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Epic Games Store adding regional pricing for more than 230 countries
- Thread starter Jaded Alyx
- Start date
Get hype for the PC Gaming Show at E3, sponsored by the Epic Games Store.
Just in case you dont believe me due to my bias. This is from them 1 week before the sales went live (and why I dont think Ubisoft games not being in there for most of the sale (up to now maybe) is not Ubisoft side):
Because of Dauntless,I finally took a peek at the Epic store...I hope they add French(Canada) and not just French France...but mostly, they dont seem to have CAD prices until checkout or something,adding that at the start would be great also...
I don't think we've ever discussed it but dlc content are not exempt from regional pricing.
Metro's season pass is must impulse territory.
Metro's season pass is must impulse territory.
Because all of the Ubisoft games are below $15 for me they don't qualify for the epic sale.. I won't mention this on Twitter cause the last time this happened hades price doubled over night..🙄
In the exact same situation, and Control is precisely the game that won me over as well. Octopath Traveler came out on Steam today- 320₺.
For once it feels like gaming in Turkey isn't lagging behind first world countries lol
I get the concerns about it snooping in your Steam files -that's the one worrying aspect- but besides that, EGS is great for regional pricing; and honestly, I can do without leaderboards and all the other jazz, as I mostly play single player. I wouldn't want EGS to be my main store or anything, but I'd take a barebones shop and launcher over paying like 5x what the average Western person pays in a Western economy.
Yeah, the reason why Epic has managed to add regional pricing to so many countries so quickly is that they've not bothered adding support for any currencies outside of Euros and UK pounds. Everywhere else in the world is charged in US dollars. Meanwhile, Steam ties regional pricing to the currencies they support.
[Correction: the above is inaccurate. EGS supports nine currencies at this time, which means Poland, Russia, South Korea, Japan, Turkey and Ukraine isn't being charged in USD]
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There's a thing you're (understandably) missing with regional pricing, a thing about Steam's pricing policy.
Essentially, if there's another distributor in Turkey that's bringing over a game also sold on Steam, Steam will match the physical distributor's price.
I've seen literally 2 PC game distributors in Turkey, ever: Bilkom(?), which, to my knowledge, only brought over The Witcher 3, and Aral, which brings over literally everything else (except Switch maybe, which is new).
The Witcher 3 was 70₺ on launch, that's around 20 Euros, more than fair, I got the game in 2015 out of sheer appreciation and literally only got around to playing the game this week. That's Bilkom, and that's fair.
Aral, however, basically has a monopoly on video game distribution in Turkey, and they abused the SHIT out of Steam's regional pricing policy.
Devil May Cry V is 400₺. The minimum wage in Turkey right now is 2000₺ a month.
People in the US pay about that price relative to their economy for a(t least half a) console.
Octopath Traveler is 320₺.
Dark Souls 3 is 180₺.
Civilization VI is 220₺.
These are prices on Steam. It's worse on console. DS3 is 220₺, etc. (10% of minimum wage income.) Thanks to Aral.
Some games ARE excellently priced- indies are still around 31₺, Yakuza 0 is 50₺, etc.
But especially for AAA gaming, Turkey -like many other countries- was left in the dust, even by Steam's regional pricing (and hoo boy it's worse if you ever had to buy something off of GOG, say, which has no regional pricing whatsoever).
Getting to preorder Control for 40₺- that's fucking unheard of. Mind you, the closest thing I remember, even to that non-discount price of 100₺ -TW3 for 70₺ as mentioned above- was in 2015, when a Euro was 3₺ or so (it's now 7₺, haa...).
They do charge in Turkish Lira. I just checked.
Steam is not the one matching the price of the physical distributor, it is the publishers because they have deals with the physical distributors not to undercut them. Similar to why Metro Exodus got a 10$ discount in USA only in EGS, because they had deals that do not allow that for the launch window period.
Steam has no control over the prices of the games in the store, it is all in the hands of the publishers. They offer recommendations for prices in all regions depending on the default $ price(which is probably what indies and some devs follow), and they also only allow for certain prices by default (such as 5-10-15, etc in $) with F2P and different prices requiring approval of Steam.
I just wanted to point that out, otherwise yeah. IT is annoying when some devs just decide to say FU to some regions.
So, a brief explanation to this: Steam has a default currency conversion which bakes in price reductions for poorer countries. However, the developer/publisher has the ability to over-rule Steam and set their own prices. I would speculate that Aral would then turn around and require anyone wishing to use their services to set the Turkish Steam price to be at least as expensive as they would sell the physical copy of the game.
As you've pointed out, it's incredibly short-sighted, but I'm not sure what Valve could do, and I would expect that in the event an EGS game gets an Aral distribution deal, their Turkish prices would also be sky-high as well.
Duly noted. Apologies for the error.
I actually looked it up: EGS currently supports nine currencies.
Yeah, my point was that it isn't just "This company sucks for regional prices :/", in a lot of places game overpricing is systematic and EGS is the first place I've seen that actively throws that to the curb and just has truly affordable pricing for this stuff.
Thanks, it's been a while since I reviewed the policy myself.
We'll see what happens when EGS gets an actual Aral game, I suppose.
By the way, I just checked the EGS main page and it seems you're already proven right-- that Anno game is 210 ish Turkish Liras, and The Division 2 is apparently 310 ₺. The dream has once again proven elusive
Some games still ARE nicely priced on EGS though, and I hope that continues. Control's pricing is still really solid for example, but I guess we won't be able to directly compare until we get Control on Steam.
This has nothing to do with EGS. Publishers/whoever is responsible for the game's Steam listing are 100% in control of the pricing. They could make the game free on Steam if they wanted to, Valve does not get in the middle of this. It's literally a table you fill out in Steamworks.
I mean, they can do that because they have 10 games and paid the devs to publish the games in the store so they have a ton of control of how the games are priced. You can see here how many times the devs price it "incorrectly" in the beginning only to be solved a time later after people call them on that.
There is also the point that because many games in EGS do not have physical copies, they do not have to go through the Aral monopoly so they can actually charge decent prices.
Thanks for the correction. As shown above, at least Ubi games are still subject to the price hike, so yeah...
Yeah, that the games that can bypass the Aral monopoly are the ones who can offer reasonable prices is (what remains of) my main point.
Yeah, it does seem that this issue is Aral rather than anything Steam or EGS can control. Speculation: I wouldn't be too surprised if Borderlands 3 is affected.
Ah well. :/
Also, this is irrelevant to the thread but I should write up the price hike that the Switch went through within 8 months of coming to Turkey last year lol (it, tragically, is the first Nintendo console to be officially distributed in Turkey since OG 3DS, to boot). It started at 2400₺ (already ludicrous price, a PS4 was 1400₺ or so at this point with a game, though I think tariffs played a role there) and I think right now it's being sold for 3600₺ or something
Yeah, no problem.
As I said, I completely agree with your point (even if i am not in a poorer region) that those deals are dick moves and completely break part of the point of regional pricing making games priced reasonably. I just wanted to correct that the price is in all situations (also in EGS) in the hands of the publishers.
Just checked what I could, again, I've been corrected and the Turkish pricing seems to be thanks to Aral's monopoly, and what I've found is that the games are by and large the same price on EGS and Steam.
This both goes for indies (31₺, Edith Finch) and bigger games (Vampyr, ₺180).
No, CD Media, which apparently also distributes Nintendo to some European countries and I think I heard they were notorious for price gouging even there.
The big thing is that EGS has some regions that have regionally priced discounts (such as the Carribean and Africa) that don't get similar discounts on Steam. Outside of that: not really, ignoring the Mega Sale.
I would also add that most stores ask for a gentleman agreement were the publishers would sell at a similar price in all places and not undercut them (and from what we know in steam, they also ask the publishers to offer a similar discount offer in a reasonable amount of time as other places, which is also probably the case in most stores as they tend to have really similar discounts).
So that is why you would nearly always see same prices in same regions (as well as EGS basing some of its regional prices on Steam).
I know that they have additional regions I was just wondering if they have some influence on the price. If games available on both stores were significantly cheaper on Epic Store I would say that Epic had influence. But I also wonder why are some publishers drop prices really low for exclusive games in some regions but they kinda keep prices high in regions supported on Steam. I guess market size also has some impact.
Oh my God cyberpunk 2077 is gonna be on epic. I hope we get good pricing. I'll definitely be there day one if we get some love.