Weclock: Albanians are poor and their money is worth less than American money, to them $30 albanian is very expensive.
Nafe: If it is profitable to sell to them at that price, then it's profitable to sell to everyone else at that price. I think it makes much more sense to sell at an international low price. As it stands, almost all the prices on steam are just silly - I can almost always find a better deal elsewhere, so I do. Digital distribution has no excuse to be more expensive than retail, you're getting less product for more cost.
A game is profitable if the money gotten by sale exceeds the development cost. So if they can get an extra 10$ from everyone else they will take it. The pricing is always about what customer expect to pay and how many copies they are going to sell. And there is hardly any cost associated with a didgital sale, thats why we see games for 6$ on gog. So its really not about a single sale being profitable but the big picture.
Oh and there are 2 major reasons for digital copy are usually more expensive than retails:
If the online store is owned by the publisher of the game they are bound to sell it at he full price, at least for some time, to not piss off the retail stores to which they are also selling the game. because else they would be competing with their customers. not a good idea.
if a game is not selling well enough, a retailer will always drop the price tag because storing the excess copys will cost him more than selling it at a lower price.
online stores didnt got this problem.
