Thread was posted August 2012. I visit the steam forums regularly (unfortunately) for me, and i have not seen any change at all. Mods are still total dicks. Posters still act like pubescent self righteous fan boys that they are. Dev's delete stuff they don't like to hear. I looked at the Wasteland 2 forum and i had to laugh at a lot of the stupid childish crap people posted up. Rant after rant. U must be blind (no offence).

The regional pricing is a big issue. Always been, always will be. U have a look at the prices for AU steam users. WTF and before you say its the publishers.. Steam LETS it happen (they pocket the $$$ ..no point in doing anything about it)

this where you should rant that probably
http://steamcommunity.com/app/12210/discussions/0/648814395987771548/

Well, regional price works fine to me.

Did you remember to set the games EXE file to windows XP SP3 in compatibility options!

No we are about 6 times poorer then the US!

Shhhh, these people don't want to hear the positive side of that coin, it doesn't fit their argument ;)

Can only say that I'd have preferred that they'd never have existed.

Titles I'd followed, I had to write off because of their intrusive shit.

Is enough for me right there, so no need to piss and moan how you love them, as I spared you from pissing and moaning why I do not.

Enjoy the holidays, either way.

I guess that's why Steam introduced groups and group discussions - so you can choose who do you talk to.

Yup, it does suck for you aussies. Just as 'fair' pricing policy sucks for ... About half of the world due to purchase value of dollar. You know what that is, right? So... Yeah, saying how screwed you are is rather short-sighted - far more people are screwed by the 'same' prices.

*I* don't participate in the general Steam discussions. And yes, the reason why Steam introduced the Steam group discussions and similar concepts is so that you can choose who do you talk to, as they very well realize how big the general boards have become - therefore, there's now an official way to sidestep the issue and do what you want.

I'll get you aquainted with the basic principles of purchasing power then:
When you spend one dollar, you might be able to buy a beer for it.
When someone in the other part of the world, where you are able to buy two beers for the same dollar.

So practically, when you pay 6 bucks for a game, 'the other guy' pays 12 in his own currency, as he's be able to buy twice as much stuff for the same $$$ price. This is natural of course, as different economies are ... well, different around the globe - and regional pricing alleviates this issue by pricing the game at 6 dollars for you and 3 dollars for the other guy, so you both sacrifice the same value when buying a game.

Of course, this also means those people tend to get half the wages people in the US do, so 6 US dollars are a much bigger sacrifice for them (about the same sacrifice as if you're forced to pay 12 instead)

In some parts of the world, this is abused, like Australia. But when this issue hits Australia, it's not nearly as bad as other, not quite as wealthy countries affected.

Take a look at this. You just can't claim that 'same prices for everyone' are fair.

It fits our argument just fine. If you can order a game from Amazon.co.uk with free shipping for 30-40% less than what Steam charges in Europe, they're doing it wrong. Also, it makes no sense for Europe's games to cost more than US games even after VAT gets added. In fact, European games cost a whopping 35-40% more at the very least. It's just greed to put up the RRP - no store worth its salt will ever ask the RRP unless they're expensive as hell and even in Belgium, I can buy brand new games for €35-40 even when their RRP is €50 / €50 on Steam.

The regional prices stop becoming an issue once you start trading instead of buying directly from your store. Smart buyers always get them from the lowest region, whether it's the US, EU, UK, RU or BR.

For the forums, there's no reason to ever use them. I don't know why people would subject themselves to that. Masochists? :P

A long rant for a long thread. :P

necessary anyway..

They're doing what the devs/publishers want them to do, they set their own prices. You can tell with Stardock for instance which tries to set equal prices across (Western) regions, yet others just do 1:1 This, strictly speaking, no, although it helps not to have to adjust your price for currency fluctuations every few days I guess. Yeah lately the dollar euro ratio's been getting pretty bad, used to be closer. Still, around 20% of that is easily attributed to VAT.

Other than that, if you're comparing to Retail stores, you know perfectly well the retailers vs digital retailer thing is still a problem. Publishers are the ones setting the prices, they tell digital stores to sell at SRP at release and after, they set the discounts, they tell them when to lower the price of the game. A lot of this is still done to appease physical retailers, else they simply wouldn't stock their games at all.

Some digital retailers take a cut off their profit to sell more copies and make them more attractive than their competitor (Steam).