this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2023
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
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Relatively speaking, games already were practically free in those countries to begin with, so it's not like piracy would make a difference to the vendors.
You have completely misunderstood the premise of regional pricing. Games were "practically free" in these countries because the average income is much lower than in e.g the US or Western Europe. The augmentation in pricing means that many Turks and Argentinians can no longer afford AAA games.
What augmentation in pricing? Steam is only changing the currency of the transaction. The devs will set the regional price for Steam to use, like they've been doing all along. Assuming they continue using the recommended regional price, the overall price shouldn't change except for conversion fees.
The recommended regional pricing that steam has provided for these regions works out as more expensive than when the local currency was used
I was involved with an Indie game that was priced at roughly $15. It literally sold for 10 cents in those regions with Steam's recommended pricing, mainly due to the accelerating inflation, and within hours of release, 20% of the sales came from these regions because of people abusing VPN. The pricing was quickly adjusted before that percentage could grow any larger.
When people can just get a freshly released game at a 99.5% discount, you might as well not sell the game at all in those regions.