Steam store pricing

Bryn

Doubleplusgood
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Oct 29, 2010
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PirateBay.com

:whistling:

Piracy is bad m'kay.

Considering how cheap you can grab PC games for during sales, and how pirated copies seldom receive any updates, it just makes no sense to pirate games.

The user experience provided by GOG Galaxy, Steam etc. s**ts on the janky crap of pirating games. Don't be stingy man - support developers.


*Statements do not apply to EA titles
 

Devviem

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Oct 22, 2008
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Did not read through all of the posts but will it be possible to have for example an US steam account with better prices and then buy stuff there as gifts to your SA account?
 

StoneCold

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Jul 18, 2006
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Did not read through all of the posts but will it be possible to have for example an US steam account with better prices and then buy stuff there as gifts to your SA account?

Yes, you can do it like that. But Steam has been clamping down on cross-region gifting. If you're blocked trying to gift it to your SA account, then simply enable family sharing between your accounts and play it that way ;)
 

cavedog

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Oct 19, 2007
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Yes, you can do it like that. But Steam has been clamping down on cross-region gifting. If you're blocked trying to gift it to your SA account, then simply enable family sharing between your accounts and play it that way ;)

So far this method works the best for me. It even makes russia versions that are region locked region free BUT some versions of the games bought in russia for example only has russian language so watch out for that. Other than that I have yet to find any limitations. My local bank card works fine. It gets charged in Russian Rubles but that currency is so weak so prices are pretty good.

Obviously should be done at own risk.

Create a second account and use russian vpn just to activate russia steam store after that no vpn is ever required again.

Family share is availble to other computers too. So I share with a friend BUT both can't play from the sane library at the same time so there is that limit but still nice.

I have a steam russian account and a US account. Family share on all of them so I just buy the game from which ever is cheaper and it's playable on my main ZA steam account.
 
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StoneCold

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I have a steam russian account and a US account. Family share on all of them so I just buy the game from which ever is cheaper and it's playable on my main ZA steam account.

Same here, works the best :)
 

BeerIsNotGood...

Executive Member
Joined
Aug 27, 2015
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8,605
Piracy is bad m'kay.

Considering how cheap you can grab PC games for during sales, and how pirated copies seldom receive any updates, it just makes no sense to pirate games.

The user experience provided by GOG Galaxy, Steam etc. s**ts on the janky crap of pirating games. Don't be stingy man - support developers.


*Statements do not apply to EA titles

just wait for the sales

Why pay full price when you can get it for half especially if its 75% off only if you're lucky ofcourse :twisted:
 
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Bryn

Doubleplusgood
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Oct 29, 2010
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just wait for the sales

Why pay full price when you can get it for half especially if its 75% off only if you're lucky ofcourse :twisted:

I pre-order a few games every year that I really want to play at release and tend to get insane value out of, like FIFA, GTA, Elder Scrolls, Fallout and Far Cry. CDKeys tends to have the best prices for us.

But most of the time it's nothing urgent and I wait for sales.
 

DanDango

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And they won't run a steam special on it either.I remember never seeing Don Bradman dicounted on any steam sale.

Big ant studios/Tru Blu Entertainment never dicount games on steam sale.
 

cavedog

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Another very recent example of a big price difference between USD and ZAR, with Rand being favourable.

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 - Collector's Edition - $44.99 vs R245

No doubt there is deals better in ZAR than USD but they are usually more expensive. If you really buy a lot of games then you will notice the prices are more. Take 20 or 30 random games on special and not then add them all together and you will most likely find that we paid more in Rand than the total price in USD.
 

-Misfit-

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Dec 9, 2010
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It mostly depends what games you buy from which publishers. If you mostly buy AAA games from Activision or Ubisoft, then yes the price will be more because they set it to be more. Most likely the strategy they follow is that they believe South Africa does not have enough volume for a low price point to make sense, so they charge more to maximize profits.

Other publishers rather take the strategy of lower the price to hopefully attract more buyers.

On your point of adding up a random selections of 20 - 30 games: that is really subjective and dependent on what games you allow to be selected. If, for example, you allow the whole Steam catalog (including all the trash), then it will most likely come out even or lower. If you exclude games with some sort of filter (maybe has had maximum players of 1000+), then again I would argue that you would come out even or possibly lower, simply because it seems most indie companies price there games around there (as could be seen from examples). If you can only select AAA games, then yes most likely you will come out higher.

If I were to add the last 10 games I bought together, I would actually say that i paid either the same or possibly lower, but it's because I don't normally buy games that are from big publishers (mostly because they are normally repetitive sequels), or that I don't buy expensive games until sales, while I will buy a R300 game on release if I want it.
 

HerZeLeiD

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Jul 19, 2007
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I have the exact opposite experience. Majority of the local prices are considerably cheaper than what the UK and US pay.
 

stefan9

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Aug 9, 2006
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It might be category depend. I mostly play crpg's and haven't really noticed it tbh. Most of them come out cheaper then the local priced games for me.

Vampyr : Steam preorder R584 compared to R699 on loot
Kingdomcome deliverance Steam R584 compared to R641 on loot.

I tend to concentrate more on comparing gog and steam pricing since I prefer to get the gog version as no drm if the pricing is close enough.
 

therealgideon

New Member
Joined
Dec 13, 2010
Messages
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What I've been doing lately is buy games on Humble store and activate them on Steam as you get a steam key. On average it's about R100 or so cheaper than the Steam ZAR prices.
 
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