Steam summer sale starting tomorrow?

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79 posts

Master Geek
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#656551 16-Jul-2012 15:55

Kyanar:
Bacha: The pricing on steam are they NZ pricing or US?

US dollars with NZ rip-off pricing.

E.g. Darkness II is $12.49 USD for US residents, and $22.49 USD for NZ residents. If you want to compare before stumping up cash, add ?cc=US to the URL of the Steam page, and look at the pricing drastically drop.

yeah I just noticed it, nice way to rip us off... is there a way to buy it at US resident Price?

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Kyanar

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#656565 16-Jul-2012 16:45

Bacha:
yeah I just noticed it, nice way to rip us off... is there a way to buy it at US resident Price?

No. Not unless you VPN into the US and set up a new Steam account with a US address. (I finally decided to try it with something cheap - Prince of Persia - and it simply says "there was an error initialising your transaction")

Alternatively, don't buy it and send the publisher an essay on why you are not willing to buy at their inflated prices.

I sent a note about this to a colleague here in the office and got the reply "it must be the shipping". A tongue in cheek response which basically calls attention to the fact that there is no legitimate reason to charge us more. I am considering for my next product release charging more to any address identifying as from the USA just to prove a point.

Also, have a look at http://www.steamprices.com and prepare to be absolutely insulted.

KevinL

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Ultimate Geek
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#656566 16-Jul-2012 16:50

Kyanar:
Bacha:
yeah I just noticed it, nice way to rip us off... is there a way to buy it at US resident Price?

No. Not unless you VPN into the US and set up a new Steam account with a US address.

Alternatively, don't buy it and send the publisher an essay on why you are not willing to buy at their inflated prices.

I sent a note about this to a colleague here in the office and got the reply "it must be the shipping". A tongue in cheek response which basically calls attention to the fact that there is no legitimate reason to charge us more. I am considering for my next product release charging more to any address identifying as from the USA just to prove a point.

For what it's worth, it's only some games. I suspect the issue lies mostly with the local distributor (who sets a regionally-enforced RRP), rather than Steam.

Kyanar

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#656569 16-Jul-2012 16:52

Doh, sorry I forgot something. You can set up a US account, buy yourself the game using it, select "Purchase as a Gift" then gift it to your regular (NZ) account. You'll still need to use a US IP (I think) but you should be able to get your game at acceptable pricing through that way.

Kyanar

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#656571 16-Jul-2012 16:57

KevinL:

For what it's worth, it's only some games. I suspect the issue lies mostly with the local distributor (who sets a regionally-enforced RRP), rather than Steam.

It is indeed, and I don't blame Valve for it (much - they tolerate the practice after all) but I personally find the practice insulting and unacceptable. There is simply no reason for it - there are no extra overheads (they are not paying GST, etc), there's no extra delivery cost - Valve covers that, there's no extra translation costs - it's English, just like the UK and America, and there's no real extra compliance costs - it's only $1000 to get something past OFLC, and games don't actually need approval to be sold.

NonprayingMantis

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#656572 16-Jul-2012 17:01

I'm still playing Skyrim and plan to keep playing it for some months yet. Several diferent character styles and story options to playthrough yet

*Spoilers*

currently playing as a breton spell-sword, joined the legion and dark brotherhood and sided with the greybeards. Next time I will go Orc 2H tank, join the stormcloaks, kill the dark brotherhood and side with the blades). The n after that I will try and play as a archer thief, steal as much stuff as possible and get awesome at crafting stuff.

Buying any games now, even in the sale, would be a huge waste of money. for me. I reckon I have at least 200 hours of skyrim left.

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Bacha

79 posts

Master Geek
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#656577 16-Jul-2012 17:12

Kyanar:
Bacha:
yeah I just noticed it, nice way to rip us off... is there a way to buy it at US resident Price?

No. Not unless you VPN into the US and set up a new Steam account with a US address. (I finally decided to try it with something cheap - Prince of Persia - and it simply says "there was an error initialising your transaction")

Alternatively, don't buy it and send the publisher an essay on why you are not willing to buy at their inflated prices.

I sent a note about this to a colleague here in the office and got the reply "it must be the shipping". A tongue in cheek response which basically calls attention to the fact that there is no legitimate reason to charge us more. I am considering for my next product release charging more to any address identifying as from the USA just to prove a point.

Also, have a look at http://www.steamprices.com and prepare to be absolutely insulted.

thats why yesterday i couldnt buy left for dead 2. I tried it multiple times got the same error.. and thought every single details is correct. Going to try the VPN method tonight to see if it works or not. If it doesnt ohh well.. its going to save me heaps of money.

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Kyanar

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#656785 17-Jul-2012 01:37

OK, a US IP address isn't quite enough, unless Valve blacklisted ranges belonging to datacenters (doubt it). As soon as you log into an NZ account you're screwed. You need to use a US account with the Gifting trick.

KevinL

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Ultimate Geek
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#656786 17-Jul-2012 01:41

They're fairly vigilant with their geolocation particularly for billing. I've been indavertently locked out of my account in the past for trying to purchase a game using my NZ account/credit card whilst being overseas (should have just remoted into my desktop, in retrospect).

NonprayingMantis

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#656805 17-Jul-2012 07:03

Kyanar:
KevinL:

For what it's worth, it's only some games. I suspect the issue lies mostly with the local distributor (who sets a regionally-enforced RRP), rather than Steam.

It is indeed, and I don't blame Valve for it (much - they tolerate the practice after all) but I personally find the practice insulting and unacceptable. There is simply no reason for it - there are no extra overheads (they are not paying GST, etc), there's no extra delivery cost - Valve covers that, there's no extra translation costs - it's English, just like the UK and America, and there's no real extra compliance costs - it's only $1000 to get something past OFLC, and games don't actually need approval to be sold.

There is also GST, which adds 15% onto the price and is nothing to do with Valve or the distributer.
(or does steam not attract GST like itunes?)

Kyanar

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#656843 17-Jul-2012 08:45

NonprayingMantis:
Kyanar:
KevinL:

For what it's worth, it's only some games. I suspect the issue lies mostly with the local distributor (who sets a regionally-enforced RRP), rather than Steam.

It is indeed, and I don't blame Valve for it (much - they tolerate the practice after all) but I personally find the practice insulting and unacceptable. There is simply no reason for it - there are no extra overheads (they are not paying GST, etc), there's no extra delivery cost - Valve covers that, there's no extra translation costs - it's English, just like the UK and America, and there's no real extra compliance costs - it's only $1000 to get something past OFLC, and games don't actually need approval to be sold.

There is also GST, which adds 15% onto the price and is nothing to do with Valve or the distributer.
(or does steam not attract GST like itunes?)

Neither Steam nor iTunes attract GST, as they are both provided by overseas entities. Steam is Valve Software, LLC in the US, and Apple is Apple Sales Pty Ltd in Australia.

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Bacha

79 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 1

#656848 17-Jul-2012 08:55

Kyanar: OK, a US IP address isn't quite enough, unless Valve blacklisted ranges belonging to datacenters (doubt it). As soon as you log into an NZ account you're screwed. You need to use a US account with the Gifting trick.

I made a US account last night at first it wasnt going through the first payment method then it did! got excited then it wouldnt go through the final payment... *Sigh...I gave up in the end... maybe its the credit catrd?

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tl54

30 posts

Geek

#656910 17-Jul-2012 10:29

Yes most credit cards issued by NZ banks cannot be used in US stores, regardless of your IP, billing address etc. It seems Valve's payment system checks your credit card issuer/holder address.

I've tried 6 cards during past couple of years none of them ever worked.

Paypal is a no go for me as my account is setup as a NZ account, which the payment will not be accepted by US store. You can theoretically change your paypal account location but apparently you'll need photo ID and proof of resident to do so.

Not sure if you can register a brand new paypal account with US IP, then top it up with NZ credit cards.

Steam wallet does not work neither. If you top it up with a NZ credit card, you can only purchase games in NZD with AUS/NZ pricing. If you VPN to US store then buy games with NZ card topped steam wallet, your steam account will be locked for 48 hours.

As you can probably see I basically tried everything I can think of to work around this region pricing BS. It's unfair. Especially when big publishers charges us upward USD $100 for games only sells for $60 in US. Right now, Skyrim in AUS/NZ store is marked 33% off at $60, while in US they are selling it for $40.

And it's a wide spread practice. All major publishers do it! EA, Activision Blizzard, Bethesda are the worst offenders (and whose games I happen to really like).

If you want to know how much you are being ripped off by those greedy bastards, here's a website that just does that (compare regional steam store prices):

www.steamprices.com

floydbloke

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#656922 17-Jul-2012 11:06

Somewhat related, somewhat off-topic sorry.

So I bought LA Noire lasty Sunday which stated to be a 12GB download.

I'm on TelstraClear ADSL, i understand that TCL host some sort of Steam servers. Checking my usage meter, it chewed through about 4.5GB during the download. Am I right in thinking that this means that my Steam client managed to peel about 7.5GB of the game from the local TCL server and had to source the rest of an off-shore server?

Just trying to get a handle on how this all hangs together. (FWIW download speeds ranged from 1.2 MB/s [what my connection maxes out at] down to under 200Kb/s at times.)

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zaptor

745 posts

Ultimate Geek
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#656945 17-Jul-2012 11:41

Right, so here I am looking at the latest lot of deals on the summer sale, and I notice Mirror's Edge going for $2.49 (75% off normal price of $9.99).

I browse a few other things on the Steam store, and contemplating acquiring ME. I eventually clicked on the ME store page, and lo and behold ME's normal price was suddenly $19.99, inflating the deal price to $4.99!

Went back to the main page, and the same increase had been applied there!!??

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