High price for Russia

Hello, Uber! A lot of people think that for russian price is too high. I'm not talking about alpha and beta access, I mean release price of the game. Many people don't buy game with high price because it's too high and they download hacked version from torrents. $40 is 1\4 of unemployment benefit in our country.

I want show you an example of the game «BioShock Infinite». In Steam it costs $59.99, but for Russians price is 899 rub. = $28.27. And this game have a notice in the frame:

And a lot of my friends buy this game for $29 because they've played in first part of game and they like it. I don't think that people will buy game with so high price about which they never haven't heard. A lot of people have never heard about Kickstarter, for example

$40 is normal price for Xbox or PS3 games, but for this $40 you'll get a box, game disc, ability to play on the sofa with gils and beer. For this $40 only one thing I'll get is ability to play on PC.

Please don't ignore this topic and answer something.

steam pricing magic will probably happen when the game releases

I sort of understand your concern and wonder if Uber will offer a localized price for countries like russia in the release version. I wouldn't mind it.

That's a part I don't really understand, though. You basically say that a PC game is less worth than a XBox or PS3 game? I'd say that PC games are far more worth than console games. Also nobody stops you from playing PA from your coach. I am sitting on my coach while writing this, btw. I could start PA from here, too.

I'm sorry, but I really disagree with any special prices.

Do I deserve the game for 1 Euro, considering I get 90 Euros a year? I find the whole localised prices of Steam very stupid. Steam would have users of the Euro pay 110 or 120 Dollars or so, I think.

It should be 90 Dollars everywhere, in my opinion.

I agree with this statement. For Russia and the CIS countries is too great prices for games on the PC. According to those figures, the developers who have written about the price at the time of release, it can be said that there will be a very small percentage of purchases from the CIS and Russia. Games such as "Battlefield 3", "Bioshoсk: Infinite", "Mass Effect 3," "Call of Duty: Black Ops 2", "Assasin's Creed 3" stand for the release of about $ 26-30. A small percentage of people will buy for 1200 rubles (40$) a game that has just appeared on the trade market, and no one knows too much about it, unnecessarily no prequels to it. P.S Sorry for the broken English, I write through a translator.

Currently we are maintaining price parity in all territories. Actually I think it's a buck cheaper in some countries. This is to maintain kickstarter pricing. Once the game releases I'm fairly certain we'll discount for certain countries where that makes sense. This is very common.

The steam alpha is only 1199 rubles. Will be even cheaper for beta and release.

I do believe it was changed...?

It was. It's now on parity, though I can't find what topic it was...

Topic is here: viewtopic.php?f=61&t=47871

My personal opinion is: there is more than few people from Russia who make pledges on Kickstarter or pre-order for 90$ or more. Low regional price isn't just unfair for these people, but also damage game badly with re-import.

What's more important: game is actually doesn't force you to use Steam. You might link your Steam account once and then you might play/update it without Steam at all. It will add a lot of problems for them because UberNet allow to bypass Steam restrictions. If developers want to use "regional restrictions" they need to restrict you to run game directly or push some additional limits in UberNet. That's all take lot of time they might spend on development, so I don't think regional restrictions is a good idea.

So at moment it's technically impossible to use "regional restrictions" for PA, and second problem is that "regional restrictions" are *some bad words*. I never buy any region restricted game.

PS: Всем привет...

unemployment benefit should not be used for buying computer games :x

Trust me, it's really really hard to get any benefit's in Russia, there is tons of bureaucracy. It's much harder then earn same money on part-time job in UK.

And food for example isn't cheaper than in London's Tesco, so it's technically impossible to live on benefits in Russia. It's not even enough to buy food for a week. :lol:

Hello, I hate to bring up the old topic, but is this information still accurate? Since release is very close now and fall price's cut-off has happen maybe something clears out or some decisions were made.

I think he means post release.

Steam localized prices are wrong, because outside US, prices are higher (makes no sense) but the idea of localized price is not wrong.

In Argentina 1 usd is 10 pesos, our average salary is 3000 pesos. So:

A 60 usd game will be 600 pesos (20% of the salary)

Take this proportion back to the US so you can picture it. If US average salary is around 3000 usd, would you pay...

600 dollars for a game ?

That's what we pay for a game, and thats why in our country software piracy is above 90%. Still think localized prices is a bad idea ?

Where are you from?

In New Zealand a non steam game is generally $100 NZ.

At today's exchange rate that's 81.37 USD.

Alternatively, I could buy it from Steam for $60USD, paying approximately $80NZD after the currency conversion fee and so on.

I understand the idea, and I know it's the profitable thing to do for Uber - which is why I'm in favour of it - but ideally I'd be against it, yes.

You look at the average wage. That's logical. But how far do you want to go? If I get 90 Euros a year as my total earnings (which I do, but I have no job, so that's only birthday money), should I get the game for 5 Euros, or another outrageously cheap price? No, probably not.

Now, the above is talking about myself, but you can't really say 'oh, the average wage here is X, so we'll sell our game for Y'. Because that changes. And yes, there is a clear difference between Switzerland, Ukraine, and Zimbabwe. But the difference between Sweden and Norway would probably be a lot smaller. Are you going to adjust the price every year, for every single country, sometimes changing a few cents? Probably not, so where do you draw the line?

And I say 'for every single country'... But why? Looking at the USA, you'll see quite a bit of difference between the average wage in various places. Some parts of the USA are like Switzerland, others like Ukraine (relatively speaking). So do you change it per country, or per region? And how large is such a region, then?

And of course, this whole feature would prevent anyone from gifting the game to anyone else, unless they live in the same country or region. At least, that is the case with Steam. Which is quite logical; why spend 100 Euros yourself, when your friend in Bahrein can buy it for 10 Euros?

So it sounds like a good and fair idea, but I really don't see how you can make it actually fair and good. I'm from the Netherlands, but that isn't really relevant.

That's why this applied only for regions with large wage difference, like eastern Europe and west Europe. Don't forget that most of the games (not PA) are also region locked, and if I decide to move to another country, half of my Steam-library will be unavailable to me, like I'm living in some kind of reservation or something.
And another part, some games with our region-price are also only on russian. You can't switch it to original english at all. For most of us it's only a good thing, but I personally think that our game-translators are horrible and it's a pain to play a game not on it's original language.
So there is a lot of "cons" for our region prices, it's not only fun.

Your post really looks like "it's not perfect therefore it's not good" fallacy argument.
Yes, region pricing is not perfectly fair and convenient, but its far more fair and far more convenient than one price for everyone. If you don't use it, you may as well sell games just in north America, western Europe, Japan and Australia and nowhere else. Because nobody's going to buy them anywhere else. That wouldn't make anyone happy.

As for current price of the PA, I think it's ok to make it regional now, since all bakers and preorder guys already can play.

I know, I realise it looks like the golden mean fallacy. But I think that region pricing creates more 'unhappiness' / unfairness than it solves. I could easily be wrong though, and as I said, for Uber, region pricing is a good thing (more people buy it, more money for them). So Uber probably should do it.