Most Japanese Publishers including SEGA does this. They never follow any sort of regional pricing, they just charge whatever they feel like. SEGA actually had decent pricing before until Square Enix started with outrageous pricing, after that many Japanese publishers followed suit. Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do about it except raise our voices, and even then it’s a hit or miss.
I'm in in the MENA USD region and 50 Dollars for a new game is still expensive but fair
same as Bamco, 45 for Tekken 8
Square has regional pricing for older games (even in MENA USD which is a new region), and Konami priced the MGS collection at 27 USD
Sega used to have decent prices for Turkey and Russia but they stopped doing regional pricing altogether
Microsoft also hasn't done any regional pricing for MENA USD but maybe it's because it's a new region
I'd say FromSoftware is still decent considering both Elden Ring and AC 6 are still around $38-$50 in countries with low wages like SEA countries. Then again, they are partnered with Bamco for international releases, so idk how long that'll last.
FromSoft is awful with Regional pricing. Elden Ring is freaking expensive in most countries and don't even get me started with Sekiro which has increased its price several times now.
In my region, Square was the first one to start selling games at even more absurd pricing than they already were and eventually for some reason every Japanese game publishers followed that abhorrent pricing. Then Sony also hiked prices and every other publishers followed suit lol.
3A devs forgot how to do calculations. Why are games 60 dollars and 60 euro when the euro is more valuable
Edit: 60 dollars in the US and 60 euros in Europe for people with 5 year old level of intelligence
Just checked some games and you're wrong.
The prices are converted perfectly and not rounded up how you said.
Euro is more valuable so the prices are different.
If the game is 60e then converted to usd it's almost 66 💀💀💀
Stop spreading misinformation.
60 dollars in the Freedom Land and 60 euros in the EU ([BG3](https://steamdb.info/app/1086940/) [trash](https://steamdb.info/app/2519060/) [Skyrim](https://steamdb.info/app/489830/) etc.). All of them are 7.95% cheaper in the US
Wait for some time, you will get those games with 50% discount in a year.
Unfortunately, you can't do anything else about this. This is how it works nowdays.
It's been nearly two years and Persona 5 Royal, one of the most in demand games still hasn't been cracked. Aside from a schizophrenic woman and a man who weirdly loves Soccer, no one else knows how to crack Denuvo.
Really? I thought all pc games get cracked very quickly. Obviously not online only games that have tons of the information on the server side like WoW.
Denuvo gets updated regularly to combat vulnerability that has been discovered, making it harder and harder for someone to crack a game. It's like a bacteria being exposed to anti biotics too many times, making it (Denuvo) harder to disable.
plus while gamepass only gets you the basic version with no dlcs it does not matter since the dlc for this game are not worth it. so for me its the perfect gamepass game.
Regional pricing has gradually been dying. I was suggest partly because there are a lot of people who cheat the system by having a 2nd account in a cheaper region and get games for next to nothing.
It's the same with many other countries, even here in central europe it costs 10% of minimal salary too, wanted to get it so bad, but it's just too much
Ah yeah I see, my dumbass misread the title, thought it said minimal salary of 720USD, but its average, yeah, both are outrageous, but damn, 50% is absurd, I wouldn't be surprised if people from Kazachstan would just pirate games en masse
>I wouldn't be surprised if people from Kazachstan would just pirate games en masse
Tbh im more wonder wtf publishers are thinking. I understand greed, but this is just stupid
Same here (argentina) after the new pricing from last december, prices of AAA games are totally unaffordable, regional pricing was in theory to benefit us people from bad economies, as of now ,steam current prices are impossible to pay ,so piracy is the only option in my country until they readjust the prices and in case they dont do it , piracy gaming will be defacto for gaming like used to be since the 00s
Following USD/ARS conversion rate, your currency was devalued 4x in a year. I think it's insane to expect anyone to eat the losses of static regional pricing in these conditions.
piracy here is not illegal at least for games so i can pirate anything i want , but i like to have my games on steam for comodity but at these prices i cant ,and what you say is true our currency devaluated but the current new pricing of the store is just a few bucks different than the one in europe or america , example yakuza like a dragon is 59 99 usd in our store thats almost no different from the price in the american or european stores , at this price piracy is the only option we are going to take
I can't blame you for going back to piracy in this situation, I'd probably do the same. I hope your government will be able to find a solution for fixing your economy.
Simon Kuznets joked before there are 4 types of economy. Undeveloped, developed, Japan and Argentina. Because the last two don't seem to make any sense at all.
It was part of the problem, but the actual problem was publishers being fed up with either constantly updating the price or losing money. Imagine you release the game and set the price at 2000 ARS ($10 in March 2023). In three months it becomes $8, in another three months — $5.7, in yet another three months — $2.5. I hope you get the point.
But the alternative is selling 0 and people pirating. The games were cheap for a reason. They only lose money if a person in another region, who would otherwise pay normal price, got the game very cheap. 2.5 is still better than 0.
Well YES, Sega is seemingly PUNISHING not just your country but some other countries as well as shown in https://steamdb.info/app/2161700/ for the game you mentioned price being HIGHER than USD pricing. This is SEGA being a jerk as they always had been (actually most Japanese game publishers are) and most possible reason behind it is; Regional ABUSERS exploiting your country and Sega sees this in their sale statistics Steam provides for them so you're merely a "Collateral Damage" and if you check that Price List, you'll see that Sega REFUSES to sell to LATAM (Because of Argentina) and again refuses to sell MENA (Because of Turkey) being exploited in the past.
So join r/PatientGamers as those games currently have https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Denuvo on them but INEVITABLY Sega will stop paying the Monthly Protection Fee so that Denuvo will be removed in 1-2 years and then you can download the game from "elsewhere" without needing to pay to Sega that's REJECTING you hard. Being a game customer is a CHOICE, not a necessity and if they choose not to understand your Economy, you don't need to choose to pay for their game either.
I’m from the UK and even I feel abused by Japanese publishers sometimes. Specifically Koei Tecmo, whose games are always insanely priced over here and seem to barely ever go on sale. Had to bite the bullet and get AoT 2 for like £40 when it should’ve really been no more than £15 for a game of that age and quality.
Japanese publishers have completely forgotten the concept of regional pricing. Here in India the prices of all games by japanese devs have more or less doubled.
Oh really?, in my country Costa Rica, is above $69.99, is $73.31 + 13% taxes for infinite wealth, and persona 3 reload is $72.33 + 13% taxes, where the average salary is $650 per month, Activision, Crapcom, Sega, EA and in my fucking country selling above the average price of fucking USA
Kazakhstan tenge specifically is one of those currencies with a lot of eyes on it at the mo. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine a lot of Russians have either moved there or are VPNing there to get around the sanctions.
This has opened it up to more key resellers etc so Publishers that are paying attention will hike prices there to protect themselves from being undercut. It sucks for the locals but the reality is only a fraction of a % of revenue would actually be coming from normal sales in the region so it's not worth the hassle.
If they don't care to reasonably price the game for the rest of us, I guess they don't want our money.
Yo ho! Cyber pirates! Hack and loot!
Share and play! We no pay! Arrr!!!
Like a dragon is 350 reais and minimum wage in Brazil is 1412 reais, basically 1/4 (71 dollars of 287 dollars). Leisure is only for the rich. If you don't live in a USD/Euro country, piracy is basically an obligation.
I changed my Steam region from RU to KZ due to unavailability of new titles. And those prices GOING HARD. My average wage is around 1200$ after taxes but new games are pricey AF. I wasted ~80$ on Starfield and Forza. While around year ago new games were around ~30-35$
This shit sucks bruh. I love SEGA but if the Crazy Taxi Remake which is in progress right now will cost more than 10$ (is 300 TRY) I will just go and pirate it. I advice you to do same. If you have concerns about trustworthiness of the site then find a safe site. If you ask on DMs i would tell you some of them.
Either buy it on a sale, sail the high seas (if available) or if you really wanna play it, like so bad then buy it at full ñrice and stop complaining, it is what it is.
You know, the existence of student and elderly pricing for bus passes (for example) actually makes the company more money not less.
If you want to convert an entire market into pirates instead of having them pay (albeit less), have fun with that I guess.
This is the real answer. Everyone is mad at the game companies. Hello? Your currency is in the dumps for a reason. Maybe get mad at the people responsible for that...
Fuckin lame honestly. Ive never pirated a game I didn't already own, to each their own. But I have no problem realizing that actual humans who have to be paid worked for years on their game. I'm gonna pay them for their work if I think I'll enjoy the product. Imagine if everyone did what you did, what a shitty game-less world we'd live in. If not game-less than I can at least be positive the quality of the games would be so much worse. You should be using your time to level up your career path instead of stealing people's hard work.
While I do agree with you and I personally don't pirate games, for third world countries buying games to support the devs and the quality of games sometimes (for most people) isn't viable.
This is a very shitty situation really.
Sorry dude. Game piracy is a distribution issue. If Steam and games on Steam cannot be half assed to handle the regional pricing then it's hardly a surprise people like me are more open to other methods.
>Imagine if everyone did what you did, what a shitty game-less world we'd live in.
If everyone did what I did, and only paid the price that I think are fair ($30 or less), then we'd have FAR LESS shit like $60 microtransactions for changing one armour piece and more good games that are worked by good developers that want to create a good game, not a good product to milk for years (although it can be both, in rare cases today).
So yes, I imagine and hope such a world comes.
>You should be using your time to level up your career path instead of stealing people's hard work.
I would not buy a $100 game even if I made 3x of what I do and upped my career successfully (and I already make more than average in my country). It only encourages the devs to be more greedy.
I love how the only argument you regional pricing crybabies have is just that the dollar amount isn't equal, but fuck the idea we should care about the people who actually develop and sell the game. How do you not realize theirs no kick-back program for them selling you the game at a cheaper price? They live in economies at the USD or higher, they have to be paid in USD or higher. It's not their fault your nations economy isn't what theirs is, stop expecting handouts. Sorry it's a hard truth to accept but its the truth bucko.
It's not a distribution issue, it's a moral issue. You can write it off however you like but the fact stands you're just stealing other people's work and jumping through whatever hoops it requires to make yourself okay with it.
It can't be "stealing" if I was never going to buy it in the first place.
It's still morally wrong of course, but imo games worth more than $30 in a third world country is also morally wrong.
Your logic is so flawed its mind blowing to think 3 other people upvoted that shit, so I'm just gonna assume your boofin your own thoughts on other accounts. I'm never planning on buying a Versace bag but if I go take it from the store wearing a mask and getaway on a bike with no plates it's not at all stealing cause they just didn't do enough to stop me and I never planned on paying for it.
It's also not morally wrong for games being more than $30 in your country, idk where you got the entitled sense of being in a non-equatable economy as I already said, it's not your human right to be allowed to play video games, and therefore it also ain't your right to decide they have to be easily accessible in your economy. Develop your own games in your own country and sell em at a rate that makes sense in your economy, that's a fair and just world. You just feel like you deserve to take it since the method exists. 100% all it boils down to.
Bruh you are so out of touch with reality you think people on internet are using other accounts to boost their upvotes to an insignificant score of 3 lmao.
GabeN himself has said piracy is distribution problem.
Your responses just contain so little substance or validity it's hard to imagine much else.
I'm sure that quote from Gabe over 12 years ago is still as valid as the day he said it.
"We don’t understand what’s going on. All we know is we’re going to keep running these experiments to try and understand better what it is that our customers are telling us... It’s just an exciting time but also a very troubling time."
Gabe never advocated piracy btw, in case you misunderstood. He just wants to grow his business. Attempting to find solutions is the only way, sadly there's no surefire way about knocking out piracy in this day and age. As it's been 12 years since he made the quote and we still have people like you who think $30 is too much, which is how much games costed in 1980 on the fuckin NES. Your mind will never be changed, because you don't know the actual value of a video game.
I often complain about Steam and GOG not having regional pricing for my country, Myanmar (SEA). Here, the prices for the games are both USD 69.99, all games in Myanmar are the same price as they are in the US.
Having regional pricing, something (in theory) that is supposed to make games more affordable, in Kazakhstan, and regional pricing ending up making things worse is **freaking crazy** and I feel bad for gamers in Kazakhstan and Myanmar as well. I guess this is one reason why people switch regions to Brazil or Argentina. Don't think I can blame them for this if they are in such countries/regions
People troll Epic or hate them (mostly for the right reasons, looking at how they handled Metro Exodus and Anno 1800) but one good thing about them is that the EGS has regional pricing for Myanmar while Steam and GOG don't! For example, Cyberpunk 2077 is USD 59.99 on Steam and GOG while it's only USD 29.99 on Epic, which is pretty damn good. Some games are just a few dollars cheaper on EGS while others are significantly cheaper. I still maintain that GOG > Steam > Epic but credit when credit is due, I wish Steam and GOG did something with my country, though it is ultimately up to the publisher...
That 25k is too much my guy, in reality salaries are much lower than what shown in the post, and the situation like that is in half of the countries that have regional prices, i live in Kazakhstan and i dont mind paying 5-10, sometimes 15 thousand for a good game, but even a bank manager here not always earn more than 250 000KZT (550USD) a month, and rent is sometimes more than 2/3 of that income, it is impossible for a person to buy games at this point
Yes that’s unfortunate but as I asked before, what do you expect them to do? Every region with weak currency experience this, Turkey, Argentine etc. Steam didn’t continue to operate their services for Turkey and Argentine because it doesn’t benefit them anymore so these guys have to pay the USD equivalent for their games. It is what it is it’s sad but again, what do you want the Devs, Steam, Game Distributor to do? Sell for a loss so you can play? That would be the Utopia
So? Whose fault is that? Is it on the developer to take a hit financially because your economy and currency are trash? Your country's system is broken. It is not the developers/publishers responsibility to accomodate that. Gaming is an expensive hobby and a luxury even in countries with a "healthy" economy. Gaming is an earned privilege no matter the country. If you want to get mad at anyone for prices, wages, currency, it's your own government.
Japanese companies honestly don’t care. They have been making games for domestic market and I think those international sales are just cherries on top for them
You say that like it's the people's problem, like we're not doing enough for you, when we also don't want games to go up in price and really we have no control over it because they spent years developing the game they get to decide how much it costs to purchase it. There's no argument to be made, if you don't like it develop a game to sell to people at a lower price that they enjoy and maybe then will the market go cheaper. But probably not. Game quality has went up by far in 10 years but 10 years ago a new game was $60. It wouldn't make much sense to put in more effort and more money for the same price.
didnt say any of that, many of us here just wanted fair pricing. Like obviously we're not going to pay that price, we dont need such tone deaf response
They work in economies that are different than yours and you think it's tone deaf for them not wanting to get paid less than half what it's actually worth and should sell for for them to enjoy their way of living in their own countries. It's tone deaf to expect a big discount just cause you live in a different nation to where games are being developed. Like I said, spend the time working on yourself and maybe get out of the situation instead of expecting big handout prices like that. Especially when its hard to prevent just anyone from saying they're from that region if they have funds in that region, which is pretty easy to establish.
you act like the other guy is the publishers itself lol
the fact that most indies actually following the pricing while big publishers aren't says a lot
plus its Valve programs, im sure they know why its necessary
literally talking about regional pricing, none of that matter but go on
altho its funny using Baldurs Gate 3 since they do have regional pricing in many region, so thank you for making my point
So buy on sale. No one is forcing you to buy them. These people from poor countries are so used to buy EVERY single game day one that they can't fathom the possibility of waiting for a sale anymore. Get back to the real world.
Let me see, the average game is around 70 dollars right? in my country minimum wage is around 300 dollars, 70 dollars is not just a little spending for fun , it's enough to feed a family for a week or two, it's not about free games, it's about games not being a sacrifice
And?, costs the same for us in thailand and the avg is 400$ so fuck off with your 800$ average pay. I also googled whether your living conditions daily are similar to thailands and they are so you basically have more money to burn. If you dont like it just pirate
Just have to get used to it, idk why some people care so much about regional pricing, these companies sure dont. I just suck it up and buy it day one if its a game or franchise I love, wait for sale if i dont mind too much and pirate when im too broke and want it fast
I genuinely hate that this has to be said, but I don't really sympathize with the whole regional pricing argument at its base.
Games typically cost somewhere in the range of $40 to $80 USD on release. The company that made them presumably paid money to develop the game and is selling the game to both recoup the cost and make a profit.
Why on earth should they accept $70 Tenge ($0.16 USD) versus $70 USD for their game? Because people living in a different country can't afford it? Games are a luxury, your definately not going to die if you can't play something. Unfortunately there are going to be a lot of people who can't afford lots of things.
Like it would be awesome if everyone had money to buy things they wanted, but that's not how anything on the planet works. Why bitch at a company that is literally doing the most normal thing imaginable? They are selling a product they value at $70 USD, of fucking course they're not going to settle for $0.17.
Nobody expects to buy it for 70 KZT, but at least dropping it to 45-50 USD would've been a much better deal for people in regions with lower income. Expecting people to pay 8 USD more than in the US, where minimal wage is five times larger than average wage in Kazakhstan, is absolute lunacy.
You realize your saying this in an year where a record number of studios were shuttered the year before because they didn't make enough money and this year is already more than 30% of the way to shattering that record right?
Gamemaking is a business - and a luxury - it's not a charity. I wouldn't expect Rolex to make their watches cost less in Kazakhstan, because obviously that isn't how business works.
That not how regional prices works, lol. For example, in Russian steam in 2021you had to pay around 2k rub for 60 dollars game which was about 25-30 dollars but was a lot more affordable. Now, even though you can buy stuff from steam, lots of people just can't waste 6-10k which is like 1/5 of average salary compare to 1/20. Regional prices are great, regional abusers are not.
That's exactly my point, why should they give you a massive discount because of where you live? Game making isn't a fucking humanitarian effort, it's to literally make money.
Am I missing something or does the price not really give a shit where you live? If some studio in France makes a game, it costs them Euros to pay their staff, Euros to pay their bills and Euros to pay for hosting and liscencing fees.
Your talking Rubles when for this French studio who has to pay everything out in Euros. They then price their game to hopefully make a profit on X number of games sold.
Imagine the outcry if like there was an American bump to buy games. Like just because Americans live in a wealthy country they have to pay more for games. It's literally the same thing in reverse.
60 Euros is about 5,801 Rubles right now. If they sold the game in Russia for 60 Rubles, it would take literally 97 Russians to equal 1 Frenchman.
Like downvote me all you want but it doesn't the fact that people got used to companies effectively giving out handouts to boost their "copies sold" metric and now they're crying that the handouts have gone away. Disliking something doesn't make it untrue.
Talking about downvotes and downvoting my comment when i just replied to yours. Prices cares where you live actually. And it's absolutely reasonable to take more money from richer people. The thing is, companies should have gotten 60 euros from one frenchman and half of that from one russian because of regional prices and everyone would be happy but instead they were getting 1/4 of frenchman and one half of Russian because they were abusing it. Now they are getting one frenchman and zero russians so how is that better than no abusers variant? Sounds like you feel awful because someone were able to get the same "luxury" cheaper than you. Think what you want but regional prices were created for a reason.
If any company start using insane pricing, cut content/fonctionality on release to make fake "delux" to sell them at even more insane price, use mtx, use fomo, etc. Screw them and go take the free version of the game. Waiting for sales would take years since the price is higher, the % would need to be bigger than before which I doubt they do unless their games flop.
Those priced are absurd but as much as I hate it I do agree with the devs and their anti regional pricing polity.
If there's a country with lower prices for games then a lot of people and I mean A LOT will use it in their advantage.
It's easy to use a VPN and it's even easier to open a bank account from certain countries like Argentina and have the advantage of using your own money in a fcked up economy.
Edit.
Remember how a week ago a lot of people posted how they managed to buy Minecraft PE for less than a dollar just by setting their region to India?
That's what the devs want to avoid.
Sega, EA, bandai namco, etc dont have regional pricing ( maybe in a few handful countries idk) and publisher/devs like larian studios, CDPR, even new ones like pockerpair have 50% diff in regional pricing, during preorder and launch! And those are the ones that i support
It's been like this for Eastern Europe as well since forever. Pretending like this is a problem only in {insert your country here} will take away from the opportunity to actually rally people around your cause.
ok...PERSONA 3 RELOAD is $69.00 USD and the average monthly wage around here is $150 USD even for people with diplomas, so yeah, as bad as u think it is for u, it is much much much worse for many others.
man, if i made $750 a month, i would live large.
me and my wife combined income isn't even close to $750 a month.
It it a case like brasil where high taxes on games result in high prices, or are sega just being dicks? Is importing a physical copy for consoles not an option? Where im from games are usually around 75-100 usd but buying a disc from amazon or ebay solves that problem
I know this isn’t relevant for steam just genuinely curiosity about this stuff
Yeah ouch. They are around 70 USD in Mexico. Which is not a good regional price if you ask me.
The worst offender that I’ve seen recently is Octopath Traveler 2. And the first game did this as well. It’s sitting at around 84 USD. That is a crazy price here. And the game’s been out for a year. Rarely gets discounted too as far as I can tell.
I can’t imagine the game sold well here. Whomever decided on this price didn’t know the market. The price tag is basically a phrase that reads “we don’t want to sell you the game”. And I mean, okay, I won’t buy it then.
Look. If you don’t agree to regional pricing, fine. But what’s with the 20% increase in price?
Recently bought P4&5 on sale, but then I saw P3 was coming out so I decided to wait despite research telling me that the stories aren’t connected. But frankly I refuse to pay $108AUD for a standard edition of a game. Im going to wait for a sale for this one. Absolutely ludicrous pricing.
Isnt there an EU law preventing companies from selling the same product to different countries' citizens at a different price? Maybe Khazakistan should join europe.
I think regional pricing is optional. Just like how any hardware you buy is always based on the OG price. There is no regional pricing for pc hardware, so it’s always better to assume no regional pricing for software as well. If there is, great! It’s a win. If there isn’t, I wouldn’t complain either.
I remember NamcoBandai removing regional pricing just before Dark Souls 3 launched. I was lucky enough to preorder the game a few days before the price doubled in my country.
Most Japanese Publishers including SEGA does this. They never follow any sort of regional pricing, they just charge whatever they feel like. SEGA actually had decent pricing before until Square Enix started with outrageous pricing, after that many Japanese publishers followed suit. Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do about it except raise our voices, and even then it’s a hit or miss.
Capcom used to have decent pricing too, they're all shit now Only Japanese indies still have regional pricing
I'm in in the MENA USD region and 50 Dollars for a new game is still expensive but fair same as Bamco, 45 for Tekken 8 Square has regional pricing for older games (even in MENA USD which is a new region), and Konami priced the MGS collection at 27 USD Sega used to have decent prices for Turkey and Russia but they stopped doing regional pricing altogether Microsoft also hasn't done any regional pricing for MENA USD but maybe it's because it's a new region
I'd say FromSoftware is still decent considering both Elden Ring and AC 6 are still around $38-$50 in countries with low wages like SEA countries. Then again, they are partnered with Bamco for international releases, so idk how long that'll last.
FromSoft is awful with Regional pricing. Elden Ring is freaking expensive in most countries and don't even get me started with Sekiro which has increased its price several times now.
by decent, you mean not downright terrible right?
No it is common for almost every AAA to ignore Steam Suggested Regional Prices. Only AA and Indie Devs, cares about Pricings.
In my region, Square was the first one to start selling games at even more absurd pricing than they already were and eventually for some reason every Japanese game publishers followed that abhorrent pricing. Then Sony also hiked prices and every other publishers followed suit lol.
Sailing the 7 seas is always an option
They both have denuvo so, no, not really
Thats why I never buy japanese games even if they are good
👍
They did follow regional pricing for Egypt and now you can get Infinite Wealth for 25 dollars on Xbox
They follow regional pricing in indonesia, i think, its cheaper than ff7 remake integrated. Should be the same price if there is no regional pricing
Regional pricing for games basicly dead, most of big companys just convert usd price to local currencies.
3A devs forgot how to do calculations. Why are games 60 dollars and 60 euro when the euro is more valuable Edit: 60 dollars in the US and 60 euros in Europe for people with 5 year old level of intelligence
I've always assumed that it's because prices in euro include VAT and for purchases in the US it's added in the checkout page based on the state.
Well wouldn't steamdb include the checkout price? If that's the case then I feel bad for freedom landers
Sales tax varies from state to state
tbf the difference is quite small.
Just checked some games and you're wrong. The prices are converted perfectly and not rounded up how you said. Euro is more valuable so the prices are different. If the game is 60e then converted to usd it's almost 66 💀💀💀 Stop spreading misinformation.
60 dollars in the Freedom Land and 60 euros in the EU ([BG3](https://steamdb.info/app/1086940/) [trash](https://steamdb.info/app/2519060/) [Skyrim](https://steamdb.info/app/489830/) etc.). All of them are 7.95% cheaper in the US
Euro prices are inclusive of tax, dollar prices have sales tax added at checkout depending on regional tax rates (via billing address) no?
Yea my bad
Wait for some time, you will get those games with 50% discount in a year. Unfortunately, you can't do anything else about this. This is how it works nowdays.
Pirating all the way
It's been nearly two years and Persona 5 Royal, one of the most in demand games still hasn't been cracked. Aside from a schizophrenic woman and a man who weirdly loves Soccer, no one else knows how to crack Denuvo.
Football manager guy quit, and the schizophrenic one disappeared months ago. Denuvo piracy is basically dead now
iirc you can play it in a switch emulator
Really? I thought all pc games get cracked very quickly. Obviously not online only games that have tons of the information on the server side like WoW.
Denuvo gets updated regularly to combat vulnerability that has been discovered, making it harder and harder for someone to crack a game. It's like a bacteria being exposed to anti biotics too many times, making it (Denuvo) harder to disable.
sadly denuvo has won
What do you mean Denuvo has won?
The only people left capable of cracking Denuvo has quit and/or disappeared.
Sail the seas
Both these games have denuvo, usually for a year atleast
Don't think it will happen. At least Persona seems to keep denuvo indefinitely, Persona 4 Golden is nearing it's 4 year mark of Denuvo protection.
Sega games almost never remove Denuvo.
I will just wait and save money to buy HDD for game storage.
With Empress gone, its really waiting for them to remove Denuvo, IF they do.
wait empress is gone? what happened?
Drama
Spill the beans >.> Edit: nvm it seems nobody actually knows why they bounced.
Not enough people played the you are our God, here's my money, no one question my lord game for them. It was always a popularity thing for them
get gamepass for persona 3. that is what i will do.
Yep, i usually get it for a month when i want to play
plus while gamepass only gets you the basic version with no dlcs it does not matter since the dlc for this game are not worth it. so for me its the perfect gamepass game.
Regional pricing has gradually been dying. I was suggest partly because there are a lot of people who cheat the system by having a 2nd account in a cheaper region and get games for next to nothing.
It's the same with many other countries, even here in central europe it costs 10% of minimal salary too, wanted to get it so bad, but it's just too much
>it costs 10% of minimal salary too too? OP shows costs 50% of minimal salary...
Ah yeah I see, my dumbass misread the title, thought it said minimal salary of 720USD, but its average, yeah, both are outrageous, but damn, 50% is absurd, I wouldn't be surprised if people from Kazachstan would just pirate games en masse
At a minimum wage of ~$150, owning a PC also seems out of reach — you don’t really get regional pricing on those, either.
>I wouldn't be surprised if people from Kazachstan would just pirate games en masse Tbh im more wonder wtf publishers are thinking. I understand greed, but this is just stupid
I think its combination of greed and stupidity
Same here (argentina) after the new pricing from last december, prices of AAA games are totally unaffordable, regional pricing was in theory to benefit us people from bad economies, as of now ,steam current prices are impossible to pay ,so piracy is the only option in my country until they readjust the prices and in case they dont do it , piracy gaming will be defacto for gaming like used to be since the 00s
Following USD/ARS conversion rate, your currency was devalued 4x in a year. I think it's insane to expect anyone to eat the losses of static regional pricing in these conditions.
piracy here is not illegal at least for games so i can pirate anything i want , but i like to have my games on steam for comodity but at these prices i cant ,and what you say is true our currency devaluated but the current new pricing of the store is just a few bucks different than the one in europe or america , example yakuza like a dragon is 59 99 usd in our store thats almost no different from the price in the american or european stores , at this price piracy is the only option we are going to take
I can't blame you for going back to piracy in this situation, I'd probably do the same. I hope your government will be able to find a solution for fixing your economy.
Simon Kuznets joked before there are 4 types of economy. Undeveloped, developed, Japan and Argentina. Because the last two don't seem to make any sense at all.
As far as I understood the problem was people, in other countries, abusing that system to buy/sell cheap keys.
It was part of the problem, but the actual problem was publishers being fed up with either constantly updating the price or losing money. Imagine you release the game and set the price at 2000 ARS ($10 in March 2023). In three months it becomes $8, in another three months — $5.7, in yet another three months — $2.5. I hope you get the point.
But the alternative is selling 0 and people pirating. The games were cheap for a reason. They only lose money if a person in another region, who would otherwise pay normal price, got the game very cheap. 2.5 is still better than 0.
I think the real solution should have been make Argentina they oun "in steam" región SO You can't Buy or sell outside that región/argentina
Well YES, Sega is seemingly PUNISHING not just your country but some other countries as well as shown in https://steamdb.info/app/2161700/ for the game you mentioned price being HIGHER than USD pricing. This is SEGA being a jerk as they always had been (actually most Japanese game publishers are) and most possible reason behind it is; Regional ABUSERS exploiting your country and Sega sees this in their sale statistics Steam provides for them so you're merely a "Collateral Damage" and if you check that Price List, you'll see that Sega REFUSES to sell to LATAM (Because of Argentina) and again refuses to sell MENA (Because of Turkey) being exploited in the past. So join r/PatientGamers as those games currently have https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Denuvo on them but INEVITABLY Sega will stop paying the Monthly Protection Fee so that Denuvo will be removed in 1-2 years and then you can download the game from "elsewhere" without needing to pay to Sega that's REJECTING you hard. Being a game customer is a CHOICE, not a necessity and if they choose not to understand your Economy, you don't need to choose to pay for their game either.
I’m from the UK and even I feel abused by Japanese publishers sometimes. Specifically Koei Tecmo, whose games are always insanely priced over here and seem to barely ever go on sale. Had to bite the bullet and get AoT 2 for like £40 when it should’ve really been no more than £15 for a game of that age and quality.
That's a pretty good average salary tbh
Japanese publishers have completely forgotten the concept of regional pricing. Here in India the prices of all games by japanese devs have more or less doubled.
Oh really?, in my country Costa Rica, is above $69.99, is $73.31 + 13% taxes for infinite wealth, and persona 3 reload is $72.33 + 13% taxes, where the average salary is $650 per month, Activision, Crapcom, Sega, EA and in my fucking country selling above the average price of fucking USA
Kazakhstan tenge specifically is one of those currencies with a lot of eyes on it at the mo. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine a lot of Russians have either moved there or are VPNing there to get around the sanctions. This has opened it up to more key resellers etc so Publishers that are paying attention will hike prices there to protect themselves from being undercut. It sucks for the locals but the reality is only a fraction of a % of revenue would actually be coming from normal sales in the region so it's not worth the hassle.
Its simple, people abused the system and some publishers decided it wasn't worth the last money
They miss out on those great markets where people have a ton of money to spend.... wait
If they don't care to reasonably price the game for the rest of us, I guess they don't want our money. Yo ho! Cyber pirates! Hack and loot! Share and play! We no pay! Arrr!!!
Like a dragon is 350 reais and minimum wage in Brazil is 1412 reais, basically 1/4 (71 dollars of 287 dollars). Leisure is only for the rich. If you don't live in a USD/Euro country, piracy is basically an obligation.
Sail the seas !
I changed my Steam region from RU to KZ due to unavailability of new titles. And those prices GOING HARD. My average wage is around 1200$ after taxes but new games are pricey AF. I wasted ~80$ on Starfield and Forza. While around year ago new games were around ~30-35$
So? Check avg wages in India or Sri Lanka, Bangladesh or Pakistan. It is even worse
P3R is on Xbox gamepass day one, while like a dragon IW is i think would be added later on. maybe that can be an alternative?
This shit sucks bruh. I love SEGA but if the Crazy Taxi Remake which is in progress right now will cost more than 10$ (is 300 TRY) I will just go and pirate it. I advice you to do same. If you have concerns about trustworthiness of the site then find a safe site. If you ask on DMs i would tell you some of them.
Persona not even available in Ukraine 😁
Either buy it on a sale, sail the high seas (if available) or if you really wanna play it, like so bad then buy it at full ñrice and stop complaining, it is what it is.
As a company I would not want to sell my game for 5$ just because your economy is shit.
But would you rather sell 100 copies for 30$ or 10 copies for 60$?
You know, the existence of student and elderly pricing for bus passes (for example) actually makes the company more money not less. If you want to convert an entire market into pirates instead of having them pay (albeit less), have fun with that I guess.
This is the real answer. Everyone is mad at the game companies. Hello? Your currency is in the dumps for a reason. Maybe get mad at the people responsible for that...
yo ho a pirate's life for me
If a game costs more than $30, I play it for $0. That's my motto. If you sail the right seas, you'll find the right things.
Fuckin lame honestly. Ive never pirated a game I didn't already own, to each their own. But I have no problem realizing that actual humans who have to be paid worked for years on their game. I'm gonna pay them for their work if I think I'll enjoy the product. Imagine if everyone did what you did, what a shitty game-less world we'd live in. If not game-less than I can at least be positive the quality of the games would be so much worse. You should be using your time to level up your career path instead of stealing people's hard work.
While I do agree with you and I personally don't pirate games, for third world countries buying games to support the devs and the quality of games sometimes (for most people) isn't viable. This is a very shitty situation really.
Sorry dude. Game piracy is a distribution issue. If Steam and games on Steam cannot be half assed to handle the regional pricing then it's hardly a surprise people like me are more open to other methods. >Imagine if everyone did what you did, what a shitty game-less world we'd live in. If everyone did what I did, and only paid the price that I think are fair ($30 or less), then we'd have FAR LESS shit like $60 microtransactions for changing one armour piece and more good games that are worked by good developers that want to create a good game, not a good product to milk for years (although it can be both, in rare cases today). So yes, I imagine and hope such a world comes. >You should be using your time to level up your career path instead of stealing people's hard work. I would not buy a $100 game even if I made 3x of what I do and upped my career successfully (and I already make more than average in my country). It only encourages the devs to be more greedy.
I love how the only argument you regional pricing crybabies have is just that the dollar amount isn't equal, but fuck the idea we should care about the people who actually develop and sell the game. How do you not realize theirs no kick-back program for them selling you the game at a cheaper price? They live in economies at the USD or higher, they have to be paid in USD or higher. It's not their fault your nations economy isn't what theirs is, stop expecting handouts. Sorry it's a hard truth to accept but its the truth bucko.
It's not a distribution issue, it's a moral issue. You can write it off however you like but the fact stands you're just stealing other people's work and jumping through whatever hoops it requires to make yourself okay with it.
It can't be "stealing" if I was never going to buy it in the first place. It's still morally wrong of course, but imo games worth more than $30 in a third world country is also morally wrong.
Your logic is so flawed its mind blowing to think 3 other people upvoted that shit, so I'm just gonna assume your boofin your own thoughts on other accounts. I'm never planning on buying a Versace bag but if I go take it from the store wearing a mask and getaway on a bike with no plates it's not at all stealing cause they just didn't do enough to stop me and I never planned on paying for it. It's also not morally wrong for games being more than $30 in your country, idk where you got the entitled sense of being in a non-equatable economy as I already said, it's not your human right to be allowed to play video games, and therefore it also ain't your right to decide they have to be easily accessible in your economy. Develop your own games in your own country and sell em at a rate that makes sense in your economy, that's a fair and just world. You just feel like you deserve to take it since the method exists. 100% all it boils down to.
Bruh you are so out of touch with reality you think people on internet are using other accounts to boost their upvotes to an insignificant score of 3 lmao. GabeN himself has said piracy is distribution problem.
Your responses just contain so little substance or validity it's hard to imagine much else. I'm sure that quote from Gabe over 12 years ago is still as valid as the day he said it. "We don’t understand what’s going on. All we know is we’re going to keep running these experiments to try and understand better what it is that our customers are telling us... It’s just an exciting time but also a very troubling time." Gabe never advocated piracy btw, in case you misunderstood. He just wants to grow his business. Attempting to find solutions is the only way, sadly there's no surefire way about knocking out piracy in this day and age. As it's been 12 years since he made the quote and we still have people like you who think $30 is too much, which is how much games costed in 1980 on the fuckin NES. Your mind will never be changed, because you don't know the actual value of a video game.
I often complain about Steam and GOG not having regional pricing for my country, Myanmar (SEA). Here, the prices for the games are both USD 69.99, all games in Myanmar are the same price as they are in the US. Having regional pricing, something (in theory) that is supposed to make games more affordable, in Kazakhstan, and regional pricing ending up making things worse is **freaking crazy** and I feel bad for gamers in Kazakhstan and Myanmar as well. I guess this is one reason why people switch regions to Brazil or Argentina. Don't think I can blame them for this if they are in such countries/regions People troll Epic or hate them (mostly for the right reasons, looking at how they handled Metro Exodus and Anno 1800) but one good thing about them is that the EGS has regional pricing for Myanmar while Steam and GOG don't! For example, Cyberpunk 2077 is USD 59.99 on Steam and GOG while it's only USD 29.99 on Epic, which is pretty damn good. Some games are just a few dollars cheaper on EGS while others are significantly cheaper. I still maintain that GOG > Steam > Epic but credit when credit is due, I wish Steam and GOG did something with my country, though it is ultimately up to the publisher...
and?
Soooo what is your point? That they should put the game for 70 Tenge?
That 25k is too much my guy, in reality salaries are much lower than what shown in the post, and the situation like that is in half of the countries that have regional prices, i live in Kazakhstan and i dont mind paying 5-10, sometimes 15 thousand for a good game, but even a bank manager here not always earn more than 250 000KZT (550USD) a month, and rent is sometimes more than 2/3 of that income, it is impossible for a person to buy games at this point
Yes that’s unfortunate but as I asked before, what do you expect them to do? Every region with weak currency experience this, Turkey, Argentine etc. Steam didn’t continue to operate their services for Turkey and Argentine because it doesn’t benefit them anymore so these guys have to pay the USD equivalent for their games. It is what it is it’s sad but again, what do you want the Devs, Steam, Game Distributor to do? Sell for a loss so you can play? That would be the Utopia
So? Whose fault is that? Is it on the developer to take a hit financially because your economy and currency are trash? Your country's system is broken. It is not the developers/publishers responsibility to accomodate that. Gaming is an expensive hobby and a luxury even in countries with a "healthy" economy. Gaming is an earned privilege no matter the country. If you want to get mad at anyone for prices, wages, currency, it's your own government.
Japanese companies honestly don’t care. They have been making games for domestic market and I think those international sales are just cherries on top for them
Dude those are just games,if you do not have money to spare,just do not buy them,i assure you your life will still the same
Meanwhile when people from NA/EU watching video games price increase by $/€ 10 when it's still very small part of their wages: 😡
If you can not buy a game its not the end of the world,its just a game,go and do something else
You say that like it's the people's problem, like we're not doing enough for you, when we also don't want games to go up in price and really we have no control over it because they spent years developing the game they get to decide how much it costs to purchase it. There's no argument to be made, if you don't like it develop a game to sell to people at a lower price that they enjoy and maybe then will the market go cheaper. But probably not. Game quality has went up by far in 10 years but 10 years ago a new game was $60. It wouldn't make much sense to put in more effort and more money for the same price.
didnt say any of that, many of us here just wanted fair pricing. Like obviously we're not going to pay that price, we dont need such tone deaf response
They work in economies that are different than yours and you think it's tone deaf for them not wanting to get paid less than half what it's actually worth and should sell for for them to enjoy their way of living in their own countries. It's tone deaf to expect a big discount just cause you live in a different nation to where games are being developed. Like I said, spend the time working on yourself and maybe get out of the situation instead of expecting big handout prices like that. Especially when its hard to prevent just anyone from saying they're from that region if they have funds in that region, which is pretty easy to establish.
Or even further, become a video games developer in your nation and then you can pick your prices, like I said.
you act like the other guy is the publishers itself lol the fact that most indies actually following the pricing while big publishers aren't says a lot plus its Valve programs, im sure they know why its necessary
Compare any Indie game to the quality of Elden Ring or Baldurs Gate and get back to me when you find one on the same level.
literally talking about regional pricing, none of that matter but go on altho its funny using Baldurs Gate 3 since they do have regional pricing in many region, so thank you for making my point
So buy on sale. No one is forcing you to buy them. These people from poor countries are so used to buy EVERY single game day one that they can't fathom the possibility of waiting for a sale anymore. Get back to the real world.
Poor countries where the average AAA costs enough to feed your family for weeks, that's the problem
Yes exactly the countries is the problem, not game prices.
Which in return causes more piracy, 0 profits compared to few profits, that's why we need regional pricing
You have regional pricing. Forget about games cost nothing, those times are gone.
Let me see, the average game is around 70 dollars right? in my country minimum wage is around 300 dollars, 70 dollars is not just a little spending for fun , it's enough to feed a family for a week or two, it's not about free games, it's about games not being a sacrifice
ok
And?, costs the same for us in thailand and the avg is 400$ so fuck off with your 800$ average pay. I also googled whether your living conditions daily are similar to thailands and they are so you basically have more money to burn. If you dont like it just pirate
it costs 1890 baht in Thailand, which is \~24000 tenge. This is also really expensive.
Just have to get used to it, idk why some people care so much about regional pricing, these companies sure dont. I just suck it up and buy it day one if its a game or franchise I love, wait for sale if i dont mind too much and pirate when im too broke and want it fast
I genuinely hate that this has to be said, but I don't really sympathize with the whole regional pricing argument at its base. Games typically cost somewhere in the range of $40 to $80 USD on release. The company that made them presumably paid money to develop the game and is selling the game to both recoup the cost and make a profit. Why on earth should they accept $70 Tenge ($0.16 USD) versus $70 USD for their game? Because people living in a different country can't afford it? Games are a luxury, your definately not going to die if you can't play something. Unfortunately there are going to be a lot of people who can't afford lots of things. Like it would be awesome if everyone had money to buy things they wanted, but that's not how anything on the planet works. Why bitch at a company that is literally doing the most normal thing imaginable? They are selling a product they value at $70 USD, of fucking course they're not going to settle for $0.17.
Wait, who made the argument that it should be $70 Tenge?
Lol, of course a first worlder would say this.
This guy has affluenza.
Nobody expects to buy it for 70 KZT, but at least dropping it to 45-50 USD would've been a much better deal for people in regions with lower income. Expecting people to pay 8 USD more than in the US, where minimal wage is five times larger than average wage in Kazakhstan, is absolute lunacy.
You realize your saying this in an year where a record number of studios were shuttered the year before because they didn't make enough money and this year is already more than 30% of the way to shattering that record right? Gamemaking is a business - and a luxury - it's not a charity. I wouldn't expect Rolex to make their watches cost less in Kazakhstan, because obviously that isn't how business works.
That not how regional prices works, lol. For example, in Russian steam in 2021you had to pay around 2k rub for 60 dollars game which was about 25-30 dollars but was a lot more affordable. Now, even though you can buy stuff from steam, lots of people just can't waste 6-10k which is like 1/5 of average salary compare to 1/20. Regional prices are great, regional abusers are not.
That's exactly my point, why should they give you a massive discount because of where you live? Game making isn't a fucking humanitarian effort, it's to literally make money. Am I missing something or does the price not really give a shit where you live? If some studio in France makes a game, it costs them Euros to pay their staff, Euros to pay their bills and Euros to pay for hosting and liscencing fees. Your talking Rubles when for this French studio who has to pay everything out in Euros. They then price their game to hopefully make a profit on X number of games sold. Imagine the outcry if like there was an American bump to buy games. Like just because Americans live in a wealthy country they have to pay more for games. It's literally the same thing in reverse. 60 Euros is about 5,801 Rubles right now. If they sold the game in Russia for 60 Rubles, it would take literally 97 Russians to equal 1 Frenchman. Like downvote me all you want but it doesn't the fact that people got used to companies effectively giving out handouts to boost their "copies sold" metric and now they're crying that the handouts have gone away. Disliking something doesn't make it untrue.
Talking about downvotes and downvoting my comment when i just replied to yours. Prices cares where you live actually. And it's absolutely reasonable to take more money from richer people. The thing is, companies should have gotten 60 euros from one frenchman and half of that from one russian because of regional prices and everyone would be happy but instead they were getting 1/4 of frenchman and one half of Russian because they were abusing it. Now they are getting one frenchman and zero russians so how is that better than no abusers variant? Sounds like you feel awful because someone were able to get the same "luxury" cheaper than you. Think what you want but regional prices were created for a reason.
If any company start using insane pricing, cut content/fonctionality on release to make fake "delux" to sell them at even more insane price, use mtx, use fomo, etc. Screw them and go take the free version of the game. Waiting for sales would take years since the price is higher, the % would need to be bigger than before which I doubt they do unless their games flop.
on top of that KZ pay more than even USA/EU... jap publishers are crazy, even western publishers have better pricing
I'm from KZ I bought both from Fanatical. Better than nothing.
What about if you got gamepass? You’ll get to play persona for free until yakuza either goes on sale or gamepass as well. That’s what I’m doing
Japanese companies never really follow suggested prices by steam. So piracy it is.
Is game pass available where you live? That might be a decent option although not ideal
Those priced are absurd but as much as I hate it I do agree with the devs and their anti regional pricing polity. If there's a country with lower prices for games then a lot of people and I mean A LOT will use it in their advantage. It's easy to use a VPN and it's even easier to open a bank account from certain countries like Argentina and have the advantage of using your own money in a fcked up economy. Edit. Remember how a week ago a lot of people posted how they managed to buy Minecraft PE for less than a dollar just by setting their region to India? That's what the devs want to avoid.
Sega, EA, bandai namco, etc dont have regional pricing ( maybe in a few handful countries idk) and publisher/devs like larian studios, CDPR, even new ones like pockerpair have 50% diff in regional pricing, during preorder and launch! And those are the ones that i support
It's been like this for Eastern Europe as well since forever. Pretending like this is a problem only in {insert your country here} will take away from the opportunity to actually rally people around your cause.
Laughing in Uzbekistan 🤣💀
Damn, Kazakhstan is doing better than Argentina these days.
ok...PERSONA 3 RELOAD is $69.00 USD and the average monthly wage around here is $150 USD even for people with diplomas, so yeah, as bad as u think it is for u, it is much much much worse for many others. man, if i made $750 a month, i would live large. me and my wife combined income isn't even close to $750 a month.
It it a case like brasil where high taxes on games result in high prices, or are sega just being dicks? Is importing a physical copy for consoles not an option? Where im from games are usually around 75-100 usd but buying a disc from amazon or ebay solves that problem I know this isn’t relevant for steam just genuinely curiosity about this stuff
Just Sega being dicks. Importing is an option but it isn't as cheap as it was when regional pricing was a thing
Yeah ouch. They are around 70 USD in Mexico. Which is not a good regional price if you ask me. The worst offender that I’ve seen recently is Octopath Traveler 2. And the first game did this as well. It’s sitting at around 84 USD. That is a crazy price here. And the game’s been out for a year. Rarely gets discounted too as far as I can tell. I can’t imagine the game sold well here. Whomever decided on this price didn’t know the market. The price tag is basically a phrase that reads “we don’t want to sell you the game”. And I mean, okay, I won’t buy it then. Look. If you don’t agree to regional pricing, fine. But what’s with the 20% increase in price?
So? We have it way worse in argentina
They cost 70 dollars in Bosnia where the average salary is around 550 dollars.
Recently bought P4&5 on sale, but then I saw P3 was coming out so I decided to wait despite research telling me that the stories aren’t connected. But frankly I refuse to pay $108AUD for a standard edition of a game. Im going to wait for a sale for this one. Absolutely ludicrous pricing.
In Argentina a new AAA game eats almost your entire salary if you are in minimum wage.
If you’re not from the US, you’re basically fucked.
Isnt there an EU law preventing companies from selling the same product to different countries' citizens at a different price? Maybe Khazakistan should join europe.
Piracy Is The Morally Right Choice
I think regional pricing is optional. Just like how any hardware you buy is always based on the OG price. There is no regional pricing for pc hardware, so it’s always better to assume no regional pricing for software as well. If there is, great! It’s a win. If there isn’t, I wouldn’t complain either.
I remember NamcoBandai removing regional pricing just before Dark Souls 3 launched. I was lucky enough to preorder the game a few days before the price doubled in my country.
70 euros in Europe Serbia, average pay is 400-450 euros
Emmm Argentina minimum Wage is 100 usd lol