Posts Tagged ‘difference’
EA’s Steam pricing finally criticized
January 24, 2010 | Author Zuko
Finally someone else than us noticed the non-sense pricing on Steam. It’s kind of sad it took a over a year for someone to finally see it. Although, better late than never.
Not that we didn’t contact IGN a year ago about this…but oh well. Anyway, here’s the post:
“I noticed something when cooking up the Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Limited Edition Steam pre-order posts – why is there a discrepency in EA’s regional pricing?
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Limited Edition: $49.99 / €49.99 / £34.99
Real World: $50 = €35 / $50 = £31 / €50 = £43Dragon Age Origins – Awakening: $39.99 / €29.99 / £19.99
Real World: $40 = €28 / $40 = £24 / €30 = £26Ignoring EA’s laughable exchange rates, why is Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Limited Edition $49.99/€49.99, and Dragon Age Origins – Awakening $39.99/€29.99? Following EA’s own logic, DAOA should be $39.99/€39.99. Don’t get me wrong, I prefer the lower price, but why is it only applied to DAOA and not BFBC2LE?
The cynic inside me says because they’ve already got Dragon Age players hooked and so it’s a sure bet they’ll buy the expansion, whereas BFBC2LE buyers might not like what they see, and may not necessarily buy the inevitable expansion or DLC.
Think I’m crazy? Take a look at Dragon Age: Origins’ Steam pricing – $49.99 / €49.99 / £29.99!
Also note that the UK equivalent price jumped £5 on BFBC2LE, compared to DAO. Exchange rates have shifted since Dragon Age’s release, but not sufficiently so to justify a £5 increase.
In conclusion, EA’s regional Steam pricing is a huge con, stiffing mainland Europeans considerably. Having lived among the natives for seven years I suggest using Play.com, if you don’t mind a delivery taking up to two weeks, or Amazon UK if you don’t mind paying a few quid extra for their cheapest delivery option, which typically gets a game to your doorstep a few days after release, if not on the day of release.
In the interest of fairness I should point out that other publishers use rip-off exchange rates on Steam, but only EA has introduced these new discrepancies.”
Join the forum discussion on this post
Weekend Deals (22.01.10)
January 21, 2010 | Author slay
updated on 22th January: added GoG
It’s unbelievable how quickly time goes by, time to next weekend deals. Again. Okay, here we go again 
GamersGate shoots first with Sid Meier. Every Sid Meier’s games are off by 50%. So if you ever played Pirates! back on 90’s, get Sid Meier’s Pirates!, it is same thing, only with nicer graphics with some addons
Steam is offering Company of Heroes franchise with 75% discount.
Impulse has 20 items on sale!
GamesPlanet has Winter Sale still running.
Good Old Games woke up and is offering Cyan Inc. games with 25% discount.
PS. The list will be updated when new offers will pop up.
Posted in Deals, Gamersgate, GamesPlanet, Impulse, Releases, Steam | 
Tags: deal, difference, Gamersgate, gamesplanet, impulse, price, steam, weekend deal | 
11 Comments »
L4D2 Pre-Purchase unfair regional pricing
October 2, 2009 | Author SecuFox
If you are thinking about pre-purchasing L4D2, you should think twice, as you might be yet another victim of Valve’s regional pricing scam.
Previously only differing the price between US Dollar, Euro and British Pound, they now topped it by even discriminating between the European countries.
So we not only have the well known unfair price difference between Dollar, Euro and Pound:
but also differences between european contries:
Germany, France, Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, Sweden and a lot of others pay the high, unfair price of 44,99€ (L4D2)
http://store.steampowered.com/app/550/?cc=de (or /?cc= fr, nl, dk, fi, se..)
while countries like: Poland, Norway, Italy, Spain, Lithuania and a few other – for incomprehensible reasons -, pay a much cheaper price of 34,19€, which is only slightly more than the UK price in Euro!
http://store.steampowered.com/app/550/?cc=pl
Thats a price difference of 10€ or even 20€ less when buying a bundle of four L4D2 copies.
Workarounds:
1.) Gifting cheap games to friends in an expensive, foreign region is thankfully still possible, eventhough it probably won’t be for long, judging from recent developements.
So have a good foreign friend who lives in a cheap priced region gift you L4D2, after sending him the money via PayPal or likewise.
2.) If you can live without the “exclusive baseball bat” weapon that comes with Steam Pre-Purchases: Don’t support the Steam Regime at all and Pre-Order L4D2 on Amazon.co.uk for the cheapest of all prices: £26.99 (29,26€)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Electronic-Arts-Left-Dead-DVD/dp/B002BSH9J4/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1254503223&sr=8-2
German users should be aware that L4D2, like 1, will be censored again, when buying from their region.
Buy the game at Amazon.co.uk or have a foreign friend gift it to you, for uncensored Zombie Slaughter.
Join the forum discussion on this post
Posted in News, RAGE NEWS!!!1 | Tags: currency, difference, europe, ip racism, left 4 dead, left 4 dead 2, price, rage, steam, tier, valve | 34 Comments »
Steam: EA Games lowered prices in Europe!
September 25, 2009 | Author stranded
Thanks for all the guys who noticed it (I really have no time to check the Steam store right now). As the news title says, some EA Games are priced really reasonable on Steam comparing to what they were in the beginning (30%-140% more!). See all EA Games on Steam here.
Read more about it here (all EA titles listed on Steam with proper price comparison, thanks to Rhoning The Wizard for the effort)!
And of course thanks to EA for this great decision.
Steam: New games in store
September 24, 2009 | Author stranded
Some new titles showed up yesterday on Steam. Including a cool puzzle game called Puzzlegeddon (try the demo here) and Freeze Tag games. While the first one is priced really fair around the world the second one continues with over priced policy in Europe, especially Tier 1 (40% more) and the UK (23% more). We do not recommend getting the Freeze Tag packs if you’re from Tier 1 – get a gift from your Tier 2 or USA friends instead!
Steam: New Batman game 42% more expensive in Europe
August 20, 2009 | Author stranded
I’ve been following this title since it was announced. Always wanted to play some new Batman game on my PC 
Anyway, this is absurd! It’s another game on Steam that’s priced around 42% higher than in USA.
Steam Unpowered does not recommend buying this game on Steam – be sure to get it in your retail store or in other digital game stores.
US: $49.99
UK: £29.99 (1% lower)
EU: 49,99€ (42% higher)
Call of Duty 5: Mid-Week Madness: 50% off
August 11, 2009 | Author stranded
It seems that Valve is announcing more deals and price reductions nova days days – since they realized that their biggest competitors are putting out deals more often than they do. Like for example World of Goo week deal on Direct2Drive.
Looks like a good deal doesn’t it? Think again:
US:
$49.99$24.99
UK:£29.99£14.99 (1% lower)
EU:49,99€24,99€ (41% higher)
Even if we consider value added tax (VAT) it’s still one of the biggest rip offs for European customers.
And as usual, Steam Unpowered team understands that this is probably a good deal for most European folks (probably those from Tier #1) but we do not recommend buying this game on Steam under any circumstances if you live in central or eastern Europe, unless you’re a big fan of the game or can’t live without it do it .
It might look like a good deal – considering that in many European countries this is the retail price, but think again and look in other stores around the net like Play.com or Direct2Drive for example – it’s around 34€…but this is without any deal.
So shouldn’t we actually pay for this title around 15€ on the Steam deal instead of the retail price? It’s up for you to decide.
I personally won’t pick up this one even though it’s tempting…
PS
You can look for this game on our Steam Alternatives list and get it a lot cheaper – on G2Play it’s 16€, although you buy from them at your own risk.
PS2
You should also watch out for those deals.
SavyGamer: Steam is pretty expensive
July 23, 2009 | Author stranded
I’ve had a look at ten recent releases and ‘coming soon’ games on Steam, and compared their prices with the cheapest available retail prices. I’ve included delivery, and any coupons available.
10 game examples hereSo, of the ten selected games, the average Steam price is 29.89 GBP and the average retail price is 19.68 GBP, meaning that in this sample, Steam is 52% more expensive than buying retail. Put another way, buying all ten of these games from Steam would cost 298.90 GBP, and buying them all from retail would cost 196.79 GBP. Also, for new releases, sometimes Steam is the quickest way to get your game, and sometimes retail is.
Having problems with your Steam account? Something's not right with your payments? Contact Valve Software over phone! That's right, they do have a phone number, here it is:
(+1) 425 889 9642
And now using GMail you can call the US and Canadian land lines totally for free, do not hesitate and call them if you have a problem, simply leave a message there and they will call you back!
: There's a sale on D2D: http://www.direct2drive.eu/promos/d2d-turns-6/
: ... insanity...
: strandeds steam profil is privat now and no picture anymore? crazy ...
: dont expect anybody will buy that stranded..
: For Dragon Age fans of Morrigan http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG2677ew0T0
: omg, impulse has huge sale, 14 pages of discounts - http://www.impulsedriven.com/explore/all/onsale/ And this is charity sale, huge amount will go to Child's Play
: Long live ATI !
: Right here: http://uk.gamesplanet.com/buy-download-pc-games/Shrek-Forever-After-%28tm%29-1960-13.html
: Just to let you know we have Shrek @£19.99... enjoy
: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1417758
Loading ...