On Reddit, a summary table gives a plaster cast of maddening Argentinian examples. It starts slowly, with Starfield going from $32.47 (post-conversion) to $41.99. But it quickly climbs towards the extremes: from $10.69 to $39.99 for Rust, from $6.76 to $29.99 for Victoria 3… the prize going to Civilization VI, which goes from 1.36 $ to $59.99. A nice increase of 4298%. To make matters worse, the local taxes rise to 100% of the price of the game. So count $119.98 for the last Civilization. According to PCGamer calculations, the average Argentinian salary is currently $415. Turkey fares even worse with average salaries of $400.
Fun fact, some games have decreased in price, like the re-release Ark: Survival Ascended which went from $42.49 to $20.99 in Argentina. Which still means that you had to spend a tenth of your salary to hunt the dino under Unreal Engine 5 before…
“Oh the dumpling!“
How can this drastic increase be explained apart from the relative strength of currencies? According to several independent developers, the error is simply human. When Steam announced the change in pricing policy in advance, developers could keep the price very low in Argentina and Turkey if they wanted. But Valve offered a specific suggested price, usually half the base price in the United States. Many studios would have understood that this suggested price would be applied automatically in the absence of a manual change. This is obviously not the case ; Argentinian and Turkish prices are based on full American prices by default. The studios mainly place the blame on Valve’s communication, considered too unclear.
This colossal increase should disappear in the coming weeks, as developers and publishers make manual changes. Hoping that the big publishers don’t turn a blind eye to this unfortunate price explosion to try to smooth things over…