Don't choose to exploit disadvantaged economies at the expense of people who live in them, to save on your luxury purchases.
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Thunder Lotus (Spiritfarer): "85% of sales coming from Argentina and Turkey seem to be coming from people playing in other countries"
- Thread starter Rosebud
- Start date
I don't entirely agree with you but fair enough. I'll stop here.
Can't the game that connect to multiplayer systems be easily used to track things like 'digital license bought in turkey, currently playing online from Alabama".
Man, I'm so jealous Argentina and Turkey have ther regional pricing. My country (Serbia) has a free trade agreement within Europe but fuck me.. our purchasing power is nowhere near the bigger markets. I can't imagine someone from Germany buying foreign CD keys whereas someone from Balkans will.
It most likely is, it'd explain part of their business model.
Somewhat unrelated, but I recall an incident this past year where one indie developer was solicited by a 'curator' for review keys, but said dev suspected they were actually very shady key resellers in disguise, so they gave them demo keys. If they were legit, the developer planned on upgrading them to full copies upon being contacted about it and passing it off as a mistake.
What happened was that the 'curator' (or multiple curator accounts run by the same person or group) engaged in a big effort to review bomb the game, which could have only meant that they sold those keys to people and got in hot water from their customers thinking they got scammed. Valve had to step in and banned the curators known to have engaged in the review bombing effort.
Unfortunately, it's not that easy. Some people are also doing this because they don't have enough money on the side to buy a game at full price.
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I think it's valid to express concerns and frustration over this practice. There are absolutely regions that get fucked over by this. It's a good topic to have a dialogue about. There are people that abuse it in bad faith - especially when it comes to resellers.
That said, seeing blanket statements around rich countries fucking over poor countries, etc etc. when there's no evidence provided that a majority of people abusing this regional pricing are of wealthy means is what caused my irritation. Blame the platform holders and the publishers that have far more ability to put controls in place to prevent this than attacking people that take advantage of the loophole. I don't know their situation, and I'm willing to bet most in this thread that used such language don't either. Plenty of people in rich countries have shit situations despite that.
It is that easy, if you don't have the money to buy the game in your own currency, don't buy the game. It's not a necessity.
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Like, you have 5 options if you don't have the money to buy a game at full price:
A) Wait for it to go on sale legitimately in your own currency.
B) Don't buy the game until you have the money to buy it legitimately in your own currency.
C) Use a key reseller to acquire the game dirt cheap.
D) Use a VPN and abuse regional pricing to acquire the game dirt cheap
E) Pirate
A = harms no one, you just wait a bit, GOOD option.
B = harms no one, you wait a bit til you're better off, GOOD option
C = acquire their keys largely through theft or credit card fraud so you benefit off of other people being harmed, BAD option
D = when done en masse removes the regional pricing from people who need it, actively harming thousands of people, BAD option
E = actively harms the company who made the product (but at least doesn't harm other countries that need the help or people who had their CC stolen or w/e), BAD option
It's not. But we will not agree on this anyway :x
Edit : I was talking about using key resellers btw, might not have been clear in my post, my bad !
All of this.
I got you were talking about illegitimate key resellers and was just covering all the bases, but they're bad for different reasons than VPN abuse, they all get their keys through theft or credit card fraud or themselves partaking in the VPN regional pricing abuse, which is why their keys are so cheap and why their keys are at risk of being taken away from people down the road.
It really isn't more complicated than "games are not that important, if you can't acquire the game legally in your own currency, then do not acquire the game."
Like, I'm a hardcore gamer, who is very poor, and have 186 games on my Steam wishlist, and I have never once bothered to use illegitimate key resellers or VPN regional pricing because not partaking in the harm of other people is a pretty easy and sensible choice to make over needing something that is just an entertainment product right now.
Then that's easy: don't buy the game. Will the world end because you can't play a game?
The world won't end, but with how shitty life can be for some people, who am i to tell them that they're wrong to use a loophole to buy something that can make them feel good ?
Oh most certainly not, but might they hate their lives or situation so much that they would pay what they can for some escapism even if it might be morally wrong? Yeah. Some of you really need to revisit the idea of empathy.
It's understandable to want to save money, but they can use legit key sites instead like cdkeys.
There are MANY game sales that happen throughout the year. If you can't afford to buy a game at full price, you can wait till it drops in price and then buy it.
Because that loophole fucks up people whose salary at most only works to give them the basic to live. Guess what are their options if they can't buy a game because the developer increased the price? Either pirate it or don't play it because they can't.
There are way TOO many games to play, many of them discounted or in a sale. Buy those instead of wanting to play the shiny new release. Surely that can't be hard.
Yes this is obviously the better solution, and the one i'd advocate to anyone asking me for tips on getting games for cheap.
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I remember people being warned for advocating regional pricing abuse, is no longer the case?
People in affected countries also don't have money to buy at full price most of the time, even with good regional pricing
Like... not screwing a country because you want a game at full price?
Yes, it's one of the reasons we're starting to get absurd prices here in Turkey now. Fucking assholes.
Anyone in the US that has access to the internet (how else would they get stuff from steam) can easily farm MS rewards points for free game pass months and have tons of games to play. I'm outside the US where MS is a bit less generous with points and it still works great.
Well by that logic, why can't you tell the people in Argentina not to play shiny new releases?
US minimum wage does not give you the basic salary to live; a minimum wage worker in the US with 2 family members is below the poverty line, and likely doesn't have healthcare since minimum wage jobs don't give you enough hours to qualify.
To be clear, I think it's fucked that some rich people might have abused this regional pricing and are ruining it for folks in countries that really need it.
But it is absolute bullshit to treat impoverished, struggling people in the US as though they have it so great, and tell them they need to have empathy for other impoverished people just because they live in a country that slaps them in the face with wealth they will never have access to.
This is really sad for we in the LATAM community and other similar countries. As if it wasn't already hard to justify purchasing a game at launch or even in sale considering the latest price hikes.
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That's the thing, they don't already. This just made it worse.
And please stop trying to make this about US citizens when they aren't the ones being hurt by this
If you don't have the money to buy a game in a legal way, either by a sale or a certified key reseller, you don't get to buy the fucking thing in another currency of a weaker economy.
We're not discussing inflation prices of food and basic commodities, it's video games, for fucks sake.
I'm glad Argentina is starting to ask for IDs or ways to prevent this bullshit from happening, I visit a Sales site and people there are really angry about not being to exploit the Nintendo store anymore.
We're not discussing inflation prices of food and basic commodities, it's video games, for fucks sake.
I'm glad Argentina is starting to ask for IDs or ways to prevent this bullshit from happening, I visit a Sales site and people there are really angry about not being to exploit the Nintendo store anymore.
Because when developers increase the price of the games in those countries, guess what happens? They already had problems buying those games. Now it is almost impossible. With a wage of $200 per month, buying a game isn't feasible at all.
Can people stop getting baited by these announcements? publishers are increasing their prices almost everywhere, VPN issues or not.
Some examples of the more than 5000 games that increased their price in the last few months, with the excuses of inflation and VPN's.
Also Steam right now is one of the hardest places to do all the changing region shit. You know how people are still able to do it? because people from those countries are selling the accounts or using their card to top other people's accounts.
Some examples of the more than 5000 games that increased their price in the last few months, with the excuses of inflation and VPN's.
Also Steam right now is one of the hardest places to do all the changing region shit. You know how people are still able to do it? because people from those countries are selling the accounts or using their card to top other people's accounts.
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I'm in Brazil not Argentina, but here stores offer payment plans of 3 or 4 months for AAA games. Insane that it's needed
It's on publishers/devs. You take the good and the bad of globalization, digital platforms, and open market.
Seeing games go above $85-90 dollars these days is pretty disheartening. Callisto Protocol is $1700 Mexican pesos and I'm worried that will be the new standard in the coming months or years.
It's not a practice I partake in, but sadly many people here in South America do. I always read posts about people abusing regional pricing (Turkey I think is the country they use) on Xbox and shit like that, Argentina was also very common for this.
When I enabled GPU on my Series X I bought cards from Newegg and did the $1 promo conversion, which is regular price, whereas I could've gone for that region switch "trick", but I preferred not to as, fortunately, I'm in a financial situation that allows me to buy games regularly if I want to get day 1 releases and whatnot. It really does suck how they ruin it for others.
You can actually buy gift cards, as long as it's a gift card for the currency of your current region.
85% is a large number. I wonder how many copies sold this 85% translates to?
I feel like increasing the prices just makes it worse? If 15% of sales in the region are from people inside the country, and you make it unaffordable for people inside the country, won't that just drop to under 15%???
The issue they are trying to solve is not that too few people play this game in (e.g.) Turkey.
The problem for the developer/publisher is that too many people from stronger economies are exploiting prices that were adjusted for particular economies, causing a reduction in their profitability. This makes publishers less friendly to the concept of regional pricing and jeopardises the fairer pricing in places with less buying power.
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Guess what, you can have a great life in a shit country or a terrible life in an amazing country. Experiences are not 1:1, and the fucking ignorance and audacity to claim someone that makes such a choice is "SCREWING A COUNTRY" as if such a person's choice is ACTUALLY THE ROOT CAUSE OF THE ISSUE is so comically stupid that I can't fathom sharing it publicly. It turns out both sides can lose while the companies and governments setting policy and making precedent collect their coin and then upcharge additional fees because the people along the way have the audacity to be poor. Good lord.
The responsibility is on the platform holders to make this stuff bannable and if you get caught they just lock your account. They need to do a much better job at stopping this stuff. People will always look for easy ways to save money. Even if they shouldn't be abusing regional pricing it isn't like companies don't abuse just about everything in their power either. I'm not going to get too heavy handed about berating consumers here. If the prices get out of hand these consumers will resort to piracy and I'm also not really going to get fussed about places with virtually no buying power pirating video games.
I personally think absue of regional pricing by places with significantly higher incomes is poor practice. If you can't afford a release in your home currency at launch you wait. If it never drops to a reasonable price then you simply don't buy it. There is this huge catalog of games that can be gotten legally for pennies on the dollar. Capcom was selling like all the resident evil games for like $20 bucks at one point. Lots of good games get incredibly after a chunk of time. No one is entitled to play any release. But new release specifically, no one needs to play them day one if this is the method to do so.
I personally think absue of regional pricing by places with significantly higher incomes is poor practice. If you can't afford a release in your home currency at launch you wait. If it never drops to a reasonable price then you simply don't buy it. There is this huge catalog of games that can be gotten legally for pennies on the dollar. Capcom was selling like all the resident evil games for like $20 bucks at one point. Lots of good games get incredibly after a chunk of time. No one is entitled to play any release. But new release specifically, no one needs to play them day one if this is the method to do so.
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People doing this because they are very poor is a narrative that came from nowhere, there's no evidence of that. And I guess now they will have to pay more anyway so everybody loses
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Exactly, especially with small titles like this. If it was an AAA it could have Denuvo
I used to do it as a young adult, I don't nowadays because thankfully I'm in a better financial position, but living in Portugal and getting paid the minimum wage when I first started working, I would do it from time to time. A Portuguese worker purchasing power is not the same as a German one for example and we are expected to pay the same for a video game. I understand why people do it, especially if they're from countries like Portugal, Greece, etc, that are expected to pay the same as richer European countries while clearly having a very weak economy in comparison. Not saying it's right, but I get it.
And sure, I could always not buy the game but it felt harmless at the time, even if it obviously isn't.
And sure, I could always not buy the game but it felt harmless at the time, even if it obviously isn't.
Man I really cant... The irony is killing me. What about the people in Argentina who also want to pay for their escapism? 🙄
til if you come from a wealthier country you get to decide an arbitrary boundary after which it's ok to fuck other people over guilt-free because you're poor, and posters will tell you it's not their fault you're getting fucked over from a high horse
i guess 'please give me mine, fuck you' is a little more morally gray than 'got mine, fuck you' lmao
if big platform holders like Sony and Nintendo can lock their stores so that you're required to have a card issued in the US to use them, why couldn't Steam do the same and require buyers to have credit cards belonging to the country they say they're from? also, since they can tell where the buyer is located, they should be able to do something with those that buy the account from someone else from another country online.
They actually do that now. What's happening is people in those countries buy the games on accounts and then sell those accounts to people or do that as a service and take a little profit.