Friday, December 19th 2008
Valve Inflicts European Gamers with $1 = €1 Equation
At the time of preparing this report, US $1.42 makes a Euro. Here's what Valve seems to be pricing its games and those of its affiliates on the Steam platform as: $1 = €1, ignoring exchange rates, meaning that if a product costs say $20 on Steam, you will be charged €20 (approximately $27.86), if you are buying from the EU. Several game titles have been priced in this fashion. Call of Duty 4, priced at US $49.99 ($59.4 after applicable taxes) is tagged at €49,99 ($70 before applicable taxes).
In reaction to this, disgruntled European gamers have started protesting this move by Valve on online forums, an example of which can be found on Valve's own Steam Users' Forums. Also found on the same board is a user group named 1€ ≠ 1$. Certain groups have even started reporting this to the European Commission Consumer Cell. The gamers allege that they have been given a largely unfair pricing scheme with products on the Steam platform, that violates trade laws. The Steam platform serves gamers from around the world with a common platform to purchase games, and coordinates multiplayer gaming and updates. An unhappy consumer base from one of the largest markets in the world could certainly impact on its revenues.
Source:
Tweakers.net
In reaction to this, disgruntled European gamers have started protesting this move by Valve on online forums, an example of which can be found on Valve's own Steam Users' Forums. Also found on the same board is a user group named 1€ ≠ 1$. Certain groups have even started reporting this to the European Commission Consumer Cell. The gamers allege that they have been given a largely unfair pricing scheme with products on the Steam platform, that violates trade laws. The Steam platform serves gamers from around the world with a common platform to purchase games, and coordinates multiplayer gaming and updates. An unhappy consumer base from one of the largest markets in the world could certainly impact on its revenues.
196 Comments on Valve Inflicts European Gamers with $1 = €1 Equation
You talk about the growth in the current socialist government (why the quotes BTW?) yes it's been lower. How about in the US? Ah too. Crisis maybe? It doesn't come one morning you know, although they only tell you when it already is unavoidable. The growth of the economy would have been the same even if High Elves were in charge of the government. If socialists had been earlier in charge maybe things would have been better. And not because they are socialist, but because who the others were.
PLUS economy is not all that matters when it comes to politics.
EDIT: Uh oh and socialism is not necesarily the transitional stage to comunism. You can choose whatever you want to be, you can stop anywhere in between. I never said I want a socialist world, but some ideas certainly need to be borrowed.
And you're better off putting capitalism in that list of failed ism's because id HAS failed, BADLY. It took Russia 20 years to realize/admit it, so take your time.
Now that we are talking history let's make it clear why communism failed: as funny as it may sound Hollywood. The movies, which showed the best of capitalism, the luxury and glamour of the powerful and never the lower end of the story, made the communism fail. Because in a country were everybody was equal (maybe poor but equal) what was shown in the movies led them to believe everybody in the capitalist countries were like the ones in movies. That destroys optimism and leads to a fail. How many good minds escaped from the USSR? Yeah they had a reason, a opressing government, but does not have anything to do with the economic model. The communist leaders too contributed to the fail, of course, they implemented a good idea very badly because they never believed in communism themselves, just used it as a way to control the masses and become powerful and rich.
What I mean is that it is not the economic model what failed, but the countries implementing it. For instance, China is comunist AFAIK, and you are very naive if you think they are not going to be the first power in the world really soon.
As for capitalism failing that has yet to be proven and or happen in over 200 years.
The bottom line is don't buy from Steam if you don't agree with them keeping up with the market. But don't act as if they did something wrong ether and stop crying and answer with your dollars.
"With capitalism the people have the power."
Couldn't be more wrong. With capitalism COMPANIES have ALL the power. People have NONE. And as an example don't have to search too much, Valve and what they are doing. M$, Intel...
V V I agree. V V
I simply don't get it, so because it's not affecting you, there's no crisis. You both look like the kind of guy that would say "hunger? what hunger? I have my breakfast just here" when people were dying on their feet pegging for just a bit of it. LAME.
Sorry, I'm just not that concerned right now. I have no reason to be. Maybe when that figure hits 10%, I'll give it a once-over but until then, it's just the media blowing the situation way out of proportion as usual.
Thread won't close.
And you say different markets shouldn't have different prices, yet retail games do. I am in this thread contradicting opinions that are based purely on emotion, and little fact.
EDIT: Anyway maybe I heard the wrong rumor, but according to that, Steam didn't free up the games from having th DRM that would not allow you to install more than x times. Anyway, as I said I never reached the limit with Bioshock and installed it what I calculate as being like 8 installations. I definately won't install any gamee more times.At retail the prices are not different here or the US, NOT for the publisher, who gets the same or almost the same money. Most of the 50€ cake goes for the people in the store, truckers, etc. I don't care if you don't apreciate those, but that's why the game costs more in the EU. I apreciate the human interaction in my deal and with steam you get NONE. Without those only the publisher gets all the pie and there's no freaking reason they sould aim for a higher margin in the EU than in the US. They make the game for x amount, they sell it for x+y EVERYWERE, just as ANY OHTER PUBLISHER does.
Steam will only survive because of the die hard gamers (who can't wait to own the game the minute it's relased), those with enough money not to care, and the lazy. A vast majority of people enjoyed using steam because it was cheaper than retail. At the end of the day Stream will still profit, even with the loss of customer base as they will be able to make bigger profits from a smaller customer base - Do you believe the company wouldn't have thought of this? It will also turn a lot of gamers to piracy (the lazy+poor) who will think, "hey i can get the same service (even better sometimes) if i use torrents, whih will be bad for the industry in general."
So in summary this move is bad for everyone apart from Steam.
The original steam users lose out on the steam service because they will not pay an inflated price.
The people still using storm lose out for obvious reasons.
And the industry loses out in general as more people move to piracy.
Another knock on effect is that the dev loses out as they are getting less $$$ as previous steam users move to piracy.
Ok so your point - "Don't use it if you don't like it, or vote with your dollars" is valid, it insn't taking into account the big picture, you are only thinking of the individual users who use steam.
This is the first step in a troublesome trend, It seems the video gaming industry is moving in the direction of the music industry where developers/artists get the smallest slice of the pie. And games will be knocked out as fast as one-hit wonders with about as much quality and we will have to accept that fact as the publisher will be in control.
I still remember the days when anyone with a speccy, tape recorder and enough free time could become a developer and the games back then were some of the best i have ever played. (do i sound like an old man?)Yup, i agree. The dev are not seeing any of the extra money which is not a good thing. i believe credit should be given where it is due. As i said above i think this can only hurt the developers.
Most people do not mind spending extra money for something when they understand where the money is going. In this case there will be a lot of confused people.
To mailmain> calling them Greedy isn't a knee jerk reaction. What does every publisher or every corporation want at the end of the day? To make their share-holders happy. How do they do this? By making as much money as possible and then spending as little as possible. I would call this the definition of greedy.
Greedy = strongly desiring more than required: having an overwhelming desire to have more of something such as money than is actually needed
I would define most big companies as being greedy (although not all).
And no i don;t go round complaining about every company under the sun, but when it is happening right under your nose and just to brush it off as saying "that's life" or "that's ok, every one else does it" is not acceptable.
I am unhappy with the situation and steam give a good example of what is happening. Seeing as individuals alone have little chance of effecting what is happening it is upto the people who represent us to do something about it. the people that represent us being the governments, whom to which we pay taxes. But seeing as people are happy with just saying - "Well that's capitalism" this will never happen. So for our governments to step in and stop excessive greed on our behalf does not represent socialism.
I am familiar with socialism, i live in a socialist country. It is not, by the way Mailman, in transition to becoming a communist country (that period has come and gone). And at the moment, the small business owner is king. It is still actually possible to run a business here and make a profit (although things are rapidly changing). And things are much cheaper when the corporations are not given too much leeway to do as they wish by using the excuse"that's capitalism!"
But you also got to consider all the various taxes throughout Europe too. By standardizing the price, they save a lot of complex calculations for tax time making it easier for them to file a return.
They may also be preparing to change over to a unified point system like most consoles use for online purchases.
Additionally, most developers are wholly owned subsidiaries of publishers so the publisher collects the payment and answers the developers' request for more money. The publisher, in effect, is a bank that developers borrow from. Because of the growth of Internet transactions, the need for publishers is rapidly disappearing/changing purpose (as demonstrated by the music industry).
Also most EU customers are also complaining about not being able to buy in UK pounds. (The UK seems to have the correct rates for games at valve.)
Thing is the buyer is king and most customers know where to get the cheapest deal. Valve Europe (if such an entity even exists?) will be hurting through loss of sales this quarter that's a 100% guarantee.
Current exchange rate (from American express Euro account) was .954p/1€
Saw Oblivion for £8 (new) in Game (uk store)
I've never paid more than £32 for a PS3 game even GTAIV 2 weeks after release.
Shop around and you can get deals.
However here in Belgium should I go to my nearest store it's a whopping 69€ for a new title however you'd have to be a beers short of a keg to pay that price :D