it’s seriously problem in ASIA countries, because there’s no retailer in this countries.
(ex: SEGA’s Sonic series, KONAMI’s Castlevania series)

i understand some of they’re games like FM, PES.

but most of PC games is can’t purchase, regist, even excute own games.

if you’re In ASIA or ASIAN, you can’t play the game even give a price to dollar and already purchase.

they hate asian’s money, and hate asian. like last century’s fascist specters..

Hmm. Very interesting. Most digital distributors don’t actually list region locking, however Nuuvem do, so I have just been extrapolating from their information, and the fact that Gamefly et al weren’t listing it as available to buy outside of the US. Curious indeed.

But I do frequently buy, for example, Steam products via Amazon. A while ago a game I wanted was discounted on Amazon, but not on Steam. I had been waiting on it to be discounted so that it’d match what it would be worth to me. If it had been Steam, I’d have bought it there directly. The fact that it’s a different region never really occurred to me.

What bugs me about this whole scenario is that this makes it very difficult to purchase games elsewhere that redeem on Steam because you can’t be certain that it will redeem properly until after you’ve paid for it.

The thing is, there does appear to be a better solution. Humble Bundle has recently been using the Steam API to redeem keys to your linked Steam automatically, a system that (while it has its own flaws) works very well. Perhaps something similar can be implemented by Steam and used by other webshops to automatically determine whether a product would successfully redeem to your account?

Plus, it will be on the next steam sale for that price so why get your knickers in a twist! 😉

Actually, SEGA released perhaps 2 games on the PC in Japan via DL Site. One being a Puyo Puyo game. But any major release is sorely absent. Capcom, on the other hand do release some of their games on PC and have done for several years. It’s just nigh on impossible to find them as most shops will not stock PC games. It may come as a surprise to learn that Japan is a supported GFWL region and even sold GFWL points specifically branded as the PC versions not the Xbox Live points, but I digress.

Capcom, as I’ve said, have released several games on Steam in Japan, most recently Lost Planet 3 which, along with the recent Biohazard releases, had it’s “Windows” (ie, PC) release advertised on promotional materials displayed in various locations, such as in shops. This is highly rare. Most PC releases that do happen locally in Japan are not advertised by publishers. On the flip side though, Capcom are actively refusing to release several Japanese indie games in Japan despite holding the distribution rights to them for services such as Steam.

So yes, there is PC gaming in Japan. And it is slowly growing. But that growth is intentionally being stunted by the very publishers who should be supporting it. You have to ask yourself, why are they closing off a potential avenue stream like this? This question becomes even more of a conundrum when you realize they are happy to release many of these games internationally with Japanese language support. But not in the country that would benefit from that most.

To be honest I’m not sure you’re examples are quite adequate comparisons. Following human rights and being humanitarian isn’t really the same thing as maximising profits. I don’t think Konami have the price lower in other countries because it’s the humanitarian thing to do.

As for restaurants, they are similar to the games companies with regional price discrimination. I also think that the price of food and drink in cities is too high as it’s focused on making the most money. Rural areas are cheaper because they don’t have much chance of getting customers if they charge a lot.

And your last example is about marketing which isn’t really relevant to price discrimination.

Konami / Urban restaurants / other games companies are setting the prices to make sure they get as much money as possible. They try to see what price they can get away with and if they do then they increase the prices until people stop buying it. I don’t think it’s fair but that’s just capitalism and business in the modern era.

At least bars have a semi-excuse of limited times to do business. Pubs have been closing at an enormous rate because in the boom years we had more disposable income so the prices rose and rose to exploit us, and then when money becomes tight the value of their product drops but they don’t drop the prices. Business slows and they shut down.

It doesn’t cost games companies any more to get the product to different regions so the sole reason for price difference is to charge as much as they can get away with for that region. And the only way a region can try and balance it is to just not buy the product at that price.

Like someone said in a reply before mine, if you think a product is worth the price you paid then that’s fine and it shouldn’t matter about prices elsewhere, but even then we use other games as benchmarks for how much we think a game should cost and if they’re all high then that high price becomes the norm and acceptable. This repeats reaching higher prices until we reach a level where the number of people who can afford the game drops enough that the higher prices is no longer worth it.

£20 (non-pre order) is an okay price for a brand new game from a large company like Konami, but don’t forget that this game is nearly a year old now and I’m sure that number of people who have played it before has influenced the decision to keep the price lower.

Sure it is easier to be annoyed with this sort of thing when you’re one of the ones suffering the most from it, but that doesn’t make it more/less fair if the regions were swapped. At some point it becomes and argument between capitalism and socialism so maybe that influences peoples point of view. I’m sure it’s easy to be capitalist if you’re comfortably solvent financially.

I’m from the North…usually in certain situations Steam Support would need to you’ve ‘moved’ before they can establish that you’re in a certain area for residence, then you can buy certain games and restrictions from the south would be gone for example…if you said you moved to the North.

Also if I took the train to Belfast, would I be able to buy it then and then come home and play it? Not selling in Ireland is just a strange one, as we are the same market as France and Spain and such.

tbh i live in france and 95% of my games are ordered from amazon uk simply because they are at least 50% cheaper as opposed to amazon Fr.
on release day i can find a game on amazon uk for around 37-44 € while here i’ld have to pay the equivalent of 55-70 €, this is just insane.

but im glad i have the option to get my games cheaper elsewhere..

Very insightful comment.

I would just like to also point out that what you pay for a game is what you think it’s worth. Doesn’t matter how much it costs elsewhere, if you feel the amount you’ve paid is justified, there’s no reason to bemoan having paid more than someone else.

Poland $27,18 / 15371 = 0,1768%
Germany $27,18 / 28799 = 0,0943%

Poland and Germany are both in same Steam price region. I think this system is broken.
I would rather pay one, global, even a bit higher price, than look around for options how to get games cheaper from other countries.

– In the UK, 2 million of the poorest households receive discounts or rebates on their fuel bills so they can afford to heat their houses. Everyone else has to pay more, but it’s generally seen as fair.

– Restaurants and pubs tend to be more expensive in affluent cities than in rural areas. Overall, more people can afford to visit them, and the owners make more money.

– Some health companies provide key drugs and vaccines to poorer countries in Africa, or those affected by natural disasters, at a steep discount. They don’t make much money from this, but they save a lot of lives. If they were forced to charge the same prices everywhere then they wouldn’t be able to do this… they’d go bankrupt.

– Entertainment companies launch films and music in different countries at different times, to coincide with marketing campaigns. One Direction did this, launching in the US much later than the UK, but the extra attention paid to the US market has made them worldwide superstars.

In short, it’s a fundamental part of the world economy that companies can choose when to sell their goods, when to launch them, and how much to charge. It’s accepted, it’s staying, and the debate was closed years ago.

Now IF Konami’s game is priced unrealistically, they’ll lose sales. That’s the risk they take. I made a quick check and it’s actually available on Steam in the UK for just £16 – a pretty good price for a pre-release game for a major developer. This website has recommended many similar games at that price in the past. That shouldn’t change because the game happens to be cheaper in Brazil.

And honestly – if a game was cheaper in the UK than elsewhere, would you boycott that?

Wow, this is a superb comment. Thanks!

(All prices in USD as per xe.com exchange rates)

US: $29.99 / 38001 = 0.0789%
Russia: $15.03 / 15286 = 0.0983%
UK: $32.80 / 26904 = 0.1219%
Brazil: $21.05 / 10225 = 0.2059%