neuromancer
Posts: 627
Joined: 5/30/2002 From: Canada Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Fallschirmjager I also don't think Matrix/Slitherine sets the price per nation. They use a third-party website for payments and licensing, and I think they handle pricing based on nation. It does not appear to be a straight currency conversion, I am not sure how they figure it out. It is truly a mystery, this same discussion was had for Shadow Empire. I compared the prices for Canada for games through the Matrix store, and through Steam, and it was 20% lower through Steam. I noticed someone above saying that Steam has a policy of different prices in different regions, this is *not* actually true. First, a person who works in the industry - not for Matrix or Slitherine - said that Steam lets you set your own prices, you can put whatever you want, as reasonable or unreasonable as you like, they make recommendations, but they don't actually decide. Second, you can find websites online that compares Steam prices in different countries for different games, and the reality is that they are all over the map. In many cases the differences are minor within a couple percent or less, and there appears to be some deliberate fudging so that in the local currency they come out at X.99 or X.49 (does anyone fall for that? I always just round up). Other cases the prices are noticably lower in some countries than others, and in other cases the prices are noticably higher in those same countries. It does seem to be fairly consistent for a manufacturer though. But there is clearly no Steam wide standard. Which left me wondering why the heck Matrix would set the pricing the way they do? I really couldn't understand it. If however the people deciding the prices in the store and on Steam aren't the same people, that could explain it. As a note, I did a quick online currency conversion for the Turkish Lira to Canadian Dollar, 700 TRY is about $108 CAN, which is about what I paid for the game (after a 10% discount they had at the time). So the price isn't that wacky after currency conversion. Also the price they list isn't strictly the price you will be charged, when I bought the game the price I was charged at the end of Checkout was a few bucks different (lower I think), so the price is still seemingly subject to daily exchange rate fluctuation (which in the case of the Lira, may not be a good thing as it looks to be taking it in the ear right now). Alternately you can wait for it on Steam, but that will probably be about 6 months. The price may be lower then. And as stated, the Lira is kinda getting beat up right now, so perhaps now is just not the time to be making foreign market purchases. I have found it very difficult to find out what Matrix is charging in different countries, so if someone from the US can tell us how this price compares, that may be helpful. 700 TRY = 86.47 USD at the exchange rate at this time (0.12353) Also for interest sake, when I took the 108 CAN and converted it to USD it still came out at $86 and change. So if the price in the US is around $86 (give or take a dollar or two) then it is not deliberate price setting, merely fun with the exchange rate.
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