Valve announced an update related to your recommended pricing policy for all those products that are put up for sale on Steam. This measure, which is usually used in most cases by small developers, seeks create some parity between the costs that certain launches could have according to which territories. Thus, the platform takes into account aspects such as the standard of living of each nation, the cost of different products related to video games and other types of variables that can influence the final price.
With the new measures, which have already entered into force, there are several countries and territories that have suffered a considerable increase in the recommended prices of the platform. Regardless of region, Valve the amount has increased in all currencies – up to 39 different ones – available on Steam. This has slightly affected some, such as the Japanese yen or the South Korean won, which have barely suffered an increase of 3%; however, the Argentine peso or the Turkish lira, for example, have experienced an increase of more than 450%.
Steam has updated their recommended prices for game developers, we have a list of all the changes in a new blog post: https://t.co/9BQ6YKgYfG
— SteamDB (@SteamDB) October 25, 2022
A change from Steam that seeks economic balance
Spain, like many other European countries that use the euro, is one of the countries less affected for these measures. Although there is an increase of 18% compared to the current recommended price, this figure is laughable when compared to that of the Argentine peso or the Turkish lira. Even so, it should be noted that this measure is usually adopted by the small developers, which is why the prices of AAAs and other products from large distributors should remain unchanged. In fact, one of the reasons why Valve would have made this decision is to avoid the change of region when buying certain products.
Apparently, the company is aware that many players change their region to countries like Argentina or Turkey to take advantage of the discounts in those territories. There, a launch that costs €59.99 can be obtained for a third of the usual price or even less. As a result of this situation, Valve has decided to excessively increase the price of these two areas to prevent the situation from repeating itself. However, after the update, the recommended price in Argentina is €24.39 (3,800 Argentine pesos) and in Turkey of €27.35 (510 Turkish lira), well below the €58.99 which are the new norm in the euro zone.
