Regional Pricing | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net KitGuru.net - Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards Thu, 04 Aug 2022 09:09:16 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://www.kitguru.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/cropped-KITGURU-Light-Background-SQUARE2-32x32.png Regional Pricing | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net 32 32 Sony just dropped the price of Spider-Man Remastered on PC https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/sony-just-dropped-the-price-of-spider-man-remastered-on-pc/ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/sony-just-dropped-the-price-of-spider-man-remastered-on-pc/#respond Wed, 03 Aug 2022 16:21:19 +0000 https://www.kitguru.net/?p=569987 Since unveiling Spider-Man Remastered for PC in June, Sony has been accepting pre-orders for the game on Steam and other digital stores. In the UK, the launch price was listed as £54.99, which is on the expensive side but not unexpected given Sony's push for higher game prices. However, as it turns out, this price …

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Since unveiling Spider-Man Remastered for PC in June, Sony has been accepting pre-orders for the game on Steam and other digital stores. In the UK, the launch price was listed as £54.99, which is on the expensive side but not unexpected given Sony's push for higher game prices. However, as it turns out, this price was incorrect and has since been lowered in a number of countries. 

Here in the UK, the price for Spider-Man Remastered on PC has now dropped from £54.99 to £49.99, knocking a fiver off the launch day price. It might not be enough to convince someone waiting for a sale to pre-order, but it is a nice saving for anyone that was already planning to pick the game up at release.

New regional pricing has also been introduced for the game on Steam in Australia, Israel, New Zealand, Norway, Poland and Switzerland.

Because the price has changed, those who had already pre-ordered the game will unfortunately need to obtain a refund through Steam and then re-purchase the game at the new price. You'll need to do this before the 12th of August to get early unlock bonuses for pre-ordering.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Spider-Man Remastered did seem a little pricey, but even at £54.99, it had a much more realistic price than Final Fantasy VII Remake, which released at £64.99 on PC. Still, we'll always welcome a price drop. 

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KitGuru Games: Square Enix has lost the plot when it comes to game prices https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/kitguru-games-square-enix-has-lost-the-plot-when-it-comes-to-game-prices/ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/kitguru-games-square-enix-has-lost-the-plot-when-it-comes-to-game-prices/#respond Sun, 12 Dec 2021 15:56:58 +0000 https://www.kitguru.net/?p=543276 Square Enix has become notorious over the years for its high expectations when it comes to game sales, with many big releases from the company often being reported as under performing the publisher's expectations. As we look ahead at some of the company's next major releases, we see a pattern forming, with astonishingly high regional …

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Square Enix has become notorious over the years for its high expectations when it comes to game sales, with many big releases from the company often being reported as under performing the publisher's expectations. As we look ahead at some of the company's next major releases, we see a pattern forming, with astonishingly high regional pricing creating an overly high barrier for gamers. 

Forspoken, the upcoming PS5 console exclusive, is also releasing on day-one on PC next year, priced at $69.99 USD on both PS5 and PC. Rather than adjusting that price for other countries based on strength of currency and other factors, like national average wage, the game is actually more expensive than the US in a number of countries.

Looking at SteamDB, we can see that for whatever reason, the game is almost 48 percent more expensive in Israel, with the converted price working out to be $103.48 USD. Does Israel get some special version of the game with 48% more content to justify the extra expense over the US version? Absolutely not. The issue continues across a broad range of countries, with the game being almost 30% more expensive in Europe, 23% in the UK and 18% more expensive in Australia.

In countries where the national average wage is lower than the US, like Ukraine, Russia, South Africa, Poland etc, the game is anywhere from 11% more expensive to 27% more expensive compared to the US price. As a digital game selling via a global platform like Steam, distribution costs can't really be attributed to these price hikes. Sales tax could make some impact to the converted price in some countries, but it is clear that the regional pricing in some parts of the world is astronomically high and is going to heavily reduce the number of players able to pick up the game at launch.

This is cause for concern for a game like Forspoken, which is a brand new IP. As Miller points out on Twitter, Forspoken has been struggling a little to land on its marketing and due to high regional pricing, it is unlikely to impress Square Enix heads when the next sales call rolls around.

Recently at The Game Awards, Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade was announced for PC, releasing in just a few days time. While this normally would have been great news, pricing quickly became a point of contention. Not only is the game already making some extra money through an Epic Games Store exclusivity deal, but despite being an older release, it is being priced at $69.99 on PC, or £64.99 in the UK. Once again, the regional currency conversions are not kind here, with many countries left paying more than the US price for seemingly no good reason.

The worst part of all of this is that this isn't going to be a one time thing. It would appear that Square Enix is bringing its PC prices in line with next-gen console prices, with base editions starting at $69.99 USD or £64.99 GBP, and also forcing obscenely high prices in countries where many gamers can't afford to pay day-one prices.

Square Enix has a history of ‘under performing' titles. Rise of the Tomb Raider, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and IO's HITMAN reboot all failed to meet the publisher's lofty expectations. More recently, new games like Neo: The World Ends With You, Marvel's Avengers, Life is Strange: True Colours and more also underperformed.

Hitman is an interesting piece of the puzzle here, as under Square Enix, the first two games reportedly underperformed sales expectations, but after going independent, IO Interactive has had nothing but positive things to say about sales, particularly for Hitman 3, which launched earlier this year.

It seems the common problem here is Square Enix itself, with its refusal to offer fair regional pricing in many parts of the world, in addition to its already lofty sales expectations, which puts a lot of pressure on studios working with the company. A game should not be up to 50% more expensive than the US price in any part of the world, let alone countries where the average national wage is lower than the United States.

In the next six months, I expect we'll hear that more Square Enix titles ‘failed to meet sales expectations' and it won't be the fault of the developers, and the quality of these titles will have little to do with it. Instead, it will all come down to the fact that gaming has gotten so expensive, that many can no longer afford to pick up a new game at launch.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: One thing we didn't touch on too much here is the fact that these higher prices could also lead to an uptick in illegal downloads and pirated versions of games. With Square Enix titles now launching at such high day-one prices, do you see yourself picking up something like Forspoken, Final Fantasy 7 Remake or any other new Square Enix game on PC at release? 

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Valve cracks down on Steam VPN use by limiting account country changes https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/valve-cracks-down-on-steam-vpn-use-by-limiting-account-country-changes/ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/valve-cracks-down-on-steam-vpn-use-by-limiting-account-country-changes/#respond Thu, 24 Jun 2021 14:50:56 +0000 https://www.kitguru.net/?p=521115 A lot of PC gamers at one point or another have used a VPN to buy a game from a country where it is sold at a cheaper price. Moving forward, doing this on Steam is going to be much more difficult, as Valve has implemented some changes to discourage this practice.  Some developers and …

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A lot of PC gamers at one point or another have used a VPN to buy a game from a country where it is sold at a cheaper price. Moving forward, doing this on Steam is going to be much more difficult, as Valve has implemented some changes to discourage this practice. 

Some developers and publishers will lower the price of their games in specific countries due to lower average income. Previously, Valve has tried to use region-specific game keys to curb VPN use for cheaper game prices, but geo-blocking content isn't legal in all countries. In fact, Valve and a number of other game publishers and developers were fined by the EU for these practices.

Valve now has a new plan to discourage VPN use. Moving forward, Steam users can only change their account's country once every three months.

Of course, Valve does have other methods in place too, such as requiring the use of a payment method from the country your trying to purchase a game from. With this measure in place, you couldn't use a UK bank card to buy a game on the Russian Steam Store or vice versa.

KitGuru Says: What do you all think of this latest change to Steam? 

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Valve to fight EU antitrust charges while other publishers settle https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/valve-to-fight-eu-antitrust-charges-while-other-publishers-settle/ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matthew-wilson/valve-to-fight-eu-antitrust-charges-while-other-publishers-settle/#respond Fri, 30 Aug 2019 10:14:40 +0000 https://www.kitguru.net/?p=423593 Back in April, we learned that the European Commission was investigating major game publishers and platform holders over content geo-blocking. Valve/Steam, Capcom, ZeniMax, Koch Media, Bandai Namco and Focus Home Interactive were all named as part of the antitrust investigation. Most of the publishers plan to settle in an effort to lessen imposed fines but …

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Back in April, we learned that the European Commission was investigating major game publishers and platform holders over content geo-blocking. Valve/Steam, Capcom, ZeniMax, Koch Media, Bandai Namco and Focus Home Interactive were all named as part of the antitrust investigation. Most of the publishers plan to settle in an effort to lessen imposed fines but Valve will be looking to fight the EU's antitrust allegations.

As reported by Reuters, Valve wants a closed-doors hearing with EU officials to make its case, while the other five companies plan to settle with the EU- a move that will grant a discount on imposed fines for breaking EU regulations.

We don't know the details of Valve's defence yet but the company has not been very successful when it comes to legal proceedings outside of the US. The company was forced to pay up for breaking consumer laws in Australia in recent years and has faced investigations elsewhere too.

In this case, the European Commission claims that Valve, Bandai Namco, Capcom, ZeniMax, Focus Home Interactive and Koch Media violated antitrust laws by putting geographic restrictions on certain games being sold. These blocks are put in place to avoid people from richer countries taking advantage of lower regional pricing available in poorer countries.

On Valve's end, the company claims that region locking only applies to around three percent of all games available on Steam. The European Commission wants a true single market for digital content across the EU, but in some countries, the average salary is much lower than others. Publishers will control regional pricing in order to make games more accessible for purchase in places with lower average income and block those outside of those countries from purchasing the content cheaper. The EU would rather have standardised pricing across all of Europe instead.

KitGuru Says: While normally I am against the idea of geo-blocking, lowering game prices in regions with a lower average income doesn't seem like a bad idea. Enforcing higher prices would just result in higher levels of piracy. We'll have to wait and see whether or not Valve's defence is convincing enough.

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