Steam, 1€ = 1$

[-HP-]

Products on Steam are now priced using local currency in the United Kingdom (Pounds Sterling), and Europe (Euros). All other countries remain in United States Dollars.

Ah ah, basically, us Europeans are now... How do I put this gently... fucked!

Quoting a Kotaku article:

Sounds innocent enough, right? Nope. All currencies are equivalent for pricing purposes. So a $9.99 game costs €9.99 and £9.99. Quick check of the exchange rates shows that is, in US Dollars, $9.99, and $13.85 and $14.83, respectively.

Put another way, Call of Duty 4, a $49.99 title, would be equivalent to $69.35 and, working backward, amounts to about a €14 difference, or an extra 25 percent that Valve (and the publisher) make on the exchange.

Edit: Oh and yeah,a group has been set up on Steam to protest the difference.

URL: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/1e1us

[Steppenwolf]

ewww wtf is wrong with valve. I'm not even in the euro zone yet the prices are in euro. So basicly this fucks over the people in sweden even twice as hard because the swedish krona is currently super weak to the euro thanks to the financial crysis (The exchange rate is 1:11 but it always used to be around 1:9).

Either this is greed or idiocy on side of valve. Whatever, not gonna buy games for a while until they have sorted this out. When i buy on steam i buy in america. Prices have to be in USD and nothing else.

[Bic-B@ll]

12 years and finally they fucked up

[Pampers]

they have said that they are aware of the issue and are looking into it, but still.. I know they ran a beta with other currencies a little while ago so this is weird

[skdr]

Guys, you forgot that the old $ price they listed on the site did not include any taxes at all. Now that they're showing the price in euros, it includes taxes. Yeah, it's still a bit more expensive but not that expensive some sites might say.

[2d-chris]

What SKDR said and lets face it, steam has never been a cheap way to buy games.

[Pampers]

weekend deals? i guess taxes are different for each country, i haventnoticed any extra expendures when buying games from steam

[Hourences]

I dont care if these new prices do include taxes, and the old ones didnt? It is not the correct way of doing things and whatever the calculation, I am sure they do really make money this way, on our expense. This is americanism as far as Im concerned.

And the fact that steam never has been cheap in the first place should have been all the more reason for Valve to do something about it, rather than actually making it worse? What kind of argument is "it already was expensive so it is perfectly acceptable if it becomes even more expensive"?

Boycotting for the time being.

[Steppenwolf]

Guys, you forgot that the old $ price they listed on the site did not include any taxes at all. Now that they're showing the price in euros, it includes taxes. Yeah, it's still a bit more expensive but not that expensive some sites might say.

It still is bullshit because the taxes are not the same in each country and in some countrys you don't even have to pay taxes for non-physical stuff that you buy on the internet. It is a huge scam if you ask me. If steam had a special platform for european customers it would be a little less obvious. But so its really fucked up.

Empire:Total War 49.99 Euro on steam. Same game 429 swedish crowns at webhallen. Thats 39.10 Euro.

Now in Dollar as it used to. 49.99 USD = 388 swedish crowns + 25% taxes = 485 swedish crowns or 44.59 Euro.

Now if i would live in germany: 49.99 USD = 35.70 Euro + 19% taxes = 42.48 Euro.

Think about it non-physical games should be less expensive for various reasons. No disc, no booklet, no cover, no physical transport, no store, no salesmen + you cant borrow or resell them which should really be part of the calculation and online buyers should be rewarded for. Steam was too expensive even before the euro price tags but now they have really lost their minds. If this isn't greed i don't know what is.

[Hourences]

Here are some even nicer examples:

I just got Fallout 3 (finally), I bought it in Sweden for 299 sek and that got me a real disc I can touch and love (among other things).

In the stores - 299 SEK - 27 Euro - 38 USD

On steam - 50 Euro - 70 USD.

Now I don't know about you, but that is almost twice as much while you don't even get a CD and a nice little box and manual.... Fucked beyond imagination?

[Ginger Lord]

North American companies fucking over Europe, again. Some things never change.

[Deathy]

I agree that it is more expensive but for me personally the cover, booklet and cd isn't that important. I just hope they fix it the right way, otherwise the Steam Sales will go down to zero in europe and not only that..

It is also a bit hard for Valve I think.. Could someone foresee that the dollar will drop that hard.

In times where Dollar and Euro were circa the same, that wouldn't have such an heavy effect (except for UK).

I'm happy that I can buy my Steam games through someone from Canada.. Otherwise I would be as disgusted as you are right now. :-|

[Steppenwolf]

I agree that it is more expensive but for me personally the cover, booklet and cd isn't that important. I just hope they fix it the right way, otherwise the Steam Sales will go down to zero in europe and not only that..

It is also a bit hard for Valve I think.. Could someone foresee that the dollar will drop that hard.

In times where Dollar and Euro were circa the same, that wouldn't have such an heavy effect (except for UK).

I'm happy that I can buy my Steam games through someone from Canada.. Otherwise I would be as disgusted as you are right now. :-|

I mentioned cover, booklet etc. because they add to the price of physical purchased games making it more nonsensical on valves part that digital games are more expensive then physical games. Sure they got expenses for their own infrastructure but i doubt that its anywhere close to real shops, real shipping and physical products especialy when you consider that they got the infrastructure in place anyway for their own products and services.

And the weak dollar is actualy a good thing for american buisnesses that rely on export because it makes it more attractive for foreigners to buy stuff in america from american companys. It's only bad for americans who want to buy stuff in europe or come here for travel.

[e-freak]

Not to sound fanboyish here or over protecting but:

It's pretty usual that North America is cheaper than europe (check out what you pay for camera-lenses or graphic cards or wacoms).

Valve is going to lower prices on theyr own products, as stated

Other publishers have been more expensive on steam before for EU sells and basically stayed more expensive. This is an issue on the publishers site not Valve's.

The prices for Steam sells have been avg close to what you payed in a real store because most publishers fear that GameStop and consorts would boycott them in case theyr online distrib would be so cheap it'd destroy the retail selling numbers

What Valve CAN do:

Lower theyr Steam fees for publishers and encourage them to lower the final prices

Use a more appropiate algorithm to convert Dollar to Euro (Easy exchange rate WON'T do it because the purchasing power differs as well between these two economical zones)

Add something to the contracts that prices need to be at least as low as the MSRP for the retailers

[Steppenwolf]

It's pretty usual that North America is cheaper than europe (check out what you pay for camera-lenses or graphic cards or wacoms).

You cant compare american/european shop prices with steam. Steam is a american service. You buy on steam you buy in america no matter where on the world you live. Everything else is just in place to fuck over the european customers. If it wasnt like this you would at least pay the correct tax for your country (like on amazon).

Thank god we still have the choice between physical products and digital distribution. But think a couple of years in the future when digital distribution will be the norm and only a couple of companys hold the monopoles for the different platforms. :-|