But that sort of hyperbole, or looking at prices somewhere else and being convinced you're owed the same may ignore some of the differences between the countries.

At any rate,

https://steamdb.info/app/1086940/ Baldur's Gate 3, USD-CIS price is about 50% of U.S. price. So your claims don't really add up with any research. And not only that in the case of this game, you're paying less than LATM and MENA regions that include Turkey and Argentina, the previous goto locations for region hoppers.

https://steamdb.info/app/1627720/ Lies of P yeah, looks like the publisher decided to ignore the recommendations. And you not liking that decision may not be a reason to move you to a new region to sidestep publisher/developer decisions. And I'd argue kinda seems like they don't want your money if they're going to price you out. Not really Steam's job to fix that. Plus, nothing is stopping the developer/publisher from changing the Russian prices to be equivalent to whatever USD price/region. Which is what would happen if Valve started playing weird shell games to move countries around to undermine publisher decisions.

It seems simple to you. But your imagination is you want to change one thing, and nothing else will ever change, and that's a bit silly.
#6
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Date Posted: 20 Aug @ 3:27am
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