Regardless where one lives in Europe (including countries where salaries are lower than those living in France or Germany for example: such as Hungary, Romania, Latvia or Serbia to name a few) yet they’re confronted with 89,99€ at release considering EVERYONE in Europe as wealthy (further from the truth since there are nations in Europe where people aren’t paid 8000€ a month, some are paid x10 less than that).
Regional pricing is indifferent in this case no matter as to their actual income, it’s weird since they count countries where Euros aren’t used (Czech Republic, Romania, Serbia) whilst people there aren’t earning high salaries, like this: a Romanian earns 815€ a month but are treated no different: a 90€ game at launch (about 10% of their wage), for some reason they don’t bother adjusting it based on a specific country.
That’s the downside to a unified market.
I live in NYC, where the median household income is about 40% higher than in Philadelphia. Rent is more expensive in NYC, which drives salaries up for what is otherwise the same job. When video games are sticky at certain price points, like $70 right now, that price feels cheaper to me here than it does just a few hours away in Philly. Money is weird like that, but when you’ve got digital distribution, they’ve got to make some calls about how to price things accordingly. If I buy a 20 oz bottle of Diet Coke in Brooklyn, it might be $2.50, but it could easily be $4.50 or $5 in Manhattan.
As a Californian, I feel the same way. Some of my friends live in states where prices aren’t as affordable to them, so I try to gift games from time to time.
They can’t realistically restrict keys to only be valid for certain countries in the EU. Cheap keys in one country would mean everybody gets these cheaper prices and the publishers would rather not have that.
They can’t realistically restrict keys
I think it’s actually illegal to restrict this stuff in the EU.
In the past Steam had separate keys for lower income countries in Europe, that could only be activated there. However, either because laws changed or they started to actually be enforced, Steam had to change it.
You can still make the games cheaper to buy in those countries, but you also have to allow people from Germany, France, wherever to buy them (as long as it’s in the EU), which very few publishers want to do.
Greedy publishers can’t make a weighted mean for prices…
I’m pretty sure it’s the publisher who decides. They can either enable regional pricing or not. And many don’t. Simple as that, unfortunately.
Because that intricate subdivision you want would cost more than it might bring money because of more sales.
The same reason it doesn’t have regional pricing by state in the US. They picked regions and priced them the same for that region, and the EU happens to be a region comparable to the US.
I can just say, the games USED to be cheaper in Poland (the average person is less wealthy here and we don’t have euro). Finds out there is an EU law against it, so now all prices in Europe are flatlined no matter the currency or the country’s average income.
I think the law doesn’t say that prices have to be the same, it’s just that you can’t block people from other countries from buying stuff at the cheaper price.
With physical goods you either have to actually go to the country or get it shipped to you, which can make this not as easy or “profitable”. However, with digital goods you just go to a website and there’s not really anything to ship, except maybe an email, so those same hurdles don’t exist, which is why those lower income countries usually get the short end of the stick with prices for games and stuff.
Does Steam not require a billing address or Tax ID? Yeah, it’d be fairly easy to fake it to access the cheaper market, but if you’re gonna do that you might as well pretend you live in Argentina.
Directly in Steam it’s not that easy, you need a billing address and Steam checks the payment method to verify the country (although I don’t know if certain prepaid cards work for this as well).
You still have Steam keys, that can be sold anywhere though, and not everyone will care that this cheap key, intended for the Polish market is bought by someone in Germany.
Prepaid cards have to be loaded with a specific currency and usually are part of a pre-existing payment processor (VISA/Matercard in the US).
Valve’s steam gift cards are sold in the same currency as well, and are usually usable for accounts in the same country of origin (read the back fine print)
I was thinking more along the line of PaysafeCard or things like that, although that might have similar currency restrictions. Or of course you can just buy foreign prepaid cards from third-party resellers. You’ll pay more than the card is actually worth, but if you would then be able to buy games for half price or even less, it would be worth it.
I’ve heard the prices in PLN are a joke! The currency stabilized after 2022 when it was weak then, but the prices remained the same from that time making it more expensive than intended.
Just pirate. That’s the actionable way to solve your issues. Or buy from a key seller who abuses brasilians.
Maybe just bying Brazilian keys is better than abusing Brazilians?
What am i gonna do with a brazilian keys? I only need one
And that’s why the only correct choice is a piracy. We just cannot afford to waste that kind of money on unfinished games. Especially while the economy is getting worse and worse.
Or one could play FOSS games. However, in such case I would still recommend supporting the developers as much as one can, if the game is enjoyable. Usually, those games are better than any AAA game that came out lately.
I’d say the other option is being patient gamer. I only buy at discounts year(s) after release. It’s a win win in my book:
- it’s way cheaper
- no beta testing, games are patched by the time
- the moment of purchase I might have a PC that is powerful enough for older game
- if the game had denuvo, it would probably be gone at the time due to its licensing costs
Man, I wish I could have a Lemmy community that bans pirates from all discussion.
Either a game is shit, made by abusive managers forcing crunch time, in which case there’s no moral issue with pirating it but also: Why would you want to for a shit game? Or, a game looks great, is fairly made by inspired artists looking for a return on their risk, in which case: Why are you not paying them for their work?
And I also have no patience for anyone claiming the latter type of game doesn’t exist. Stop gluing your eyeballs to AAA ads while constantly whining about them, and find some recommendation lists. My GOTY list for 2026 is already packed.
(For direct answer, see other replies)
In terms of fixing issues like this, I had an idea for a technology but wanted to see if others view it as privacy-violating.
So, you have an encrypted data packet. Optionally, that packet could contain an unencrypted signal outside of the encrypted portion, eg a header or similar, that signals it as: X-Domestic-Origin=true.
The idea would be: When a client device sends this header, it gets forwarded along lots of interchange points, but the legal rule would be that an interchange cannot include that header if the message is crossing national boundaries. So, the receiver of the signal can partially infer that the sender is likely a human within the same country.
Realistically, it would be easy to attach anyway - but since it’s unencrypted, it might become easy to trace back at least to the spot where it crossed the border, even if it would be difficult to fully track its origin. Law enforcement could fine the interchange spots choosing to forward the header, even if they can’t track down bad actors.
VPNs, similarly, would be asked not to include the header when forwarding traffic, but it would come down to their business preference and enforcement.
This could also, for instance, help structure social media in a way that prevents people being fooled by international astroturfers. A while back Twitter accidentally exposed how many MAGA accounts originated in Russia, and this could expose them without requiring detailed identity information on individuals.
It would need extra attention on misuse, as many would prefer not to send this signal even when they are in the same country; it would just be one way of a site asking for the least-necessary information for things like buying a game key.
It’s not an issue that needs to be fixed by us. It’s not impossible to price digital goods differently in different countries, but companies would rather close up shop than let you buy a product cheaper than in your region. At the end of the day - the lowest they can price it is how much it realistically costs and the rest is extra fees for living in more developed countries, but they are greedy and don’t care about consumers one bit.
Also the digital segregation you are describing is already rolling out anyway with ID verification, that won’t solve the problems you think it will however.
I assumed all of this was known, but seeing how simply you view the issue, perhaps not.
It is impossible to do that currently, though, isn’t it? You set 8 prices for 8 countries individually, based on how reasonably each country’s residents can pay through their cost of living. Then, residents of 7 of those countries use VPNs to just pay the price of the country with the lowest pricing.
Then, the publisher sees this is happening, and stops selling to the lowest-income country, or feels forced to inflate price there to account for price chasing. Everyone loses.
This is largely why publishers decide to ignore outcries from international customers pointing out ridiculousness of international prices.
I’m not going to speak towards a world that attempts to enforce digital ID verification, as I’d be a starch opponent to that my whole life, and I’ll only stop when ordinary citizens become pro-ID, which I have never seen one of. I still believe it’s possible to suggest technologies that provide partial forms of identity as needed without denying freedom of digital anonymity.
Steam pre-empts that by tracking payment methods and using all known connection locations to try and prevent VPN hopping (If you are using a VPN to Argentina, you better have a card from an Argentine bank and hope your VPN never drops).
Places like the Eurozone simply are screwed because of the legal circumstances. If people are using payment methods other than cryptocurrency (which is not accepted on steam), it is relatively easy to find their location and charge appropriately.
As for the partial form of identity thing, it is hard to create a system that would not be subject to abuse. I believe that Valve’s current telemetry practices are not unreasonable given the lack of restraint for the user. The only expectation is that attempting financial shenanigans will have consequences, and shall be traced from that data. That’s fine.
