Steam regional pricing

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petes117

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#89436 2-Sep-2011 09:46

Maybe its been around for ages but I hadn't noticed until now that Steam is regionally priced. I figured we were getting the same prices as in the US since we're paying in USD.

Check out the Steam weekend deal on right now for the Call of Duty franchise. We're paying 2.5x more than in the States, even on sale.

Am I late to the party noticing this? Is there a good reason for regionally pricing digital downloads?

https://cdn.geekzone.co.nz/imagessubs/blog478227d0618df12f69d0c44d2c57eb3f.jpg

https://cdn.geekzone.co.nz/imagessubs/bloge5e2c01814ade3a9610c29c23d2d955c.jpg

petes117

371 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 40

#515524 2-Sep-2011 09:48

^^^Updated to get some pictures in my post, still didn't work :S Can someone tell me how please?
Cheers

NonprayingMantis

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#515528 2-Sep-2011 09:52

Is there a good reason for regional pricing?

Depends on what you think is a good reason.

How about: ?because that?s what people are willing to pay?
Or: ?Because there is more competition elsewhere so they need to price cheaper to sell the games?
Or: ?NZ is very small market so cost of actually supplying the game (even digitally) is that much higher?

petes117

371 posts

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#515533 2-Sep-2011 10:08

Yes if people are willing to pay it then by all means charge them more, good point.

Sorry it just grinds my gears when I see anything regional on the internet (e.g regional access restrictions, regional pricing).

Rant over ;)

Ragnor

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#515547 2-Sep-2011 10:25

Yes some game publishers use regional pricing, yes it's really annoying and there is no real justification for it with digital distribution.

It's not a Steam only thing it's a dumb in general publisher thing sadly.

Appending ?cc=XX where XX is the country code will let you see other countries prices on the Steam website, eg:

Valve price their own games the same for NZ and US, eg: Left 4 Dead 2:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/550/?cc=US
http://store.steampowered.com/app/550/?cc=NZ

Here's one particularly retarded example, Civ V, compare:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/8930/?cc=US
http://store.steampowered.com/app/8930/?cc=NZ
http://store.steampowered.com/app/8930/?cc=AU

My advice is to support publishers that don't use regional pricing and don't support ones that do, if you really want a game that's using regional pricing then get a friend in the US, Canada or UK to gift it to you.

Behodar

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#516238 3-Sep-2011 21:07

It's ridiculous. Duke Nukem Forever is 80 USD on Steam, 60 NZD from Mighty Ape, and a couple of weeks ago was 35 USD from MacUpdate - which was supplied as a Steam download. Go figure.

jtbthatsme

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#516263 3-Sep-2011 22:16

Regional Pricing on Steam can be gotten around by simply doing as suggested above with regard to either getting someone overseas to gift it to you or a vpn hosted in the US will see Black Op's for $39.99, MW2 @$14.99 I made it all the way through the checkout using this method without final confirmation so I can't see why it just wouldn't work.

In a worst case scenario you can follow the method above with a VPN and create a bogus account in the US and gift to yourself.