POSTED BY

John Brownlee

AT 8:48 AM
Monday December 22, 2008

PC

steam • valve

One Euro is not equal to one dollar

31cfac2ec3eea4fc42b8009bdc6c76740fd46327_full.jpgLast week, Steam began charging Europeans local currency in pounds and Euros, where they had traditionally paid in dollars translated to pounds or Euros. This drove livid a lot of Europeans. Paying in local currency is appreciated, if only to allow quick calculation as to how much something actually costs. But Valve decided, across the board, to make the exchange rate between the euro and the dollar one-to-one. It isn't: a dollar is currently worth .72 Euro cents. That means Europeans are paying a minimum of a 28% premium.

I'd be more bothered about this if I wasn't used to it. An American living abroad, I've long since accepted that companies translate the prices of products in dollars at a one-to-one rate against the Euro. Valve's not really the bad guy here: when a new game costs 70 euros on store shelves and 37 euros via digital distribution, publishers are going to start putting pressure on Steam.... and Valve is going to have to bend.

Regrettable, but Valve has actually given Europeans games at a discount over retail for a while now. It had to change sometime, barring a cataclysmic shift in the way gaming companies think about Europe... and there's no indication that's going to happen anytime soon.

1€ ≠ 1$ (1euro1us) [Steam]

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8 Comments

Anonymous Anonymous

#1 – 10:02 AM December 22, 2008

It's almost the same here in Chile. 1 Dollar equals 1000 pesos (when it should be aprox. 500 pesos) when it comes to electronics (including videogame consoles and games). I wish something could be done in Latin America too...

elliotharmon

#2 – 10:38 AM December 22, 2008

By my count, that would be a 39% premium.

mark

#3 – 11:09 AM December 22, 2008

Yeah, but European prices tend to include VAT, so it's not as much of a premium as you would think.

Anonymous Anonymous

#4 – 5:47 AM December 23, 2008

I haven't purchased anything since the change to local currency but Steam has always previous added VAT onto the price of the item after starting to process the order (of course this made sense as there was a global price on the site and then it later updates with local taxes at purchase time). I really hope some of this price difference is taken up by local taxation being included in the price (in the UK this is standard for all advertised prices to include VAT).

Of course with the fluctuations who known how often Valve will have to realign their prices to match the situation (US$ to GB£ has moved from a long term stable 2:1 ratio to 3:2 in the last few months)

hbl

#5 – 6:05 AM December 23, 2008

Steam can swivel. Kotaku (rightly) worked it out to be a 25% hike in most cases. 25% more for 0% more product.

The whole point about it being cheaper than retail is that the retailer is not part of the transaction.

Hey Steam, that's a 25% stupid tax, which I'm not stupid enough to pay. Valve might have noticed that all the european banks got slammed recently, so this might not be the best time to start digging the corporate claws in.

Look like that $1 I spent on the anniversary Half Life was the last dollar of mine you will get.

arkizzle / Moderator

#6 – 12:43 PM December 24, 2008

As a European who shops on lots of US websites, I can't say I've ever noticed Euros being routinely given as 1:1 Dollar equivilants.

Maybe we shop in different places :)

Anonymous Anonymous

#7 – 3:50 PM December 24, 2008

Most of the prices on steam are not the cheapest you can get the games for in the UK, before or after the change to (£) pounds. Shop around...

Ghede

#8 – 1:09 AM December 27, 2008

HBL: It can actually be considered a negative percentage of product, seeing as how you do not get any collectibles, discs, manuals, or boxes.

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