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Steam launches European beta
Author: Joe MartinPublished: 12th December 2008
Valve has launched a web-based European beta to Steam, throwing the prices into haywire.
The beta is currently only available through the web-based side of Steam, not the Steam program front-end. The site actually picks up where you are in the world and shows you the correct prices.
And the prices are actually quite mental too, though it isn't clear if it's a bug or a deliberate pricing change. UK users can now get substantial savings over the US users, though some prices just don't make any sense at all.
Take BioShock for example, which costs $54.99 in the US (that's around £42.38 when converted). If you buy the same game through the European beta though then you can pick it up for just £13.99. The Complete Civ IV pack offer similar savings, costing $59.99 in the US, but just £26.99 in the UK.
Other prices meanwhile seem broken in a slightly more odd way. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, for example, is currently priced at £13.99, while the very first Grand Theft Auto game costs more than the more recent titles at £16.99.
The good side to this is obviously that these prices, even if they don't last, open up some stunning savings for UK users. Already we've combed through the market and picked out a number of items for ourselves. The bad news though is that if it is just a pricing glitch then it might not last. If you're going to buy something then you'd better do it quickly.
Our favourite deal of the moment is the original and classic Deus Ex, which can be yours for just £5.99. Tell us what crazy prices you can find in the forums.
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A question that I have is how do U.K. people play Valve games if Steam is just now arriving?
I'm looking at the US price as listed on my PC in the UK right now and it says BioShock - $54.99.
ouch.. I got it on sale at Target for $10 USD.. seemed like a good deal to me
steam isnt arriving now, just different pricing for europe and us
before the price was the same in the US and here
this was fine when games were ~$45 on steam, ~£25 in shops and the £ was worth 2$
with the failing pound games on steam were costing ~£15 more than in a shop
clearly valve saw this and realised nobody was gonna use steam at those prices :p
you have to use the proper link, which is why its still beta
http://store.steampowered.com/?localizedcurrency=1
Should do, yes. It runs fine under Vista anyway. Sometimes it just needs a minor .ini fix to tweak the graphics though.
Are you using the right link?
http://store.steampowered.com/
I'll have a look when I get home later too!
That's the UK link
Bought it :D
So I transfer x$ + 20% austrian vat to Valve, they somehow hand it over to the british tax authorities who channel it further to my local Finanzamt. ... Or so they are telling us :D
:-(
It isn't, believe me... I'll post a screenshot up if you want.
Only an idiot will by the origianl GTA game from steam and an even bigger idiot for paying £16.99 when Rockstar offer the game completly free on their own website.
http://www.rockstargames.com/classics/
But you never know, not all people shop around before buying a game these days. :)
But still £16.99 for an ancient game?? I dont remeber paying more than £10 back in the day.
Cheers for an awesome link!
In Poland, GTA 4 (in shop, BOX version) - 140zl ~ 35
Steam isn't perfect ;)
GTA4
uk steam £27
amazon uk £24 + shipping
But the prices that us UK people see in dollars is not the US price. It is the EU price without any conversion applied.
Whatever you are seeing is not necessarily the US price just because it is in dollars. There has been different pricing across different regions on Steam for ages.
It doesn;t matter what link you click to go to the store, you just have to select "Enable European currency Beta" in the top right corner.
how the hell are they converting $ to ?
1 US$ = 0.749 not 1 US$ = 1!!!!
Wow at the instant total over reaction from some people here and especially on RPS.
Some prices Steam offers in my IP, followed by direct conversions to £ and US$ using this site:
CoD5 - 54,99€ - 49,35£ - 73,42US$
FarCry2 - 49,99€ - 44,86£ - 66,74US$
L4D - 49,99€ - 44,86£ - 66,74US$
iFluid - 9,99€ - 8,97£ - 13,34US$
Defense Grid: TA - 19,99€ - 17,94£ - 26,69US$
FM2009 - 44,95€ - 40,34£ - 60,01US$
GTA4 - 49,99€ - 44,86£ - 66,74US$
Fallout3 - 49,99€ - 44,86£ - 66,74US$
Now, where does it say that VAT (in my case 20%) is already included in the price listed?
PS:
I see it now.
Its on the cart chekout screen.
It still fails to respect current legistlation on invoicing and pricing display.
And from a decent while back they've been adding VAT after that stage, so that £42.38 becomes more like £48.74.
I'm glad to see they are finally getting there act together on it, though I'm sure some of the prices will remain daft because they are set by the publisher's policies and not valve.
Some prices Steam offers in my IP, followed by direct conversions to £ and US$ using this site:
CoD5 - 54,99€ - 49,35£ - 73,42US$
FarCry2 - 49,99€ - 44,86£ - 66,74US$
L4D - 49,99€ - 44,86£ - 66,74US$
iFluid - 9,99€ - 8,97£ - 13,34US$
Defense Grid: TA - 19,99€ - 17,94£ - 26,69US$
FM2009 - 44,95€ - 40,34£ - 60,01US$
GTA4 - 49,99€ - 44,86£ - 66,74US$
Fallout3 - 49,99€ - 44,86£ - 66,74US$
Yes. These are the prices I see too....$ to Euro in a 1-1 ratio...
If the prices are going to get competitive then I may have to get credit card just for steam :p
As Doug posted the correct link is http://store.steampowered.com/?localizedcurrency=1
I was thinking about buying CoD4 via steam but at the old price of $59.99 PLUS VAT really put me off, but now it is £29.99 inc VAT so I may just get it after pay day.
10⬠= 13.6$ = 9£
(10Euro is 13.6 Dollar is 9 Pounds)
Wait a sec...
...10 euro is 9 pounds? I've got to go shopping in London!
;-)
Still complaints:
- No prices in NOK (Norwegian Kroner) yet. I only get Euro €
- The Steam store is still hosted on US soil it seems. Very slow servers. I wish they opened up some mirrors in the EU so we don't have to wait so long to open up a page there.
As for incentives to buy on Steam I seldom seen price as one of them. Most retailers undercut Steam all the time due to release discounts and Valve games not being such high profile as the others they can afford setting down the price on the games to attract customers to the store. Don't be foolish. Buy the game where it's the cheapest. Money is everything.
No longer Beta.
Everyone that buys in Euros through Steam will have his/her wallet raped.
Fallout3 - 49,99 at Steam.
Fallout3 - 34,99 at Play.com.
If you're an EU citizen the form you need to fill in is here : http://ec.europa.eu/competition/forms/consumer_form.html
Example of how it's filled out is here : http://img111.imageshack.us/img111/3995/formia1.jpg
EDIT: Please not the example form is from a steam discussion and as impar points out, the result desired is sort of incorrect as Steam can have different prices in US and Eurozone)
Steam can have different prices in USA and EU. What it cant do is block access from non-UK europeans to the UK store.
Goes against the free trade inside the EU.
( http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=770231 )I didn't actually read it (my bad) as I'd already filled out the form. Just thought it was handy to have an example.
The problem is as you say inside the eurozone we are getting different prices. When i filled in the form myself I asked for prices in eurozone (eg UK prices) to be available to all eu citizens in keeping with free trade policies.
Beautiful!
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