For example, I reside in Japan and bought Death Stranding 2: On the Beach (Deluxe) for ¥9,980 (54,15€ / £47.00) but it’s 89,99€ (EU) / £79.99 (UK) despite purchasing it from Steam. And that’s not the only instance: as Resident Evil: Requiem (Deluxe) is around ¥9,990 (54,25€ / £47.05) but 79,99€ & £69.99 like why? I’ve heard that Euro has close to a +30% price hike when referencing from the USD metric in regards to regional pricing.
The same kind of argument from American gamers who winge about $70 games being the default price forgot one thing, taxes are not accounted for (so they’re paying even more) while for both British & European gamers: VAT is accounted in the final price hence why they often look expensive at launch. The reason why games have different prices is due to PPP of a country taken into account, but are (physical copies) of games expensive in the West?
Gamers who live in countries with weaker currencies tend to have lower thresholds in their pricing but are paid less in minimum wage than those living in the EU, UK or US. The alternative gamers use to save money on steam game purchases are either Green Man or Fanatical in which they are authorized game key providers who obtain them from the developers themselves, selling keys for a fraction of Steam’s default price tag.
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Same with Konami and Nintendo. Japanese game companies have very quickly made their stuff very expensive in the west while still launching somewhat affordable in their home country. I don‘t buy their new releases. They‘re out of their goddamn mind.
I remember when the Switch 2 came out: the Japanese version is ¥49,980 for the console itself while the bundled edition with MKW is ¥53,980. Even the accessories have gotten up alongside it (for US customers).
Nintendo is probably the worst offender here because not only they release games at insane prices, but they rarely discount them more than a 10%. Years after the release, their games still cost the same.
Worst of all is that they proved it works, people keep buying their games and the nintendo shills will always give you a 2-hour essay if you ever dare to complain about their pricing policy in front of them. Never seen a worse fanbase in the videogaming community.
Euro teuro or euro=expensive for no valid reason.
Why are you saying such a stupid thing?
Education? Propaganda? Ignorance?
We’ll know after your next reply.
Japan’s currency is weak as shit. So when you convert that to Euros of course it will look cheap. However Japan’s economy has been experiencing deflation for the last thirty years thus Japanese wages haven’t gone up by much either. While the rest of the world’s economy did experience inflation hence why prices in Japan look cheap but in Japan the buying power stayed the same so to the Japanese games didn’t become cheaper. Also in the West games haven’t been adjusted for inflation for decades until publishers have decided to bump the price by a tenner the last two years. So before the price hike adjusted for inflation games did become cheaper by the years.
Don’t get me started at default pricing in PLN.
I mean, is Polish Zloty a strong currency to begin with? I’ve heard that at one point it was weak like 3-4 years ago but it has gotten stable and strengthed since, but the publisher or Steam has not updated regional pricing for Poland still retaining the old exchange rate, like as if they’ve not kept tabs on PLN plus 23% VAT imposed by your government.
It doesn’t really matter how strong the currency is, it’s about spending power. And Poland for the most part doesn’t have the spending power rivalling Switzerland or western/northern EU.
If you want real rip off prices. Look at AU$
I raise you CHF.
It’s no surprise that Swiss Franc has the worst regional pricing as it’s a “safe haven” currency to begin with. Everything in Switzerland is expensive besides games, my friend visited and told me a sit down meal at a restaurant can go over 120 CHF easily depending on the place.
AU$120 for sit down meal 😎
CHF120 for sit down meal 💀
Check out the Big Mac Index for Switzerland.
Well. That is on you for not joining the euro :P
Criminals on that level won’t commit to a powerful economic union without staying in their foxholes.
How much are games there in average when you take minimum wage into account?
If you ever visited Japan and have an old Suica/Pasmo card lying around, I wonder if there’s a way of transferring money to it and using it for online payments.
Those can’t be used for online payments. You can pretty easily buy Japanese eShop and PSN cards though.
The Yen has been an extremely weak currency for a few years now. Just 5 years ago, 1€ would give you 130¥, now it’s 180¥. But Japanese purchasing power has not risen accordingly. So games would simply be unaffordable to Japanese people (way more so than they currently are to Europeans) if they priced them like the Euro prices.
