Steam’s new pricing recommendation tool suggests price hikes in all countries

26 October, 2022

Valve Steam key art

Valve has unveiled a new pricing recommendation tool for Steam developers but it could see players in certain countries paying up to 454 per cent more for a game.

According to Valve, “developers on Steam have control over their own prices, in every currency. But researching and determining ideal prices for dozens of different currencies can be a challenge for some developers,” which is where their new price recommendation tool comes in.

The service “offers a recommendation for all other currencies, based on whatever USD price you choose,” Valve explains. “Rather than just pegging prices to foreign exchange rates, our process for price suggestions goes deeper into the nuts and bolts of what players pay for the goods and services in their lives.”

“We think it’s a helpful guide,” Valve continues. “But with purchasing power and foreign exchange rates constantly evolving, we needed to make significant changes to those conversion recommendations to stay current.”

They go on to say that ultimately, developers can “use our recommendations for some, all, or none of the other currencies, as you see fit.”

However, some of the suggestions would see certain players paying up to 454 per cent for a game (via SteamDB).

The British Pound has a suggested increase of 8 per cent while the Euro comes with an 18 per cent suggested increase. At the more eye-watering end of the spectrum, the Argentine Peso has a suggested increase of 485 per cent with the Turkish Lira looking at a suggested rise of 454 per cent.

The smallest increase is for players paying in Japanese Yen, South Korean Won (both with a three per cent suggested increase) Australian dollars (four per cent suggested increase) and the Taiwan dollar (five per cent suggested rise).

It comes as earlier this year, Sony announced it would be raising the price of the PS5 by £30 / €50 across seven regions, not including the US, effective immediately. Sony Interactive CEO Jim Ryan wrote that this was down to the “current global economic environment.”

Both Microsoft and Nintendo then confirmed that they would not be rising the price of their respective consoles, with Xbox boss Phil Spencer saying it’s not the right time.

In other news, Nvidia has confirmed it is investigating reports that power cables for the RTX 4090 have burnt or melted while in use.

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