Steam regional price please for Turkey, Argentina and others innew USD-MENA and USD-LATAM regions

  • RenataHeide
    Marauder
    Insider

    As a player based in Turkey, I've been one of the many affected by Steam's recent decision change currency in the store from our local to USD. And as Steam has made these changes starting today by creating USD-MENA and USD-LATAM regions and converting about 25 countries in these regions to USD currency, and many prices of games on Steam have defaulted to american prices instead of having an adjusted regional price, which unfortunately seems to be the case for Sea of Thieves as well. Both the game and all its additional purchases too, unfortunately, became completely unaffordable to buy for people in our region as the price skyrocketed from what it was before in Turkish lira to a default American one without a regional adjustment, seeing an immense increase that made the game cost 40 USD, same as in the USA, so now the game and it's in-game purchases are unfortunately too expensive for our country, as our average wages are considerably
    lower than in the USA (around 450$ a month and many of us earn less). I'm seeing that the Steam price for the game in USD-MENA and USD-LATAM regions is currently the same as USD (America), and I'm humbly asking to please consider putting a regional price for these two regions, so that we, gamers from Turkey, Argentina and other countries affected by the change, can continue supporting our beloved game of Sea of Thieves and buy season passes, ancient coins, etc.

    I've raised this issue with the Support Team and they've asked me to post this here, so I'm very hopeful for a resolution

  • Login To Reply
    7
    Posts
    18.3k
    Views
    feedbackgeneralquestioncommunity
  • Minhoca SoT
    Legend
    Insider
    Founder

    The minimum wage in Brazil, if converted to dollar would be $266,00 and unfortunately here we never had prices adjusted to our local currency...
    I believe this was done this way because of people from other countries abusing this to buy cheaper items.
    If people didn't abuse those who really need it wouldn't be punished.

  • RenataHeide
    Marauder
    Insider

    @targasbr At this point I'm not questioning the decision itself to convert from our local currencies to USD, I know the reasoning behind it and I can agree with it mostly, but that is a separate thing that no one can do anything about now and therefore I'm not discussing that. And I understand your pain of not having a regional price, I'm sorry to hear that and maybe with the formation of these new regions on Steam, Brazil, Portugal and other countries with similar issues will be included in a new region woth regional pricing too someday.

    My point with asking to please adjust the price was that Turkey and a couple more countries in Middle East have been formed into a MENA-USD region, which is separate from the usual American USD region when the developers put the prices up (they have a little spreadsheet on steam with regions and prices in each) and normally we were all separate countries with our currencies - which I do understand, cpuld have been a bit confusing and must have taken more time and consideration from the devs to either come up with their own price in our currencies or put the one that Steam recommends - but now we all have USD currency, just in a separate region. And the prices recommended by Steam for USD-LATAM and USD-MENA are lower than the standard USD pricing in America. And they are lower for the reasons I've mentioned up in my post there, hoping that Rare will take it into account - and if the devs have not updated the prices themselves by the time the conversion took effect, Steam defaulted the price of the game to an american USD price instead of a regional recommended USD price, which would have been better.

    The issue is that while all game prices have now been converted to USD, some developers have considered their new pricing and put a separate regional price for MENA and LATAM, while others, unfortunately have not. We all understood that conversion would mean a higher price inevitably, but as the recommended prices were publically availiable to see, this was not the biggest concern. Yes, there was an increase and yes, not all devs would follow the recommended pricing, but it was not looking that grim. And unfortunately, with defaulting to an american price (unless the devs put a regional one themselves), we've seen game prices skyrocketing immensely - and with Sea Of Thieves specifically our old price in liras was equivalent to around 14 USD for the game, the Steam's new regional recommended price was around 19 USD (considering the USA price is 40 USD), and yet Sea of Thieves is currently defaulted to 40 USD, which is the same as in the USA. I don't remember precisely how was the price of in-game purchases, but I think you can get my point even with just the main game price. I understand that some devs just forgot to correct the pricing, some may not have exactly understood what is the difference and allowed things to default, maybe not exactly realising the impact. Whatever the reason was is not important as the price for our regions can still be adjusted... Which is what I am asking to do for the sake of all of us in MENA and LATAM regions to please put a regional price for us, not an unaffordable american one...

  • Minhoca SoT
    Legend
    Insider
    Founder

    @renataheide I understand your point and I agree that adjusted prices for each country (or anything similar) should be ideal, but as long as people abuse the systems to gain an advantage it will be difficult for companies to defend the adjustment, because in the end they only think about money.

    And in Sea of Thieves this doesn't just happen with Ancient coins, abusing the system to gain an advantage has become so common that when a person argues that this is wrong, they are called various names that are not appropriate to say here. Try saying that Server Alliance or Hourglass Glitch is wrong and see people revolt against you, which is ironic, because many of these people hate cheats, which is practically the same thing.

  • RenataHeide
    Marauder
    Insider

    @targasbr I understand your point too, but thing is that in this case with pricing - it wasn't supposed to be that way. The intention with the change to USD was to convert us all to USD and up the prices a bit, but not too much, definitely not to match them with an american level. It's proven by the fact that there are recommended prices in our regions and many devs have put a different price for the new regions, not hte american one. I'm not asking to put us to the level that would equal the price before conversion, I'm only asking Rare to please listen to the recommended price in these two regions. It's not the same as, for exampe, asking the devs to suddenly lower the price of the game when there was no basis for it before and no basis now, as a regional price has always existed and was intended to exist here (otherwise there would be no new regions of MENA and LATAM, just abandoning the currencies and switching to USD). And this new insane price of 40 USD is only on one specific platform - Steam. It seems like an honest mistake to me that the price on Steam went to an american one - because this is the default automatic action that Steam did (not the devs, not Rare, but the platform itself) because a new price was not put on before the switch. I am only asking the devs to at the very least look into that

  • KrabbeAuto9
    Sailor

    I've raised this issue with the Support Team and they've asked me to post this here, so I'm very hopeful for a resolution

    Same. It's been one month for a couple of mouse clicks. At this point I think it's fair to assume Rare just doesn't care and this certainly won't attract new players from those regions :(

  • Super87Ghost
    Commander

    Problem is just that with VPN's so widely available nowadays, if they would lower the price for Turkiye (as the country wants us to name it in English nowaday), then suddenly a lot of non-Turkish players will suddenly become Turkish just to save money from buying the game. Rare would lose a lot of money because of that.

    On top of that: that you live in Turkiye doesn't mean that the game is made on there and therefor also made for the local costs. It's still made in England (UK) for their costs. So if they lowered the prices, they would have to sell it for less that it's worth.

    This is also why a lot of foreign goods are so expensive in Turkiye, because the price of the product is based on the prices where it's made, since that determines the money the maker has to spend on salaries, goods, taxes, etc. So it doesn't even make sense that the price would be different. Even though i can imagine how sad that would be for certain countries, it's the harsh economic reality.

Login To Reply
7
Posts
18.3k
Views
feedbackgeneralquestioncommunity
5 out of 7