People who’ve data mined the latest Steam beta build have discovered something that’s rather pertinent to those of us here at the bottom of Africa. It looks like Steam’s going to officially support the South African Rand – so you’ll be able to buy your games in ZAR. That may not be a good thing.
Here’s the data, as found in Steam’s latest build:
steam
While it does mean you’ll possibly no longer be charged for international currency transactions when you buy from Steam, it’s incredibly likely that this means that digital sales tax we heard so much about is finally hitting the PC gamer’s preferred platform. You’ll very likely have to pay VAT on your Steam games.
It’s might not be all bad. Steam usually has different pricing levels for third world countries; Brazil, Mexico, India and other countries benefit from a lower cost of games on Valve’s digital distribution platform, and it’s possible that we’ll see cheaper games on Steam, bring new PC game releases at least in line with physical, store-bought pricing. I very much doubt it though. The SA game industry still very much relies on the physical product, and I’m certain local distributors will do what they can to keep games at a cost that justifies opting for physical.
I’m honestly okay with that – as long as Valve doesn’t use the same currency converter’s that Sony Europe does when calculating PSN game prices.
Rands Coming To Steam
Originally Posted by Solitude
But yeah chances are slim that game prices will decrease. Games in other third world countries are cheaper though so maybe, just maybe we will be lucky.
