Steam's Faulty Pricing: Resurrected and... Buried?

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Maggerama 19 Sep, 2020 @ 8:28pm

Steam's Faulty Pricing: Resurrected and... Buried?

A whole country scammed by Valve's publisher price recommendation system? Scratch it, ALL OF THEM ARE. Check out the new post, another piece of evidence that confirms (?) Steam's faulty pricing. Was it Activision's fault? Valve's shenanigans? Or their cooperative effort? Let's speculate.

Hey guys, I don't know where else to put it, but maybe you'll be interested in having a look at this thread https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/app/1091500/discussions/0/2945873878565772536/

This isn't the first time a game costs 10-20$ more than it should. Altogether, we came to a conclusion that Steam's pricing recommendations to publishers are broken. Confirmed by a guy there who actually published a game before. I think that Valve should look into it, these are some pretty frustrating and costly mistakes. Before I only noticed it when Bethesda did it, but recently I (we) spy more and more games that cost up to 80$ for us while priced at 60$ in the US, and for no discernible reason.
There aren't any special tariffs on games in my country, nothing like that. Inflation is also not a problem. Games simply aren't priced right on Steam (and nowhere else). It's the same with many publishers - Sega, Capcom, Bethesda, etc. Not an isolated issue. Didn't start yesterday, too. I believe that I'd bought Prey around a year ago and it was over-priced just the same back then already.

Originally posted by Eviction Notice:
It doesn't seem like much has changed since this PC Gamer article 6 years ago.

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1635326813355514780/0598491469DB12EBB1A359ADA62AFB9356678005/ well would you look at that! A comparison picture. On EGS the game is 204 NIS (59.70 USD), on Steam it's 269 NIS (78.72 USD).

By the way, 79 USD is 269 NIS. The right price is 204 NIS, it's 60 USD. Follow? Now, 79 CAD is 204 NIS! It could be as simple as mixing up CAD and USD while programming a table. Something to consider.

There isn't much hope in this case. Valve's support didn't help, really. CDPR's only thanked me for reporting this. I still think that these ~65 surplus shekels come out of nowhere and no one could explain what additional expenses do they cover. Okay now, Valve shifts the blame, so much is obvious. What we need to find out is do publishers choose to raise prices in Israel or do Steamworks recommend them by default?

Oh, and in case someone thinks that Israel is rich or something. It's GDP is TIMES smaller than, say, Canada's. So are the salaries. Yet in Canada Cyberpunk costs 60 USD (79 CAD), not almost 80. Not to mention the upcoming Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare® II, for which we have the HIGHEST PRICE IN THE WORLD.

Last edited by Maggerama; 8 Oct, 2022 @ 1:59pm

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Showing 1-15 of 43 comments

Ratchet

19 Sep, 2020 @ 8:53pm

Steam's currency conversion is just that, a currency converter. It doesn't take into account cost of living or the standard income of people. Also the developer/publisher can manually change the prices themselves, this seems like a case of the developer changing the price manually.

The price on GOG is $59.99 USD, so I can only recommend buying it on GOG as an alternative, this isn't the first case of this happening, pre Australian Dollar we used to pay almost double for games like Black Ops 2 (still do almost), but unfortunately there's nothing anyone can do, you could email them too see if its an accident and use the GOG pricing as a comparison but apart from that there's not much else to do.

Maggerama 19 Sep, 2020 @ 8:56pm

Yup, did that. And how are you so sure that there's nothing else to do? Did you deal with this kind of problem before? Did you even read the thread? Doesn't seem like it. Okay, don't get offended or anything, just keep the thread up, don't close it yet. I want to see if Mellow has a different take. If not - oh well. But who knows?
Concerning the Australian shenanigans, I believe that you overpay CONSISTENTLY for all games right? Well, this thing here is anything but consistent, which tells me that probably some of the publishers bother with fixing the default values and some don't. And there aren't enough voices from smaller countries to make the problem known to the world, especially considering how dismissive people are in general when it come to this issue for some reason.

Last edited by Maggerama; 19 Sep, 2020 @ 9:11pm

Eviction Notice 20 Sep, 2020 @ 5:14am

It doesn't seem like much has changed since this PC Gamer article 6 years ago.

Lacy 20 Sep, 2020 @ 6:50am

I mean, you can send in a ticket (I know you did), but I doubt steam is going to do anything about it, in all honesty. It'd be better to try to contact the dev/publishers about it, as they're the ones who technically set the prices. They most likely just took what the steam recommendation for the prices without actually seeing how it converted. There are a ton of currencies on Steam, and some devs/publishers just don't care enough to double check each conversion (I'm not saying this is okay, just saying they probably make the assumption that it's fine). There are a lot of currencies that over/under pay for certain games.

Selective Oblivion 20 Sep, 2020 @ 7:19am

Just tossing this in there... but I've noticed "something" over the last few years.

It seems to me from casual viewing that 'The Gaming Industry" seems to be pushing for higher base prices on many games. A few years ago they were basically $30, then $40... for many years kind of stayed in that area. Then console boom hit and prices pretty much started at that $40 and quickly moved up to that $60 base price range across many sellers, stores and publishers.

Now I see base prices moving more and more into that $65 and $75 range.
This is all without adding in the additional costs of DLC.

Not sure if what I'm seeing is 'just' inflation or a calculated greed push by the various digital media industries. Many of the Titles on M$ Store have $80 price tags for trash games... This upsets me to even look at it and I refuse to give my $ to any store that does this or other shady marketing 'because they can'. Sadly, enough people pay it...

On a further tangent, I had hoped that digital books (kindle & the like) would bring book prices down to 40-50% of printed books... nope. Didn't happen. I can often find new printed books cheaper than digital, depending on where & how I shop...

So, this is just a gaming pricing trend I've noticed over the years, but I'm don't know if this is a side effect of inflation or a planned drive to increase profits.

Last edited by Selective Oblivion; 20 Sep, 2020 @ 7:22am

Peace|Of Mind ✌ 20 Sep, 2020 @ 9:46am

developers do not have to use the valve recommended price conversion. they have the option to manually set the base price to be the same as row if they desired. although it doesnt do this by default and you have to go through each line and update it accordingly.

Maggerama 20 Sep, 2020 @ 10:53am

I’ll just wait for CDPR’s and Valve’s answers. If there'd be any, lol. Mellow said that it’s not the first time he’s heard of it and he’d look into it. I use his words as this thread's protection against deleting, hope he won't mind. He isn't saying anything concrete as of yet, no promises either. It's a weird subject, everyone's uncertain and can only assume stuff by now.

Now I see base prices moving more and more into that $65 and $75 range.

Nah, that's not it. CDPR, in particular, took a stand against raising the prices recently, look it up.

Originally posted by Eviction Notice:
It doesn't seem like much has changed since this PC Gamer article 6 years ago.

6 years, goddamn! And I only started noticing it a year ago. Maybe because my financial state improved quite a bit and I started to buy more expensive\AAA games. From observations and according to the article, they're the usual suspects when it comes to these unwarranted price disparities.

Last edited by Maggerama; 20 Sep, 2020 @ 11:21am

Maggerama 20 Sep, 2020 @ 12:04pm

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1635326813355429728/DFC0BD3591B4D7CF18B1D91364970F94DD6E1840/ Steam support didn't really get it, as expected. Still waiting for CDPR to respond, maybe they'd be more susceptible. After all, they took a stand on price gouging recently.

Last edited by Maggerama; 20 Sep, 2020 @ 12:18pm

Jillas 20 Sep, 2020 @ 12:20pm

Originally posted by Magerama:
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1635326813355429728/DFC0BD3591B4D7CF18B1D91364970F94DD6E1840/ Steam support didn't really get it, as expected.

How much does Cyberpunk 2077 cost to you in Epic Store? It's one of few stores that also support local currency (unlike GOG store). And if the EGS price is lower than Steam price, then you can use it as a proof that the higher price on Steam was due to wrong recommendation an not because CD PROJEKT RED actually wanted to sell the game for that much in your country!

Last edited by Jillas; 20 Sep, 2020 @ 12:21pm

Maggerama 20 Sep, 2020 @ 12:30pm

#10

Jillas 20 Sep, 2020 @ 1:36pm

Originally posted by Magerama:
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1635326813355514780/0598491469DB12EBB1A359ADA62AFB9356678005/ well would you look at that! A comparison picture. On EGS the game is 204 NIS (59.70 USD), on Steam it's 269 NIS (78.72 USD).

I wish you good luck getting through layers of Steam support, I believe you have better chances reaching someone from CDPR, and they'll probably adjust the price to the one that they have on EGS. Sadly, it won't stop other publishers from making the same mistake, but at least you'll fix the pricing error for that particular game.

#11

Mellow_Online1

20 Sep, 2020 @ 1:40pm

Thanks for bringing this to attention Magerama!

I definitely think there is a case to be made here on showcasing flaws with Steam's default regional pricing and showing it may need refining.

I'll make a note of it and see what could be done on my end. It's definitely not the first time regional pricing has come into criticism, as Ratchet pointed out, it was pretty prevalent before AUD became a currency for common use on Steam for Australian users, and I think it's a very similar case here but seems the problem is rooted less so on the individual developers (granted, they can still alter this, but as others pointed out, they may not be aware and may think Steam's recommended pricing is reliable) and more on Valve/Steam.

#12

Maggerama 20 Sep, 2020 @ 1:44pm

Sounds good. I won't get my hopes up, but I, too, think that we might have a case, and a better one than PC Gamer had 6 years ago. Let's hope that CDPR cooperates. If some of you guys would contact them anyhow and describe the problem it would be grand. They can potentially take our side if we bother them enough (politely). Yet again, could someone please write to them on twitter? I don't have (or want) an account there.

Originally posted by Jillas:

Thanks a lot for that EGS idea, by the way! It's a great lever, I think.

Last edited by Maggerama; 20 Sep, 2020 @ 2:15pm

#13

Maggerama 20 Sep, 2020 @ 2:49pm

By the way, 79 USD is 269 NIS. The right price is 204 NIS, it's 60 USD. Follow? Now, 79 CAD is 204 NIS! It could be as simple as mixing up CAD and USD while programming a table. Something to consider.

#14

Zarkow 21 Sep, 2020 @ 1:47am

Ok, some important info:

- The pricing-tool is a helpful thing for mini-publishers that have no concept of what prices to use for secondary markets, aka especially when converting away from USD and going into regions outside of NA and EU.
- The pricing-tool does NOT restrict the prices in any way
- The pricing-tool does NOT just translate the prices, it take into account local buying power AND piracy-history (aka Russia is prices much lower than a even an adjusted price would be, due to high level of piracy)
- The pricing-tool is adjusted every few months for SOME currencies, but nothing is automatic and most often changes seems to come from developers noticing that some currencies is crashing and want to notify Steam (Valve) to make sure games aren't suddenly half price than 6 month before

Very important:
- currencies change in value. A price set in 2018 can be very 'wrong' in 2020 - but most no developers adjust some odd currencies every few months, in part because that prohibits them from running any discount campaigns etc in the next few weeks. And in part because most small developers don't think about the problem of currencies fluctuating. It just is what it is.

And most importantly:

- A lot of publishers, especially the larger ones, use their own prices

The idea to complain to some external place over Steam over prices publishers decide on their platform is inane and a waste of time. And better yet - there is NOT LEGAL REQUIREMENT to have the same prices in all countries. And if there was, the prices would in most cases be RAISED.

Full transparency: I didn't follow the pricing-recomendations for my EA game. Buying a game is not a right and as such I did a 3-tier pricing-structure, not a 24-tier one that is by default. Yes, that means the game in Russia would only be maybe 20-30% cheaper instead of 70-80%.

Last edited by Zarkow; 21 Sep, 2020 @ 1:51am

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Date Posted: 19 Sep, 2020 @ 8:28pm

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