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.
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.