"Gamedev here. This is NOT normal. I suspect a bug happened on Valve's side.
EDIT: checked our Steam email again: "If you do not add a USD price to these columns for your game before November 20th, we will default to the standard USD pricing you already have in Steamworks.", seems like manual input was explicitly needed after all, but I'm not the only dev who missed it apparently.
Here's a summary of what happened:
Last month, Steam notified all devs and publishers of the price change
Steam automatically suggested prices for LATAM and MENA (mostly half the USA price)
Through the Steam pricing tool, devs can manually override the suggestion with another price
We manually lowered the price to our 2nd game, but let Steam decide for our 1st game ($12.49)
Come today, and through Steamdb, we see that Steam did NOT apply its own suggested price for our 1st game. Instead it applied USA price (24.99). We still see the halved, Steam-suggested $12.49 price in our pricing tool.
Game developers are now discovering this and are hurriedly manually changing the prices to make it fairer to LATAM and MENA regions. We just did that and are waiting for Valve to approve the change.
I promise that outside of AAA publishers like EA, almost no game developer wanted this to happen. We're aware that this is counter-intuitive and we know it won't help with sales (or our reputation) at all."
Thanks for the clarification! It wouldn't make sense for Valve to make a scummy move like this.
Considering that Steam now requires for manual input for the prices for different regions, is there a tool that a) lists these regions and b) calculates the median suggested pricing for these regions in comparison to the region you (the developer) is based in?
I know an excel sheet would probably be a good start, but considering that therevare also developers in regions other than EU (€) and US ($), it would be a tremendous help to be able to input a price you have in mind, in your own currency, and have the prices calculated in other currencies in the respective regions.
Steam's price settings page already has a very convenient Recommended Prices button that sets your game's price to what Valve estimates would be okay for that region. For most devs, that's perfectly adequate. Valve already did the homework so devs don't have to.
Publishers that would want to charge more would likely just set the USA price anyway and forgo regional pricing.
And if you want to charge less than the recommended price, while appreciated, why?
I think there are some excel sheets that can do that
I mean even if you didn't want that to happen its still nither your nor valves fault, valve needs to have company security, and dealing with money thats essentially worthless is a high risk for them, defaulting to USD prices was the only option for both countries to continue running the steam store at all there, otherwise they probably would have to shut it down there.
By the way Steam added regional pricing in many countries today. For the first time ever we finally got acknowledged as a poor market. Games that are $60 are $35 here.
Feels like any dev who wants to use the regional pricing will have more work now and before the change. This was probably done in favor of big publishers who treat the regional price as a small discount instead of a fair price.
How's capitalism treating you, Argentina? (Context: They just elected an an-cap)
They are about to discover that "small government" ends up being "big corpo"
Yea,Turkish person here, had to teach a few friends how to pirate
Thanks to abusers from EU and US 🙏
Abusers downvoting lol
Uh no?
The goal, Valve said back in October, is to prevent game developers from having to constantly adjust their prices to keep up with the stunning volatility of the Turkish and Argentine currencies. Instead, they ought to be able to set a regionally appropriate price in USD and forget about it.
Thanks to terrible governance by Argentina and Turkey.
If the intent was to keep up with inflation in a way that maximizes local profits, pegging to the US dollar makes no sense. The games wont sell at this price in any appreciable number. Steam could have easily used other tools, like some dynamic pricing model, to maximize local profits. The only thing pegging to the US dollar does is combat key resales, as the comment you are replying to implies.
But that would require steam to override the game devs price, which is a big nono. For the vast majority of these games, valve is not the publisher (who usually is in charge of deciding prices)
Tell me you never lived in those places without saying you never lived in those places.
Everything imported in Argentina is priced in USD. Even local digital markets allow prices to be set directly in USD. It's part of the culture since the 90s
Thats an excuse. I don’t know about Argentina side but we had fair prices. Not too low, not too high.
Steam wasn’t giving a shit about Turkey before people abused or complained about it.
Also Dollar/Lira is in 1/28 rate for like 6 months. It wasn’t volatile as article says.
Do I care? Not anymore. I’ll either go with Epic or piracy unfortunately. I can’t pay $60/70 to a game when my salary is not even $400.
I can’t pay $60/70 to a game when my salary is not even $400.
Vote for a different government then. One that prioritizes strengthening the domestic economy over murdering Kurds and Armenians, for example.
I already voted to different govt. I didn’t killed anyone, if I had chance I wouldn’t either.
You’re so out of subject.
You’re so out of subject.
And I thought the subject was high inflation...
You directed the situation to politics, not me. I'm just a guy who wants to play a game.
You directed the situation to politics, not me.
You blamed "abusers from EU and US" for high game prices when in fact it's just a side effect of domestic politics that caused high inflation.
I’m just a guy who wants to play a game.
Nah, you want to blame "abusers from EU and US".
The reason for regional pricing is fucking high inflation. What are you talking about?
I’m not defending my govt for being fascists, I just want to play a game motherfucker. I’m not responsible of the situation of my country. I didn’t selected this country particularly to be born.
And yes, the reason is still,, the motherfuckers from wealthy countries who didn’t wanted to pay a meal price for a fucking game.
And yes, the main reason is, my fucking country and government. But believe me I sweared to them for a million time but its not working. I DIDN’T CHOSE THEM!
What features you have extra that you’re easily able to play a fucking game and I don’t? I’m not blaming you to playing games, I’m blaming you to you’re wanting not let me fucking play.
Also in a gaming sub, why would you say “don’t koll kordosh ond ormonoons”? What is your fucking point? Racism really only applies to Jews, Africans and not Turks, Arabs I guess.
And know this, I hsve more Kurdish friends than Turkish and we’re all suffering from this fucking new policy fucking dick head.
Fuck you! Our votes don't matter, they win everytime, do you think most Turkish people love their government or something? Do you think that I put that fascist up there? In this country even teenagers can get arrested for doing something as simpe as drawing a mustachase in one of the fascist-ruling party's posters during the voting season as has been demonstrated this year. This is our reality, and most people who are voting for this government are heavily propagandized and are barely purchasing food, there is no politics when you are starving and the TV controlled by the ruling party, who offer themselves as the only remedy to it. It is not "just vote for a different govenment" it never was.
Fuck you!
Thank you.
do you think most Turkish people love their government or something?
Yes, Erdogan is very popular among the nationalist and Islamist population.
From u/fablegrimoire,
"Gamedev here. This is NOT normal. I suspect a bug happened on Valve's side.
EDIT: checked our Steam email again: "If you do not add a USD price to these columns for your game before November 20th, we will default to the standard USD pricing you already have in Steamworks.", seems like manual input was explicitly needed after all, but I'm not the only dev who missed it apparently.
Here's a summary of what happened:
Game developers are now discovering this and are hurriedly manually changing the prices to make it fairer to LATAM and MENA regions. We just did that and are waiting for Valve to approve the change.
I promise that outside of AAA publishers like EA, almost no game developer wanted this to happen. We're aware that this is counter-intuitive and we know it won't help with sales (or our reputation) at all."
Thanks for the clarification! It wouldn't make sense for Valve to make a scummy move like this.
Considering that Steam now requires for manual input for the prices for different regions, is there a tool that a) lists these regions and b) calculates the median suggested pricing for these regions in comparison to the region you (the developer) is based in?
I know an excel sheet would probably be a good start, but considering that therevare also developers in regions other than EU (€) and US ($), it would be a tremendous help to be able to input a price you have in mind, in your own currency, and have the prices calculated in other currencies in the respective regions.
Steam's price settings page already has a very convenient Recommended Prices button that sets your game's price to what Valve estimates would be okay for that region. For most devs, that's perfectly adequate. Valve already did the homework so devs don't have to.
Publishers that would want to charge more would likely just set the USA price anyway and forgo regional pricing.
And if you want to charge less than the recommended price, while appreciated, why?
I think there are some excel sheets that can do that
I mean even if you didn't want that to happen its still nither your nor valves fault, valve needs to have company security, and dealing with money thats essentially worthless is a high risk for them, defaulting to USD prices was the only option for both countries to continue running the steam store at all there, otherwise they probably would have to shut it down there.
By the way Steam added regional pricing in many countries today. For the first time ever we finally got acknowledged as a poor market. Games that are $60 are $35 here.
Feels like any dev who wants to use the regional pricing will have more work now and before the change. This was probably done in favor of big publishers who treat the regional price as a small discount instead of a fair price.
How's capitalism treating you, Argentina? (Context: They just elected an an-cap)
They are about to discover that "small government" ends up being "big corpo"
Yea,Turkish person here, had to teach a few friends how to pirate
Thanks to abusers from EU and US 🙏
Abusers downvoting lol
Uh no?
Thanks to terrible governance by Argentina and Turkey.
If the intent was to keep up with inflation in a way that maximizes local profits, pegging to the US dollar makes no sense. The games wont sell at this price in any appreciable number. Steam could have easily used other tools, like some dynamic pricing model, to maximize local profits. The only thing pegging to the US dollar does is combat key resales, as the comment you are replying to implies.
But that would require steam to override the game devs price, which is a big nono. For the vast majority of these games, valve is not the publisher (who usually is in charge of deciding prices)
Tell me you never lived in those places without saying you never lived in those places.
Everything imported in Argentina is priced in USD. Even local digital markets allow prices to be set directly in USD. It's part of the culture since the 90s
Thats an excuse. I don’t know about Argentina side but we had fair prices. Not too low, not too high.
Steam wasn’t giving a shit about Turkey before people abused or complained about it.
Also Dollar/Lira is in 1/28 rate for like 6 months. It wasn’t volatile as article says.
Do I care? Not anymore. I’ll either go with Epic or piracy unfortunately. I can’t pay $60/70 to a game when my salary is not even $400.
Vote for a different government then. One that prioritizes strengthening the domestic economy over murdering Kurds and Armenians, for example.
I already voted to different govt. I didn’t killed anyone, if I had chance I wouldn’t either.
You’re so out of subject.
And I thought the subject was high inflation...
You directed the situation to politics, not me. I'm just a guy who wants to play a game.
You blamed "abusers from EU and US" for high game prices when in fact it's just a side effect of domestic politics that caused high inflation.
Nah, you want to blame "abusers from EU and US".
The reason for regional pricing is fucking high inflation. What are you talking about?
I’m not defending my govt for being fascists, I just want to play a game motherfucker. I’m not responsible of the situation of my country. I didn’t selected this country particularly to be born.
And yes, the reason is still,, the motherfuckers from wealthy countries who didn’t wanted to pay a meal price for a fucking game.
And yes, the main reason is, my fucking country and government. But believe me I sweared to them for a million time but its not working. I DIDN’T CHOSE THEM!
What features you have extra that you’re easily able to play a fucking game and I don’t? I’m not blaming you to playing games, I’m blaming you to you’re wanting not let me fucking play.
Also in a gaming sub, why would you say “don’t koll kordosh ond ormonoons”? What is your fucking point? Racism really only applies to Jews, Africans and not Turks, Arabs I guess.
And know this, I hsve more Kurdish friends than Turkish and we’re all suffering from this fucking new policy fucking dick head.
Fuck you! Our votes don't matter, they win everytime, do you think most Turkish people love their government or something? Do you think that I put that fascist up there? In this country even teenagers can get arrested for doing something as simpe as drawing a mustachase in one of the fascist-ruling party's posters during the voting season as has been demonstrated this year. This is our reality, and most people who are voting for this government are heavily propagandized and are barely purchasing food, there is no politics when you are starving and the TV controlled by the ruling party, who offer themselves as the only remedy to it. It is not "just vote for a different govenment" it never was.
Thank you.
Yes, Erdogan is very popular among the nationalist and Islamist population.
Why are you so poor?
Wild nature. Some people rich, some not.
Just pirate bud, literally no one cares if you do
Lol you fuckhead
You’re very kind.