Bring back regional prices

[Degradatus]

When will regional prices return? Prices for the CIS sector have been quadrupled for a long time. Instead of a normal system of collective voting for the player's kick, the developers just twist the prices, thereby cutting off any opportunities for us to develop our regiments and the development of the ru community as a whole.
And most importantly, the developers banal ignore any questions about this, even when you ask them directly when meeting on the server.

On behalf of the Russian-speaking community, I beg, plead and demand at the same time return the regional prices, because otherwise our shelves and the people in them who want to play your game, banal die.

I do not strongly believe that this attempt will lead anywhere, remembering how we suffered a long time to get a password-protected servers, but it's worth a try.

[Partisan]

Developers, it will be more profitable for you to lower the price of the game for the sake of the influx of new players from the CIS. Because for 2000 rubles, no one in their right mind will buy this game. While at a fair price for this region, the influx of players will be greater, and more money will come to you.

[Leifr]

Quoting TrustyJam from the Steam discussion forums earlier in the year.


Yes, that is the unfortunate outcome of some people exploiting regional pricing of regions which they are not part of. We made the call to standardize all regional pricing to match the base price of 29.99 usd as the percentage of players joining the the game and its community from the affected regions was very small indeed (0-2% at most).

[Degradatus]

I've known this answer for a long time, but it doesn't change the situation. We are the same players as others, we want to develop the community and popularize the game in our countries. But we are told "you are nothing in the player base" and they just spit on us. Thank you, developers, for going your "own" way and not following the molds of other studios. We just want to play and represent something. But in the end we're just getting strangled.

[Genrich]

I am one of many Russian-speaking War of Rights players who have spent more than 100 hours on the battlefields. We love this game and we really hope to continue enjoying it in the future. But the pricing policy of developers is killing our Russian-speaking community. Our community unites players from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan and other CIS countries. For our region, the price of War of Rights significantly exceeds the cost of The Witcher 3 and GTA 5 games, and at the same time is comparable to the price of Red Dead Redemption 2 and Cyberpunk 2077. Such a cost scares away new players, because the price of $ 30 is quite large for our countries. Because of this, our community is deprived of the influx of new players who would join us in War of Rights. Indeed, the total number of Russian-speaking players is not as large as the number of English-, French- or German-speaking, but we ask developers to change the approach to price formation in our region to enable our community to develop and have a constant replenishment of new players. Campfire Games say that there are too few of us to influence something significantly, but if the pricing policy does not change, then there will never be more of us and War of Rights fans in Eastern Europe and Central Asia will remain abandoned and will have to leave the game sooner or later due to the inability to play using the language available to them. You know that we all already bought the game before the pricing policy was changed. And we are trying to change this situation in the interests of the entire community in order to increase the number of Russian-speaking fans of War of Rights

[Rauktol]

Quoting TrustyJam from the Steam discussion forums earlier in the year.

It sounds like a cheap excuse, motivated by ignorance or misinterpretation.

First of all, even if there is regional price abuse, of people buying games outside their region is negligible. Because steam's system to prevent this kind of abuse is not easy to circumvent and it is getting better and better. It is not the same as it was five years ago.
Besides, if the initial argument of this price reform is to prevent losses from abusive players, in the end it will provoke the opposite effect. There will simply be much less income from these regions. At the cost of restricting a few of abusers, you prevent a lot of players considering joining the game.

Secondly, it is true that quantitatively the percentage of people joining the game is small. But in terms of quality its a very active and participative part of the community with a strong vocation for historical recreation and less for casual gaming. In this sense, let's not fall into the fallacy of more=better in the contribution to the community.

Last but not least, this policy is ethically questionable and can be interpreted as a form of discrimination that hides behind supposed business decisions.

[TrustyJam]

Last but not least, this policy is ethically questionable and can be interpreted as a form of discrimination that hides behind supposed business decisions.

Hello,

Please continue to provide feedback but do not draw the discrimination card or I will close this thread, thank you.

The price being the same across the globe is the exact opposite of discrimination.

- Trusty

[Rauktol]

Hello,

Please continue to provide feedback but do not draw the discrimination card or I will close this thread, thank you.

The price being the same across the globe is the exact opposite of discrimination.

- Trusty
No, it is not, let me explain it to you with a very clear example, far from the world of entertainment.
If we sell vaccines at the price they are sold in the USA in African countries, who do you think is going to buy them?
The regional pricing policy is designed to take into account different costs of living and incomes. In a way it follows the fair market philosophy, to offer everyone access to different cultural products. It is anti-discriminatory.

In any case, I believe that the developers had no such thinking behind their actions. Forgive me if I offended you.

I would like to hear a response to my two main arguments.

[TrustyJam]

No, it is not, let me explain it to you with a very clear example, far from the world of entertainment.
If we sell vaccines at the price they are sold in the USA in African countries, who do you think is going to buy them?
The regional pricing policy is designed to take into account different costs of living and incomes. In a way it follows the fair market philosophy, to offer everyone access to different cultural products. It is anti-discriminatory.

In any case, I believe that the developers had no such thinking behind their actions. Forgive me if I offended you.

I would like to hear a response to my two main arguments.

There are plenty of people with not enough means to spend 30 USD on entertainment outside of the CIS countries - why should they be discriminated against by setting lower prices in other countries?

I'm used to be paying more than the average american on steam as 60 USD games practically always cost 60 euros - it's effectively the reverse of what CIS countries are experiencing - why should one party pay more than the other for the same product?

The most fair option has to be a global price point. We have valued our game at 30 USD and we do not care if you are an american, a russian, a south african or a dane. The value of the product is set at 30 USD and so this is what we'll sell it for. I realize that other game companies have made it the norm to value their products based on the country of the costumer in an effort to sell it to as many people as possible instead of selling it for what they deem is the right price but that won't be our approach.

- Trusty

[Rauktol]

There are plenty of people with not enough means to spend 30 USD on entertainment outside of the CIS countries - why should they be discriminated against by setting lower prices in other countries?

I'm used to be paying more than the average american on steam as 60 USD games practically always cost 60 euros - it's effectively the reverse of what CIS countries are experiencing - why should one party pay more than the other for the same product?

The most fair option has to be a global price point. We have valued our game at 30 USD and we do not care if you are an american, a russian, a south african or a dane. The value of the product is set at 30 USD and so this is what we'll sell it for. I realize that other game companies have made it the norm to value their products based on the country of the costumer in an effort to sell it to as many people as possible instead of selling it for what they deem is the right price but that won't be our approach.

- Trusty

I understand your reasoning, it has a place to be. I also pay for my games in euro zone. Is not so pronounced, but there is a problem between the correspondence of prices in euros and dollars.
But your argument about why discriminate against many people who also can't afford to pay 30 € in Europe, is not valid, because it refers to another kind of situation.
Note that, I can say that in Russia there are also poor people who can't afford to buy a game of the regional equivalent price. What we are talking about is the average, after all.

We can't solve the problem of access to games for everyone, but we can make a gamer spend the same percentage of his personal or family budget in America, Europe or Russia. And this, in the end, creates a closer community.

[TrustyJam]

We can't solve the problem of access to games for everyone, but we can make a gamer spend the same percentage of his personal or family budget in America, Europe or Russia. And this, in the end, creates a closer community.

I understand your reasoning.

The game is not valued at a certain percentage of a personal income though. It's valued at 30 USD because that is what we think it is worth. Location or wealth of the individual does not enter into it at all which is why we think it the most fair pricing approach.

- Trusty

[Rauktol]

I understand your reasoning.

The game is not valued at a certain percentage of a personal income though. It's valued at 30 USD because that is what we think it is worth. Location or wealth of the individual does not enter into it at all which is why we think it the most fair pricing approach.

- Trusty

Okay, let me give you another approach to my reasoning.

Let's imagine that a person does the same job, which requires the same physical/mental effort in country A and the other person does it in country B.

The person in country A earns 1000 dollars and the person in country B 500. They have invested the same amount of work and yet because of the economic conditions of their country and the cost of living, their salary is different.
Now country A produces a product that it also wants to sell in country B. It is important to mention that a intangible good and does not require the investment of raw materials and physical labor in its production (which would not allow to lower the selling prices much), and can be replicated whenever you want.
However, if we sell it in country B at the price of country A, it will obviously have a limited demand, since few people will be able to afford it. Therefore, the price must be lowered.
It is true, that it costs less in country B, but the proportion of effort in acquiring it, represented by the salary, is the same. Both in country A and country B.

P.S.
Apart from games, an example that we all know is the cinema, which has always applied this approach.

[TrustyJam]

Okay, let me give you another approach to my reasoning.

Let's imagine that a person does the same job, which requires the same physical/mental effort in country A and the other person does it in country B.

The person in country A earns 1000 dollars and the person in country B 500. They have invested the same amount of work and yet because of the economic conditions of their country and the cost of living, their salary is different.
Now country A produces a product that it also wants to sell in country B. It is important to mention that a intangible good and does not require the investment of raw materials and physical labor in its production (which would not allow to lower the selling prices much), and can be replicated whenever you want.
However, if we sell it in country B at the price of country A, it will obviously have a limited demand, since few people will be able to afford it. Therefore, the price must be lowered.
It is true, that it costs less in country B, but the proportion of effort in acquiring it, represented by the salary, is the same. Both in country A and country B.

P.S.
Apart from games, an example that we all know is the cinema, which has always applied this approach.

Again I understand your reasoning. That just doesn't change the fact that we deem our product to be worth 30 USD. Maybe we'd value it lower if we were situated in a country with a lower general income, but we are not.

- Trusty

[Rauktol]

Again I understand your reasoning. That just doesn't change the fact that we deem our product to be worth 30 USD. Maybe we'd value it lower if we were situated in a country with a lower general income, but we are not.

- Trusty

Okay, I see that you are very convinced of your position. I guess it's a matter of principles. I would understand it better if it were so from the beginning, but now I don't understand very well what has made you change your position.

[War Reaper]

Quoting TrustyJam from the Steam discussion forums earlier in the year.

I mean that does sound like some good points.