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On the 12^th of this month Valve decided to launch a European currency beta for their Steam store. Up until then, no matter which country you are in, all Steam purchases had been handled in US dollars. This beta saw users in UK and Europe being offered the ability to purchase games in either pounds sterling (for those in the UK) or Euros for those in the rest of Europe. While this was a great move for people in the UK, it’s left a very bitter taste for the those in Europe.

For some time now (at least for a year or two) a minority of people in other countries had been asking Valve to display prices in their currency. Not only did Valve finally listen to that request, but sadly, they have used it as an opportunity to rip people off. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not all bad. If you happen to live in the UK, then the move to being charged in pounds will seem to be a very good one – what you see as the price, is what you pay (VAT now included). Some real bargains actually appeared, such as the overpriced Sid Meier’s Pirates dropping from 30 dollars to just under 6 pounds (a saving of around 11 pounds). But for those in the rest of Europe, instead of seeing price drops they saw a huge price increase. Far above the overly inflated prices that non-US gamers already have to pay.

It appears that Valve have decided to set their own exchange rate for prices displayed in Euros. That being, one dollar is now worth one Euro (the actual exchange rate for today being around 0.69 Euros per dollar [www.xe.com]). Not only that, but they are now apparently charging all of Europe in Euros (including the few countries that don’t even use that currency) with tax included in the price, regardless of whether individual European countries tax their residents for Online purchases or not.

Now, not surprisingly this problem was picked up fairly quickly after the beta started by European users. In fact, a thread on the Steam forum for discussing the beta is full of complaints concerning this overcharging. However, in typical Valve fashion, they ended the beta without notice earlier today without changing a damn thing. And there in lies the real problem. It now appears obvious that Valve simply don’t give a shit about their non-US customers. If they see an opportunity to overcharge, they will. And then, they’ll just stuff their ears with cotton wool and pretend they can’t hear the legitimate complaints. Seriously, Valve, why did you even bother with beta testing the new currency system if you aren’t even going to address the very real problems that have appeared? Was seven days (two of which were a weekend) really long enough to test this? Given the fact that Valve stopped responding to concerns with the beta on the day after they started it, I guess we know what Valve’s answer would be.

So why am I, a gamer not even Europe, annoyed by this move? Well, that’s for the simple reason that Valve are obviously intending to do this for all regions. And we may not be so lucky to even get a grace period with a beta test when they do. And knowing how the prices of games are seriously jacked up here in Japan, the second they start doing that on Steam, is the second I will no longer be able to afford reasonably priced PC games. We non-US Steam users already got shafted with regional restrictions and regional pricing on select titles, now we’re all looking at the very real possibility of being regionally shafted on the pricing of all games sold over Steam. There is certainly no way I am going to sit back and accept that. I’ll simply find a better source to get my games from.

For the record, I actually like Steam, and I love the fact that I can take advantage of the strong Yen and buy games at very good prices in US dollars (and as such I’d rather they never start pricing games in Yen), but I certainly won’t hesitate for a second to stop giving them my money the moment they decide they can arbitrarily overcharge me.

So once again, on behalf of most of Europe and future regions that may well be shafted in a similar fashion, I say, fuck you Valve. Stop giving the finger to your non-US customers and start treating us with a little bit more respect if you want to keep our custom and more importantly, get your grubby mitts on our money.

Thanks for reading!

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