>https://www.engadget.com/valve-fails-to-get-out-of-paying-its-eu-geo-blocking-fine-122053595.html
>Valve has failed to convince a court that it didn't infringe EU law by geo-blocking activation keys, according to a new ruling. The company argued that, based on copyright law, publishers had the right to charge different prices for games in different countries. However, the EU General Court confirmed that its geo-blocking actions "infringed EU competition law"and that copyright law didn't apply.
>The original charges centered around activation keys. The commission said Valve and five publishers (Bandai Namco, Capcom, Focus Home, Koch Media and ZeniMax) agreed to use geo-blocking so that activation keys sold in some countries — like Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary and Latvia — would not work in other member states. That would prevent someone in, say, Germany buying a cheaper key in Latvia, where prices are lower. However, doing so violates the EU's Digital Single Market rules, which enforces an open market across the EU.
>The five developers were given a reduced fine of €7.8 million (over $9.4 million at the time) for cooperating, but Valve decided to fight and faced the full €1.6 million, or more than $1.9 million penalty.
OH NO NO NO VALVE BTFO
Based, get fricked Volvo.
This just means that games will get more expensive for poles and Bulgarians lmao.
But I'm too angry at the evil corporations to care about unintended consequences.
poles are already paying as much as krauts
That's not what it means.
Also, Bulgarians/Romanians already use the default EU prices.
That's prettymuch exactly what it means. It's not going to lead to lower prices for people in the full price rate countries, its going to lead to people in the lower rate countries paying full price.
>EU fricks over the poor countries
No shit
how you moron
By removing the regional pricing that was specifically there so that prices aren't as exorbitant for thirdies, Valve did a lot of market research and tuned prices for maximum profit but now that will be gone for the EU and you'll be forced to pay full prices.
think about it moron
>Biting off their nose to spite their face.
and that just means they will pirate more
>so that prices aren't as exorbitant for thirdies
>tuned prices
lol
lmao
>posts a game where the publisher specifically increased Valve's regional suggestions by 50-160%
https://steamdb.info/sub/614726/
>by 50-160%
and what good even are the suggested prices if they can just ignore them in the first place?
facts are simple - shit's expensive, and god I wish I were a firstie
The end result will be that ALL new games will be sold for 400 Polish Urinal Cakes.
This isn't a win for thirdies, this is the EU kvetching about being denied higher taxes.
we in Czechia have the same prices as everyone else anyway and we pay in EUR too
Bulgarians and Romanians already pay the same prices as Krauts, Dutch and French. This has always been a thing since I have been on Steam (2010).
Both userbases have been very vocal to adding local currency support and regional pricing for years, but Gabe ignores it. Guess the market's not big enough in countries with tens of millions.
Dunno about Polish.
Implying we actually pay for games
>This just means that games will get more expensive for pole
If only
We've been getting the full EU euro price since forever, there's no regional discount for us
>regional pricing
>more expensive
brain damage
All regional prices are cheaper than the US except for a few countries, it's based on purchasing power but fluctuating exchange rates can make it a bit outdated.
https://steamdb.info/sub/134870/
>poles get regional pricing, but it's actually a surcharge
Goodbay cheap prices for euro poorgays.
Poles, say thanks to krauts, lol.
Good thing I'm not any of those things. Not my problem as they.
This frick you gaben the piece of shit for blocking my eroges.
if porn games were removed from your store it is because of your country's laws
Blocked by valve moron and many are forced to be censored.
...Because of your countries laws, bro. Valve don't give af as long as it gets rated and wont get them sued at some point. Is there somewhere else that you're legally buying your eroges from? Or are you pirating it?
>get fricked
This just means they won't give keys out for third party sites anymore. You buy the key from steam directly.
>$1.9 million penalty
That's it? lmao they make over $55 million PER MONTH with CSGO cases alone... this doesn't hurt them at all
It's more to get them to change. You can't just take the hit and keep doing the same thing, EU judges will frick you up for that.
>It's more to get them to change. You can't just take the hit and keep doing the same thing, EU judges will frick you up for that.
This is exactly what corporations do. $1.9M, even $9.4M, is nothing to their bottom line. It's probably less than they made forcing people to buy keys from their countries.
That's what corpos do in the US, not the EU where if you don't comply you'll get fricked into the dirt. Apple has USB-C for a reason now.
yes we saw how the eu fricked those evil corpos into the ground who wanted to inject us with heartexploding israelitejuice. oh wait
anon going through vax argument withdrawals: just like the vax, right?
>no you cant bring a good example because... YOU JUST CANT
>no you have to argue with me about irrelevant, irreverent bullshit because YOU JUST DO, OK
you must be an american. no one else here is that dumb
it just shows that valve doesn't belong in the club
>Apple has USB-C for a reason now.
Yeah, at 2.0 speeds unless you pay over $1000 fricking dollars. You shitheads never plan your heckin epic swipes at corporations well, leaving gratuitous room for malicious compliance (especially in giving them a moronic amount of years to comply). Apple are also gonna pull some true Black personisraelite shit with the recent mandate for replaceable batteries.
Apple being petty catty b***hes about their own bespoke connector not being legal in the EU anymore isn't relevant to them being forced to adopt USB-C
It's especially not relevant when Lightning is also USB 2.0,so the difference is you don't need a bespoke cable now
>EU where if you don't comply you'll get fricked into the dirt
kek euroshits are honestly so fricking pathetic and they don't even know it
noooo corporations shouldn't follow rules that's cringe that's soi that's unbased
corporations are bad, but they depend on you buying shit from them to run
the EU is a completely unelected overruling government on top of your country's government that just steals money from your country and can enforce whatever it wants on you
sorry that apple bent the knee anon
>EU bootlicks coping this hard
>randomly crying about russia and nato
alright ivan i'm demoralized now, i will dismantle the eu and NATO because they harmed my favorite corporation
>nato is a pisstreaty
is USB-C an actual open implementable standard or do I need to join some USB Alliance consortium and pay up just to get a giant pile of unimplementable standards and possibly negotiate a bunch of patent licenses on top of that? I never looked into it. I remember dealing with SDHC and seethed so hard I just bought some basic b***h SDHC <-> SPI chip instead because frick SD cards and their israeli tricks.
According to EU laws, it will rise exponentially, until they'll be forced to pay millions PER DAY.
It's a slap on the wrist telling them to fix it before they actually get fined.
>theirscam gets them over $55 million
if only someone arrested fat frick child gambling gabe
>negligent, lazy millennial parents cause their kid to develop a gambling addiction because they shoved their kid in front of a computer as much as possible to avoid having to interact with them as much as possible.
>be a moron
>buy crates for csgo
>develope gambling addiction
>NOOOO ITS GABENS FAULT
moron
>be a child
>casino invites you in
>"the first loot crate is on me buddy" papa Gabe said
>noooo, that's the child's fault!!!
Epic win for Epic Games!
oh no 1.9 million
its over
these fines literally exist to let the rich do whatever they want
Yep. They create the illusion that the government is working for the people when the truth is anything but.
I already knew how fricked we were, but when they let the Sackler family walk with no jail time it really underscored just how over it really is
If I rob a gas station for $1,000 they will throw me in jail for years. The Sacklers literally lied, cheated, bribed, and murdered their way into billions of dollars from getting people hooked on Oxycotin, admitted it, got found out in court, and theri punishment was to pay a fine for less than the amount of money they made destoring millions of families.
What a fricking joke.
Based EU, sticking it to big tech again
>The only consumer friendly video game company out of a sea of shit companies trying nickle and dime you at every second with microtransactions, GAAS,
>While other big tech companies frick us all up with unregulated social media addiction which is debasing whole societies yet EU doesn't give a shit
Gamers deserve all the shit done to them
What is CS, dota, TF2
>>The only consumer friendly video game company
Gaben the israelite is anything but. Stop excusing their extreme greed just because there are more rapacious vultures looming.
>epicjeet seething over the fact people like that valve doesn't actively frick over its own customers
>you don't like israelitelve? you must be an shitpic shill!
have a nice day D&C shill.
>you like valve because it doesn't try frick you over at every turn?! YOU MUST BE A DRONE
poo in the loo, not in the street
>it doesn't try frick you over at every turn
can you at least make more believable lies?
>ties all your games to an account
>region-lock and geoblocking
>can't lend games to friends. if someone is playing a game via family sharing, launching another game kicks them out
>marketplace and all the israelitery that followed
>etc.
it doesn't matter that there are bigger, worse israelites than them; stop excusing israelitery.
seethe tenncent shill
>abloo bloo bloo why can't I give this digital game to people
>the valve drone calling everyone else the shill
Absolutely zero self-awareness and he does it for free.
>arguing for more rights makes you a chink shill
wew, lad.
>NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUH ROIGHTS
family sharing? if you care so much about sharing games with your friends thats how you do it
you skipped over
>>can't lend games to friends. if someone is playing a game via family sharing, launching another game kicks them out
you moron digital apologist wienersucker.
seethe, you obviously don't give a shit about your friends
>you obviously don't give a shit about your friends
>has no argument, relegated to spewing insults
you hate to see it.
>The only consumer friendly video game company
>While other big tech companies frick us all up with unregulated social media addiction which is debasing whole societies
There are morons that actually think like this.
>epic btfo by valve
>valve btfo by euros
every pc store deserves to get btfo
Based. Corporate rights should never supersede nation's rights. Frick mutts and frick their plutocratic globohomo.
>EU
>Caring about nation’s rights
Tell that to Italy right now.
EU is trying to become a nation so in a very twisted way it does care about a nation's (its own) rights. Trying to erase the independence of its member states like how United States federal government did in the past is just the process of it becoming an European superstate.
And to any kraut reading this post: stop celebrating it, it's a bad thing.
?????
Why the FRICK should a country with a weaker economy and lower standard of living be forced to pay the same amount as its first world neighbors? Fricking hello? I don't want the prices of shit that I buy be priced the same as the overpriced nonsense a kraut pays just because EU are tech illiterate morons that can't get a handle on digital goods and regional pricing.
God I despise these cucks so much. They don't even fricking do anything because the amerimutts got the military covered.
EU gave you Steam refunds.
That was Australia
australia has no international power, and you can literally look it up when EU courts sued valve for exactly that.
No. The Australian case was about Valve lying to consumers about their right to have a properly functioning product.
The typical non-conformance clauses in consumer rights legislation that the EU and UK also have.
The Steam refund policy came to be as a substitute for the EU right of withdrawal.
The lobby for digital media distribution fought to have a waiver embedded in the EU legislation, because otherwise the right of withdrawal and its 14-day no-questions-asked returns would jeopardize their income model.
The EU looked at that and saw the merit in doing so to help them sustain their business, but at the same time warned that it was not meant to cheat consumers out of their legal rights and that companies should put into place their own commercial policies that honor as much as possible the spirit of the legal right of withdrawal - or at any one of the next recurrent review dates of the legislation, the EU would amend it to *remove* the waiver option again.
That threat came predominantly from the Germans and the French who were none too coy and made it adamantly clear that they would absolutely seek to assrape the industry over it, were they to abuse the leeway given.
And as Valve already had had quite a few run-ins with them over consumer rights issues before, they decided to play best-boy for once and put into place their substitute refund policy.
That was the aussies you fricking Black person. All the EU ever did for my poor ass country was give it false platitudes that went nowhere and an ever encroaching globohomosexual influence on our local politics.
That was Australia.
We EU citizens deserve two-week refunds without a time limit.
>EU gave you Steam refunds.
Nah, that was the supreme shitposting Aussies. That one country has dealt more blows to Valve than any other, their consumer law people go after Valve on an almost yearly basis and consistently win, I can only imagine Gabe feels the same as moot about them.
No more flash sales (85%-95% off on new games), thanks to these c**ts.
>EU gave you Steam refunds.
Australia did. And Australia is suing them again because the refund policy isn't good enough.
Fricking love Aussies.
>not good enough
>you have two weeks of a game sitting in your library and 2 hours of play time to decide if you want to keep a game, often you can refund even past the stated limits
let me guess the moronic aussies got flooded with emails from indieslop devs seething people refunded their hour long walking sims?
why do you wanna play with third worlders so much
Why the frick should you latvians get your own Zambian-tier pricings while us lithuanians have to pay western european premium for the same games?
Because being Latvian is punishment enough.
You're not special dude you're just another village of Baltija
This. Frick you guys, you will pay as much as us
T. Lithuanian
>Why the FRICK should a country with a weaker economy and lower standard of living be forced to pay the same amount as its first world neighbors
because of this
Are you implying that those poor countries give the money they receive to their citizens?
>look at how much we're paying to the EU
>just ignore how the EU legislations are all made with us as the main beneficiaries while the guys at the bottom lose
>please only look at how much we're contributing to the budget
>not pictured: money eventually flowing back to the economies on top
Well, where is it poleBlack folk?
Fun fact: calculate it pro capita and you'll notice just how much the Netherlands is getting fricking shafted by France and Germany.
>muh economy
Fun fact: almost everyone in Germany RENTS
almost everyone in Greece OWNS house/apartment
That's thanks to speculation and high salaries, in greece a house costs pennies compared to a similar one in germany, to put an example, here in spain, I live in a 4500 population town and have a 120m2 house, it costed me less than 100k€, the same kind of home in germany would probably cost over 300k, so the rich people in germany just buy a lot of houses and live off of renting them.
On another note, here in the cities prices are more or less the same as germany but the salaries are less than half of germany's.
>pennies
bs
>A 1 million dollar house in the US is 200k in greece
That's what I was referring to as pennies
>people in greece make the same as in US
no
No-one in Greece 'owns a house.'
Owning a property implies you pay property taxes.
But in Greece, as long as you don't put a roof on your 'house' and finish the building, then you don't pay taxes-- because technically it's still under construction and is not a finished property you own.
Doesn't stop you from actually living there though; and Greek government will happily even give it a formal postal address.
Greek laws and government are fricking mentally moronic.
Never heard of this and never seen an "unfinished property" where someone lives
>Ireland is the richest member of the EU
>Barely contributes anything.
How do they get away with it?
They just whine that the last time someone tried to get them to do something, the result was The Famine. You wouldn't want to be responsible for millions of Irish dying again would you?
Because their whole economy is a sham. It's easy to get a high GDP by just having some big multinational corporations set up their HQs there. However, none of that wealth is actually usable by the state or the people.
European Union it's in the fricking name. One currency, one economy. That's the goal.
>One currency, one economy
God if it was only just that.
video games are luxury products. Just because you are poor doesnt mean you should get them for cheaper
Why the frick should I pay the same price for a Ferrari than someone from a stronger country?
I want my Ferrari for 100 pesos
now
>the same amount as its first world neighbors
lol
there are some games where with current different pricing the poorer countries have to pay more
>349zł
Do people really
There has to be a point where you just acknowledge shit has no right to be this expensive. I swear we've effectively made no progress for 30 years in terms of the number of games your average wagie can afford per month.
legit games used to cost 200pln when salary was 1000
yeah everyone pirated then
Back when the salary was 1k most were about a 100.
Welcome to the EU, enjoy your stay.
That's the price of being in the EU. No one is forcing countries to join it
>I want to leech from the EU, I don't want to contribute
I think I know why your shithole is so poor!
>I want to leech from the EU, I don't want to contribute
And they're based for doing that, hope they continue and bankrupt france and germany.
>how dare you want to leech from the fattest leech on the planet!?!?!?!
Based Germananon putting the conquered territories in their place.
Remember to force them to accept more muslim ~~*refugees*~~ as well, they hate it.
This is not the fault of the EU, but of the publishers.
They saw cross-border sales as a threat to their income model; they got told they weren't allowed to block it, so they maintain the same A+ price point everywhere.
If the natives of the weaker economies then can't afford it anymore; tough. Apparently doesn't weigh up to the loss of income that would occur when the rich regions would buy from the poor regions.
This is not a problem with the actual legislation, because it offers ample other *legal* options to deter cross-border sales.
Such as simply offering different SKUs with different language options. Frenchies and Germans aren't going to be buying an exclusively Latvian SKU.
Could even turn a pretty penny from that, by disallowing purchase of a conflicting SKU after buying the out-of-region one (since they're essentially different versions of the same base product) but offering an 'international version' upgrade DLC next to it. Which, when you add it up, of course comes out eeee---ver so slightly more expensive than just having bought the proper regional SKU. (Additional logistics and administrative costs, naturally. ::cough, cough, wink, wink, nudge, nudge::)
Another option: while you can't block the cross-border *purchase* - it's actually perfectly legal to stop the cross-border *use*.
When you purchase a license on Steam, it's a digital *service* where Valve holds a license in your name and makes it available to you for use.
If a service is bought out-of-region, you don't have to offer it abroad. You can limit the area where you offer it to the native region from where it was bought.
I.e. "That's a nice and cheap Latvian license you bought there, sport. Now, please emigrate to Latvia and show proof of domicile so you can use it."
>EU specifically fines a company for specifically setting up regional market prices
>it's not the EU's fault!
holy shit why are euros such massive bootlickers? have some self-awareness
>more region locking
yaaaassssssssss
and people said Sonys 3 tier region lock system was bad, lmao
Remember that every pirated copy is a lost sale according to gayme publishers, their logic is so moronic.
don't mind me, just pirating your girlfriend for an hour
virtual goods don't deteriorate you lame moron
there is bit rot, dumb frick
Joke's on you, I don't have one :^)
You can't make a digital copy of a real-world goods.
Unreal Engine says differently
>just copying your girlfriend
>putting it into Unreal Engine
>and making a porn game
>don't mind me lmao
That's not the same as raping someone, which was the original insinuation.
copy girlfriend
make realistic doll of girlfriend
rape her
>no damage done
(rape her in public, for her to see)
>offering different SKUs with different language options. Frenchies and Germans aren't going to be buying an exclusively Latvian SKU
Only absolute fricking morons would buy non major language localizations.
>Why the FRICK should a country with a weaker economy and lower standard of living be forced to pay the same amount as its first world neighbors?
It's how the free market works. Don't like it? Fix your country.
>muh activation keys
Didn't this set the price baseline to be equal across the EU and frick the poors? kek
Yep, the posters in this thread are unpaid epic shills so they don't have the IQ to actually understand the situation.
the eu is pretty based
>forced apple to use usb-c
>forcing google/apple & co to open up their ecosysteems to competition, whether it's their app stores or browsers or whatever
>thinking about forcing smartphone manufacturers to have a minimum amount of years for security updates and being able to uninstall their shitty bloatware
except this one actually hurts the end consumer unless the anti-apple and google shit
regional prices were introduced to help poorer regions and not to hurt competition or whatever the frick
generally they should profit from being able to purchase keys somewhere cheaper
i'm guessing pricing should come down in some regions and rise in others making it more fair overall, but this mainly affects valve anyway so who cares besides morons that mainly use steam instead of purchasing keys from cheaper shops in different countries
>the eu is pretty based
fricking moronic idiot. the eu is the biggest piece of power grabbing pan-national shit heap ever constructed. and the ones running it are fricking morons. just looks at ursula
the eu is the mortal enemy of all evropian nations and evropian people. but it gave you le ebbin refunds
EU is literally Soros empire.
>but it strengthened the consumers rights
yes? you probably won't believe it but most people don't enjoy getting fricked in the ass by mega corps
guess what, you can have consumer rights without the eu. there is something called the sovereign nation state that can like do stuff on its own territory
Then how come basically none of these supposedly mighty sovereign nation states ever bother to take consumer protection laws as seriously as the EU does?
Because EU starts throwing fits when you engage in a slightest bit of protectionism. Why do you think Ukrainian grain is such an issue in Poland but not in Germany?
That's nothing to do with consumer protection law you spastic.
you are painfully uninformed and probably a israeli eu shill
The EU is pretty based by letting a bunch of BBCs enter illegally into your countries and allowing them to rape and kill all your women too without any penalties
Friendly reminder goats are made for bbc
>$1.9m
>Easily gained hundreds of millions more as a result of doing it.
EU is wrong on this one. It's either they pay market rate or selling to them is negative money.
Good. Frick region locking and anyone who supports it
but this is not about region locking
it's just EU trying to force Valve to kill all their sales to poor countries outside of the EU
>no more turdies shitting up my games
based.
these countries will just return to 99% piracy instead of 50%
this is not good for the pc market as a whole since consoles will keep offering good regional prices
>cucksoles
>good regional prices
last I checked vidya are still $60/$70 for hispanics on all cucksoles.
Epic already offers better regional prices than steam does here, if nothing else it will make it even more appealing for thirdies at large.
Wouldn't Epic have to comply with the same regulations that Valve does?
only if they get sued
timmy must be doing better bribes than gaben
yes, but don't tell the chinkpic shills.
GIGA based!
here is the price in Bulgaria
there never was cheap games in any EU countries, stop spreading misinformation
This only affects the EU and in practice it will lead to frickall since "Europe" is already one blanket steam key region, the article is completely wrong about the regions.
>This only affects the EU
Wrong.
This affect ALL regional pricing.
It does not, the EU has no business controlling an american company and cannot dictate what happens outside its borders, none of their previous hissy fits were global and this certainly will not.
All this means is that they'll remove regional discounts from EU countries, enjoy the higher prices lol.
I love how fricking moronic europoors are to where they celebrate this but frick themselves over
go suck corporations wiener more
less sales on Steam aka less bucks for fat frick Gabe
me: yasssss
>2 mil
oh noes! whatever will they do?
they make more in a day.
>oh noes! whatever will they do?
Change it you moron.
>get a speeding fine equivalent to a couple of hours work
>nOooOOo what will I do the fines are literally useless!!!!!!
And then you keep doing it and get fricked by a judge.
>now the poor countries have to pay 80€ for the latest slop instead of getting prices they can afford
Wow, big win for everyone living in the EU
>piracy rate goes up 1000%
the difference in price is legal
preventing an account in a country using a digital key from another country is the illegal part.
cool, so I should be able to buy keys from poland, japan, afghanistan, uruguay, and the congo without being in any of those countries.
>rich EU bureaucrats making poor people's lives harder while pretending to help
Wow, never seen this happen before
Frick the poor
Great, now even those countries will have to pay 60$ for new games. You're making this up to be like valve is being btfo but in this case they were offering cheaper prices in poorer countries in eu, but since eu has some dumb price parity bullshit everyone has to pay the same. So now eastern european shitholes have to pay the same as countries that have 3x their gdp. This is worse for the consumer in every way and you're all lapping it up cause a corporation had to pay a fine.
> You're making this up to be like valve is being btfo but in this case they were offering cheaper prices in poorer countries in eu, but since eu has some dumb price parity bullshit everyone has to pay the same. So now eastern european shitholes have to pay the same as countries that have 3x their gdp. This is worse for the consumer in every way and you're all lapping it up cause a corporation had to pay a fine.
I'm a consumer and it's not worse for me because it keeps the stinky moronic eastern euros away from my vidya.
>Great, now even those countries will have to pay 60$ for new games.
They already had to. Valve already stopped segmenting different pricing regions for the EUR currency back in 2015, well before the original verdict in this case even came to be. Let alone this final one, after all the options for appeal are exhausted.
Based. I'm in Ireland and can fly over to other EU countries and buy physical games there no problem so why not the same for digital?
>haha I’ll just waste money on a plane ticket to get games 10 quid cheaper
I’m Estonian and you are moronic
No I would never do that. I was just saying whats the difference between physical and digital?
Can't wait to see this thread hit bump limit due to the loyalists seething about this. It's like they have a personal stake in the company or something.
>EU
And thats when everyone important stopped caring.
So now games in Greece cost as much as in Germany where the average person earns 3 times as much?
yeh, but we BTFO Valve so its cool!
Yes. Pay your debts.
learn to read, this is about geo-blocking keys
price doesn't have anything to do with it (other than valve's interest in preventing richer countries from buying poorer countries keys)
>price doesn't have anything to do with it
If companies can't geo lock then they will raise the prices for poorgays.
Maybe Greece should pay its fricking bills.
Every country should refuse to pay their made up debts as the money that was loaned literally didn't exist in the first place but the money that gets repaid does.
That's why everything gets more and more expensive and taxes increase, everyone is repaying loans of imaginary money with real money, privately owned "national" banks lend more money than they have available and charge interest when, all while they turn the printers on and off to increase the interest rates.
Things will just keep getting worse until this system we're trapped in implodes.
I feel sorry for poorer countries. This shit is moronic without an EU minimum wage of 16.-/h
They always costed the same dumbass. Why is this site full of morons?
hmm then whats the converted price in steamdb huh?
moron
Thirdies are going to get blown the frick out by Denuvo locked games. Might actually be a big boost for Xbox because a Series S is going to start looking like a lucrative way to play games for thirdies between the GPU prices and individual game prices.
Guarenteed that if they change something instead of allowing cheaper keys they will just frick over people living in Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary and Latvia by increasing prices and removing region lock.
does the EU exist just to tax corporations over stupid laws they made up now or something?
They make good consumer protection laws occasionally but for every good law, they make 10 Orwellian nightmares
Always did.
>taxing corporations
>stupid
All corporations must fricking hang.
rude
>Valve did a lot of market research
Lol it's the devs/publishers deciding that
steam gives you guidelines and suggestions what your pricing should look like based on the full price you want to set
Too bad whoever set those guidelines decided Poland is better off than goddamn USA, 9 times out of 10 it's cheaper to get a game in dollars than zlotys nowadays for some wienerfricking reason.
No, regional prices are decided by Valve but publishers can manually override the default suggestions on a per game basis, jap publishers for example are notorious for being moronic and scummy and removing regional prices.
valve shows the best possible price for each region, you can change that manually
also this
which is why in my poorgay region bethesda always charges the maximum possible price while other just sell their games for pennies.
Noooooo give corpo freedom to butt frick consumers. All gacha should be M rated next like australia is going to do. If pokemon is forced to remove imaginary gambling then real gambling like gacha should be considered gambling.
>rated M
This reminds me that PEGI is by far the best system because it doesn't have a dedicated "adult" category, if your game is 18+ it's already the maximum rating
So yeah, porn games are justly rated the same as shit like GTA
The way I see it, every game with in-game purchases should automatically be an 18+ adults only game like GTA
All they will do is just charge the poor countries the same price as richer countries like Germany. They will raise price in Estonia to 60 or 70 Euro.
That's the problem with this sentence
Therr should be a law added that says something like
>all products that are sold across different countries must consider the different standards of living and economies of different countries
>therefore all products sold across nation must have a regional price calculated for the various economies based on the gdp per capita of the countries
And yeah this shouldn't just apply to videogames
We were already paying full price in Estonia, what are you talking about?
It's Russians and others outside of the EU in this thread spreading lies because they don't want to pay as much as the poorest countries in the EU.
VOLVO
daily lies.
daily cheating.
daily selling cheats to player and let cheaters do what they want.
daily shitting on people.
daily scuming people of money.
daily scuming developer of money
It wouldn't be Volvo with that fat frick prick running it.
Why is Valve charging an unified price for all US states when the difference between richest and poorest is 2x in GDP per capita? Are they required by law?
Region locking individual states sounds like a legal and technical nightmare.
>want to join an UNION
>NOOOOOO WHY ARE YOU ENFORCING AN UNION NOOOOOOOOOOO
Filthy stinky gibs seeking Eastern Euros btfo
The EU is based on a faulty assumption that the poor shitter states can converge with the richer ones. It's inhumane.
Then why did they FRICKING JOIN?
>join us and you'll grow
Not how joining works.
Because it's free money for their government?
And all their poors no longer need visas to work and live abroad
Literally no downside as long as germoney is paying for everything and you aren't actually expected to do anything except allow gays and rapefugees
>Literally no downside
For about 15 years until the EU decides it's time for you to get your shit together and then it's NooOooO the EU is litschurally the fourth reich reeeee
>think of the poor megacorps!!!1!
Frick off
Define "get your shit together". LGBTQAI+ propaganda and mandated quotas of Black folk in public schools?
>LGBTQAI+ propaganda and mandated quotas of Black folk in public schools?
Pasiklausk savo vaikų ką juos mokina "gyvenimo įgūdžių" pamokose debile tu.
Krijg kanker en sterf, kankerpool.
>ex commies are moronic
no way could've told them to kill themselves and they would
>dumbfrick dutchie half of whose country is somalian and whose kids will end up chopping their dicks off denies reality, seethes profusely when called out
It's all too predictable.
Tricked into joining with false promises
>tricked
>hey uhh, you need to work toward the Copenhagen criteria to even be able to join, then we expect you to work towards THE FRICKING UNION
>shitty ex soviet states work towards these fricking criteria for decades and join
>RRRRRRREEEEEEE YOU TRICKED US
lol
Where in the Copenhagen criteria does it say it is mandatory for the entire population of my country to be replaced by Black folk?
i think you should stop being antisemtic and know your place GOY
We're talking about video games, try to keep up.
Where does the Copenhagen criteria mention video games?
>about to have a referendum on joining the EU
>globohomo-corrupted media puts talking heads on TV telling people how EU will change everything for the better
>unsurprisingly media campaign paid off and morons fell for it
You WILL destroy your domestic industry based on what EU deems acceptable, bigot.
Why do the majority of American blacks live in cities?
the EU was created because of a french "citizen vote", except that the citizens all voted NO and the their gov't still forced it with a constitutional law (famous 49.3) to make the citizen vote useless, then they went in for the free gibs, greece was the only one with enough brain to join in while in full debt, the country is still in debt btw and it can never be payed no matter what, too bad it wasn't enough to kill the EU
>except that the citizens all voted NO and the their gov't still forced it
Nothing has changed.
>payed
What the frick does any of this have to do with sailing and seafaring
>Join a union under X conditions
>Union institutions give themselves the right to do Y, Z, W and V
>y u heff 2 b mad
You are always free to leave, look at the bri'ish
That's mafia behaviour. You sign one thing, then once you're in you're told they can do whatever they want with you. And yes, you can "leave" a mafia too. Who needs such a union?
Most countries that had national referendums voted NO but they were forced to join the EU anyway because governments don't give a shit, it wasn't a choice.
>Most countries that had national referendums voted NO but they were forced to join the EU anyway
Oh look someone being full of shit on Ganker. Never happens.
I mean EU was first based on freedom of physical market, which was a good thing, then it has become this pile of shit benefitting no one.
Don't worry, it's going to get even worse once the EU switches to majority voting instead of unanimous so they can accept the remaining eastern meme countries like serbia and ukraine into the union
HAHAHAHAHA GET FRICKED YOU GOD DAMN moronS
ALL YOU c**tS WERE LAUGHING AT US IN TURKEY FOR WAY TOO LONG
TIME TO GET DRAGGED BY THE BALLS BY THE EU LMAOOOOO
ER(DOG)AN SENDS HIS REGARDS
>we totally don't want to join the EU guise it's not because you didn't let us in or anything
If you are Turk can you tell me why are steam gift cards so expensive?
They were 1/2 of the current price in April.
I used to buy those and just avoid israelite tax.
What do they need the poor parts of EU for? Do they make food or something? Like why isn't EU just Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Ireland and England? Those are the main countries I think of when I think of Europe.
it's mostly a scheme to drain as much money out of germany and france as possible
they justify it with telling people that it is the opposite of being nazis
it allows the rich and connected to drain money
it's easier to drain more money when the overall pool is larger
little shitty countries want to join because they get tired of being bullied by their neighbors
More poor countries in the EU = more Eurozone candidates
More poor countries in Eurozone = lower Euro exchange rate
Lower Euro exchange rate = boost to German exports at the expense of fricking over all the poor countries' exports
The aim of bringing them into the Union is to grow the Union into a bigger economical power block capable of competing with the US and China.
The subsidiation is just a fat fish dangled for them to ask to join; but before they can join they have to pass all kinds of reforms to their legislation; get rid of corruption and corrupt officials siphoning public funds; etc.
It used to be a gradual process, but was forced to accelerate with China consolidating power in Africa and with Putin at the helm of Russia playing his hand and revealing his thirst to reunite the old eastern block. But mainly the reason candidate members are getting ass-rammed with inspections and are having their full membership and benefits delayed is Greece.
Greece actively; knowingly; and consciously; cooked the books and lied about the state of their treasury and economy for years on end and are the root cause of the major European financial crisis in the 2010s.
The EU was designed to let unelected German bureaucrats LARP as the supreme leaders of Europe to prevent another one of their trademark spergouts starting yet another inter-european war. France got stuck playing tard wrangler because they where the least helpful ally in WW2.
Who cares bout fricking court and business shit where are the games?
>cheaper key in Latvia
but we already have same prices as western yurop counries.
Based EU
Not that I bought it, but they set Starfield's price at 86$ in Poland
Why do we, a 3rd world poor country have to pay more than westerners?
They want you to pirate it just to drive up the install base so they have something to brag about in the next shareholder meeting
Because Bethesda is moronic, they set regional prices massively higher across the board.
https://steamdb.info/sub/614726/
We used to have cheap gaymes on the PC but then steam came along and now we have to pay more than 90% of countries.
Can't make that shit up.
steam games were cheap years ago. but at some point they got back to turboisraelite prices
So does this mean if I were to publish a game on steam, I would be forced to sell my cames cheaper in poor countries?
no
you wouldn't be able to region lock sales so people might be able to get the game cheaper than intended if they know how but nothing is stopping you from setting up regional price differences
you'd still get plenty of sales at the higher prices from people who don't do any research on how to get cheaper shit
Doesn't make sense to pay as much as Germans who earn at least 3x of what I do. But prices here are already the same, so this might be intended for bigger shitholes than mine. I only buy from key shops if it's <20€ or pirate anyway.
Valve is corrupt and backed by BLACKROCK and US democrats.
They got out of being sued billions by Australia for having no refund system and the judge cucked and walked back on doing a full audit on Valve to fine them billions.
EU did the exact same shit, israelites are Valve's best friends.
care to explain how blackrock benefits from thirdies underpaying for video games?
>thirdies underpaying for video games
What are you talking about?
>valve: poor countries should pay less, we region locked activation keys from those countries to get big name publishers to agree
>eu: no you can't do that, everyone should pay the expensive price
Read the fricking thread or at least the OP, holy shit
It's hilarious that the only ones that genuinely care about consumers are the ones getting fricked over by publishers and bureaucrats.
>Valve: this is how we can maximize profit from each region
>how blackrock benefits
That's how. More shekels for Gabe, more shekels for Blackrock. Gabe literally couldn't care less about anything but shekels.
Exposes them to woke AAA titles, which they wouldn't otherwise be able to afford.
checkmate atheist
is corrupt and backed by BLACKROCK and US democrats.
Since Valve is private, how does that work? moronic schizo
>Regional pricing helps poorer countries not having to use 50% of their monthly income to buy one game
>Universal prices means everyone pays the top dosh
Wack.
Anyway, EU wants to be one big empire in all but name. israelites want the erasure of anything unique the countries it is composed of posses. While bringing this up might seem neither here or there to bring up, regional differences in price work against this, so they sue.
Universal prices means you pay Israel and Australian prices which can be anywhere from 20-40% more.
we can all be best friends when we pay the same price.
Or maybe companies should allow smart people to buy wherever they want.
They can set regional prices, but they can't block you from buying and using games from there if you want.
Buying smart ain't what the game is about, it's about companies getting $$$, and countries getting even more $$$ via taxes. Being able to pay less for a product is something neither want to see, so now nobody gets cheaper shit.
If you can now use keys from anywhere, every key will be the overpriced.
They won't have regional prices if the prices aren't regional to begin with, everyone in the EU will be paying full price now thanks to your supranational bureaucracy.
lol lmao even
Not a single company will allow that to happen, they will just enforce uniform prices across the whole union and call it a day.
The only problem the EU had with Valve is isolating the poor countries from the rest of the world. Valve could keep regional pricing but think of the money
Give me one good reason why we should let Germany spearhead things when these idiots fumbled their economy and energy infrastructure so hard they had to even bend the knee to Russia?
And what the frick is EU even doing? Oh right. Letting daddy America do the brunt of the work because people here would rather dump money on redtape mired social services instead of defense. All the while letting immigration policies go fricking full moron.
Why spend our money on defense if the US is happy to pay it for us?
>All the while letting immigration policies go fricking full moron.
Unlike the shit currently going on in the US? Lel
>Give me one good reason why we should let Germany spearhead things when these idiots fumbled their economy and energy infrastructure so hard they had to even bend the knee to Russia?
you have a couple things mixed up here bucko
yassss heckin based EU slay
>don't ask a mutt where "Natural Red 4" comes from
Cochineal scale insects.
Aka lice.
Enjoy your strawberry yoghurt.
HAHAHAHAHAHA GET FRICKED FIRSTOIDS
ok but when is cs2 being published for everyone
17 minutes
congrats germoids
you just guaranteed slavs and balts get to pay full price now
RIP key resellers I guess
Gaben will just pull out his massive wad and hand over a (fat) stack of dosh.
Don't buy a game with DRM
'Cause you don't know what you got 'til it's gone...
He Gabe up life, and shat out a chrome UI!
(OOOH *BOP-BOP-BOP*)
>hey, how about we sell cheaper in these poorer countries, we still get something instead of nothing and poor people get to play games
>NOOOOOO HANS, JOHN AND FRANCOIS WON'T BE ABLE TO BUY THE CHEAPER STUFF INTENDED FOR POOR PEOPLE!!! BAN THIS SHITTTT!!
The irony about all of this is that those poorer countries will now turn to piracy instead of shelling out any cash for video games. Fricking great plan, EU, geniuses all over. Or was the plan to wall of the "poor people" from enjoying the entertainment of the "superior" countries? Who paid for these idiots to go after valve for trying to actually fix piracy?
Don't worry, you'll see articles about these irresponsible and lazy Eastern Euros breaking the law and stealing videogames while their deeply undemocratic and authoritarian regimes do nothing to curb this flagrant violation of EU values.
Just don't be in eu lol. It will only apply to countries in it, so all the post soviet stans, hues, slavs etc still get shit cheap.
EU: *Censor games for us*
Also EU: *Stop blocking our citizens from acessing banned games*
>oh shit we're completely irrelevant, how do we heat up our economy?!
>uuh make our games more expensive?
EU decline more like germoney decline
UK is also gone, lul.
The decline is predominantly because the EU absorbed a lot of weaker economies into it over time.
If you were to actually measure GDP growth over all member states over time, you'd see a trend line that is going up.
>There are lies; damned lies; and statistics
applies.
Valve significantly reduced piracy rates in poor countries by offering games at affordable prices, simultaneously boosting profits for game publishers and the EU is angry.
LMAO. Europoors are such low IQ morons. No wonder they're losing to America badly.
>Europoors are such low IQ morons. No wonder they're losing to America badly.
Current exchange rates are at 1 EUR : 1,05 USD
After rebounding from the Corona-stop, the overall EU economy and its coin is doing better than the US again.
The only ones getting BTFO are Steam users because Valve's just gonna pick price of the most expensive region and make everywhere else just as expensive. If anything Valve will be the ones winning.
Valve doesn't pick the prices you fricking idiot. Are you 12 years old?
Valve specifically set the whole regional system and decides the default suggested prices every year based on purchasing power research which are almost all lower than the base USD price. How are people even unaware of this?
emphasis on suggested. anyone selling on steam can set whatever price they damn well please
that's why there's $200 bible games
Valve has a model that sets prices for each region to maximize profits.
valve makes suggestions and recommendations
that's not the same as valve saying "you must do X"
Valve enables developers to set regional prices. It's on the developers to actually enable those regional prices (or roll out their own). This has led to situations where some developers sell their games dirt cheap in some countries, while in others they don't.
Tell that to Square israelitenix, those frick set the full price for all their shit in my region while others often do a -60%
Valve is a storefront, not a publisher you fricking cretin. Do you think Mr. Ebay sets the prices when you shop on ebay too?
Educate yourself before posting.
https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/pricing#5
Valve does set regional pricing suggestions and goes great lengths to tell you that this is the right idea, the prices are automatically set in the UI but you're are allowed to manually override it.
>suggestions
Fricking moron.
>Gabe: I think you guys need to set prices to this and that
>everyone and their dogs: yes, my master
>Valve dindu nuffin
moron. Even Epic exclusive indie shit follow Gabe pricing. Developer may price however they want but vast majority of developers follow whatever Gabe say.
Steam has its own statistical model that sets regional pricing if publishers enable it you dumb Black.
ebay doesnt take a 30% publisher fee
Paypal charges the frick out of people with fees constantly
eBay takes something like 13.30% + $0.30, and that's not counting the often exorbitant sales taxes and shipping costs.
>le sales taxes
not ebay's sales taxes
>le shipping
lmao
Jesus christ, can we just nuke Germany? They've been nothing but trouble for a very long time now
Never underestimate a German's ability to correct you on absolutely everything.
Based EU trying to revive the eastern euro pirating scene by making publishers try to extort 1 gorillion zloty (60€) from boris
The only ones getting fricked are the small countries because they won't get cheap games anymore
>Valve do something good and give the turd world EU states cheaper games
>Gets fricked for it
>Now turd world EU states have to pay more for games
LMAO
you will take the refugees
you will pay full price for your games
you will sodomize each other
you will remember the holocaust
you will reject Christ
Valve will probably appeal this, but if you look its not actually Valve who put this into place, its the 5 companies who insist on this shit. Valve's fine is small compared to the others (their "full" fine is 1.6M euro, where as the attenuated one for the publishers is 7.8M euro).
Valve will probably point to this shit the next time some publisher demands they geo-block key aggressively and stamps their feet threatening to leave if Valve doesn't do as they demand. THis will only get worse in the future if Ukraine, Finland and others are officially added to the EU as parto f the single market, but its not Valve that really stands to lose anything - its the greedy publishers who can't stand the idea of people buying keys for a pittance from one EU market and activating them elsewhere. Valve can continue to sell in all those areas as they should, its just the mega publisher tantrums that they'll be able to say "Hey, its not up to me you frickwads. I went along with your bullshit in the past and had pay a fine because of it." to the next time they threaten Valve with leaving Steam over this shit.
Indies usually let the default prices there but bigger publishers pretty much always set it to 50-200%+ higher than suggested because they're greedy fricks and don't understand that this only decreases their reach on third world countries, now it will only get even more common with the EU being moronic and fricking over the poor as usual.
How will the EU issue frick over the poor here? Won't if anything it give benefits to the poorer countries because people from richer EU countries will buy keys from the poorer ones in some cases? Sure, the average normalgay in Germany isn't going to take the time and will just buy the higher German priced local key, but if anons and other enthusiasts they can go to LatvianGameKeysDotNet and get a discount key activated in Germany without a lot of fricking around with VPNs or alternate Steam accounts or whatever? The Latvians can still get their cheaper keys AND they can sell them to others outside their borders?
The only way this wouldn't work is if the corpos are really that assed about a relative handful of peoples getting cheap keys from latvia that they insist everyone pay German prices , which would make no sense in terms of their sales overall, but greedy corpo logic doesn['t exactly follow.
Latvians won't have cheaper keys anymore since the EU is forcing Steam to remove regional locking, the entire EU will be paying one EU price which is usually very close to USD.
But they're talking about activation key geoblocking - that keys from Slovakia can't be activated in France , Germany or Spain etc. I didn't se anything about them saying "you can only charge one price across the entire EU", but rather "you can't stop goods from one part of the EU from being available to another member state", its about having a single common market, not a single price.
If I'm correct most of those geoblocking setups were not within the same economic area like the EU, it was mostly like buying some ultra cheap key from Russia or whatever. Also it had to do with games being managed in different regions or censored differently (WoW in China isn't being run directly by Blizz, its another company who also censored the undead skeletal bodies among other stuff for instance).
This is all limited to the EU and their single market, so it isn't like they can't keepactual abuses from happening or whatever or make sure that the BRBRBRBR and cyka bylat are kept to their holding pens. Its all an intra-EU specific issue and the abuses aren't typically resultant from that.
If they can't geoblock then they can't regionally price, there's no reality where publishers will be a-ok with cheaper unblocked keys.
>there's no reality where publishers will be a-ok with cheaper unblocked keys
That's their prerogative and the consumer should rightfully blame them for it.
This is where corporate asslicking comes in, i.e. you.
Tell me how the extra bureaucracy forcing thirdies to pay more is going to benefit you.
It's not forcing anyone to pay more, that's on the corpos.
It was on the corpos to set cheaper prices for thirdies and the EU didn't like that. How do you think you're being benefitted here?
They can still set cheaper prices for thirdies, nobody is stopping them beyond their own greed. Next to nobody is going to take advantage of this via VPN or travel into Poland or whatever to get a 20% discount on a video game. There's no advantage for the publishers to frick over the thirdies, but they'll do it anyway because they're moronic. That's why you should blame them and not the law being enforced.
>How do you think you're being benefitted here?
Nothing changes for me either way, but the law is the law. You're acting like a dumb Black person wondering why it's illegal to steal a TV from a store because it's a "victimless crime".
>nobody is stopping them beyond their own greed
The EU is stopping them since they did in fact have regional prices before the EU stepped in.
The EU isn't banning regional pricing, they're forcing Valve to allow customers to take advantage of regional pricing. How are you this dense?
They can't take advantage of regional pricing if the EU is stopping them from setting up regions, how are you this dense?
They're not stopping them from setting up regions, they're just forcing them to allow someone from region A to travel into region B, buy a game and then traveling back to region A to enjoy their game.
>the store owner is the one that decide the price he want to sell his goods at
Of course, and they're entitled to do so.
>if a publisher say that now everyone in europe pay the same price then all prices will change accordingly
Yes, and that will be on the publisher. EU isn't forcing them to do anything. Sounds to me like you're just excusing corporate greed.
You can already travel/use a VPN to buy cheaper regional games, wtf are you talking about clueless moron? This is completely different from the current case, in fact you won't be able to buy cheaper local games within the EU thanks to their decision, it's the opposite of what you're trying to pretend it is.
Is it really that hard to read?
>Sounds to me like you're just excusing corporate greed.
lel, you are doing it buddy, if the law included that the prices of good must take in account the way of living in each region then it would be fair, but right now it's not, this law will litteraly frick us on the long term and not just for video games
>they're forcing Valve to allow customers to take advantage of regional pricing. How are you this dense?
you forgot one thing in your big plan moron, the store owner is the one that decide the price he want to sell his goods at, not the fricking EU.
so if a publisher say that now everyone in europe pay the same price then all prices will change accordingly, and you know damn well everyone will do that, including the "based" indie devs who have already done it not long ago
Euro prices were already the same on Steam regardless of each country's purchasing power but now the EU is further enforcing it even in the countries outside the euroBlack personzone while a few delusional bootlickers think this is an epic win for their bureaucrats lol.
>law
words written by corrupt people
>its your fault you aren't heckin shaming the corporinos
>now let the mega-government stomp on your face
As if the US government isn't a billion times more authoritarian than the EU.
>US government isn't a billion times more authoritarian than the EU.
he speaks the truth. there is a lot of evil in the US americ**ts take for granted.
The publishers will have to be or they'll have to give up all the sales in those lower cost capable countries (which aside from raw cash, is also a metric for their investors when it comes publishers - oh our game sold X million etc). Note that this ONLY affects geoblocking within EU flagged keys - it doesn't mean that some German guy can buy a key from Tajikistan for like $1 , nor that that a NA player can buy a cheap Slovakian key or something. This is all within the EU which has laws on trade and a single economic area and it only applies within that.
It doesn't mean that German Steam or TotallyNotNaziKeysDotCom can't sell "full priced" keys for their region, it just means they can't stop Germans who go to SlovakianGameKeysAndBigbreastsDotOrg from activating and playing their key in Germany. The amount of people who do that stuff is relatively limited to autists and, if all the shit about zoomers seems to be true, its even less than oldgays. The alternative is either pricing everything at stupidly high prices and getting almost no local sales at all.
This makes no fricking sense unless you're just licking the boot of megacorp publishers, its not a serious concern about TEH STOLEN PROFITS (meanwhile crying out as they push shitty monetization strategies in many games) because some tiny percentage of keys sold to autists may not be the absolute maximum price because of regional differences.
sounds like REGION LOCKING
>The only way this wouldn't work is if the corpos are really that assed about a relative handful of peoples getting cheap keys from latvia that they insist everyone pay German prices
That is exactly what will happen and you are delusional if you think otherwise.
You might think that, but Steam implemented geoblocking just to prevent this sort of abuse. There have been enough cases where these key resellers have been rampant enough, that publishers have had to step in and increase regional prices.
No, you don't understand! The corporations are our friends! They can't be held accountable for anything or the entire universe is going to die!
The corporation you're talking about is the one that developed the regional pricing for thirdies to begin with, your precious EU is now removing it lol.
No, they're not removing it. They will only make it possible for people in rich countries to get it cheaper in a different country. If Valve and the publishers decide to frick over the thirdies by raising prices across the board, that's on them. (And that would be stupid anyway, since it's not like even 10% of the playerbase will know or care about this.)
Wait, you mean I can load up tons of cheap keys right now and sell at almost full price later because for sure all publishers will just standardize the price?
Sounds like a good plan lmao
It's very unlikely that existing keys will be retroactively unblocked
I'm not sure they'll standardize the price, either. They'll lose far more money by doing that then just letting some fraction of technically adept German gamers buy the damn Latvian key for 30% less or whatever.
Geoblocking is the only reason why some publishers are ok with regional pricing to begin with, a lot of them already ignored it but now it's guaranteed that all of them will.
>How will the EU issue frick over the poor here?
Because the choice they forced Valve to make is obvious
>charge the poor countries triple the price you used to
>let key resellers steal your profits forever
>but if you look its not actually Valve who put this into place, its the 5 companies who insist on this shit.
Look at the actual court case documents.
It was Valve's own product managers who actively reached out to those 5 publishers and advised them that the Steam platform had the ability to geo-segment pricing and enforce it via geo-locking/-fencing.
get fricked ukraine
Ah, so the EU like their leftist American commies don't realize that their 'equity' carrot chasing will then result in fricking over the poor and middle class of those nations.
Valve will just then raise prices in the "cheaper" countries in order to deter the gays who buy cheap keys to resell - it will only punish yet those who live in those countries with weaker Euro spending power/GDP.
Sure, lefties, take this as a W. Sure.
>Valve will just then raise prices in the "cheaper" countries
Are valve even the ones setting the prices? Im pretty sure the only thing valve did was adding the geolocking (which was probably even requested by the publishers)
Valve sets their own suggested prices based on local purchasing power and market research, they even wrote articles trying to tell publishers that this is more profitable and fair but a lot of them are moronic anyway and override the suggestions.
Valve made the system, and gives some rough guidelines or suggestions for what to charge in each region. However, it's on the developers/publishers to actually choose and set the specific market prices. Some follow Steam's guides along, some don't, some might even specifically jack up prices in certain regions to prevent key reseller abuse.
No, publisher set the prices but why would they sell their game for $15 when the target price is $80 as long as anyone can buy the cheap version instead
>Valve tries to make their product affordable for poor countries with shit economies
>homosexual key resellers abuse their good will to make money
>Valve includes feature into their product to prevent this
>homosexual globalist government sue them so they either HAVE to charge poor countries more money or they let key resellers steal their profits forever
Remember that all the "evils" of capitalism are usually just the government's fault
Too bad. Many don't see this cuz the anti-valve shills (paid by EPIC, Sony, and so) are everywhere and spewing more lies.
>Valve stop allowing third-party key resellers
Problem solved.
Blocking access from importing cheap products seems illegal to me and anti consumer.
With things like this and the ban of cheaper agrarian products, the EU is constantly fricking over the poorer people lately
tell europe to suck a dick
Europe is such a commie shithole.
great now devs will just price games the same in all countries, despite average wages varying as much as 10x across those countries, thanks EU!
The absolute state of EU.
They probably made way more money off of offering those discounts, so they don't care.
Valve needs to get fricked even harder, they sell services, not games, in many cases.
If I can't run a single player game I purchased without opening steam, I don't own the game.
europoors are lucky Americans even let you buy from our virtual store. inb4 troon rage
That's an empty threat. The entire point of the US is to sell shit to other countries. Your economy would collapse otherwise.
The EU is a tiny market and these measures will make it even tinier.
I cropped out the numbers by mistake.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/steam-users-by-country
>didn't combine the EU
I can see why americans need to import smart people to keep things running.
worthless metric
third worlders only play f2p shit, millions of them doesnt mean millions of potential customers
>take number
>split into little numbers
>it's smaller, see
medium-sized oof
Then do it you pussy. (You won't)
Your own meme pseudo-republic is already isolating itself, it doesn't need more help with that.
Based moron.
EU has more steam users than US even by your own admission.
Humor me, what's stopping Valve from abolishing the cdkey model altogether, thus forcing all sales through their store?
Obviously such move would lead to less shekels for Gabe otherwise he would do this long time ago.
REALLY YOU FRICKING homosexualS YOU FINE THEM 10 MILLION DOLLASR ON THE DAY CS2 RELEASES YOUR GOING TO FRICK IT ALL UP FRICK OFF FRICK EUROPE FRICK ALL YOU b***hES
good? geolocking is israeli fake market segmentation bullshit.
if shitworlders can't pay up, then I should get the same price they get.
/thread
There's no world where I should be paying 800% of what some Argentinean is paying
>but Valve decided to fight and faced the full €1.6 million, or more than $1.9 million penalty.
lol that's literally nothing to valve
they make a lot more than that in a day
they can just keep eating those fines and never change anything
laws are made to protect corporations, not people
>$1.9mil penalty
lmao valve pisses that much first thing in the morning. valve could buy the entire EU if they felt like it. this kind of eurocope is so fricking pathetic, honestly.
could buy the entire EU if they felt like it
>implying they didn't
>implying this isn't just them samegayging for shit and giggle
the fervor with which americans lick boots itt is astounding to me
They love their corporate masters. Trained from birth, the mindworms are hard to resist.
Imagine going to a supermarket
now the supermarket wants to see your passport
>let's see, you are an American, you will get American high prices
>let's see, you are Agentinian, you will get very low prices
Sounds fair.
Oh wait, someone would bash the head of the owner of that supermarket
>you live in country X
>that means you must be rich
>you live in country Y
>that means you must be poor
Only a moronic frick like Gabe could have dreamt something like that up.
> what is big mac index
i want third worlders to suffer too, but you are just being stupid
>EU will now force poorer countries to pay more for games for no reason
But remember brexit was a bad thing guys, the EU can do no wrong 🙂
Does the EU do anything but parasitically fine companies for doing business with them? Can Europe actually home grow anything or does it need the rest of the world to to do for them?
>break law
>get fined
NOOOO THIS IS LITERALLY 1984
>make up asinine laws after the fact
>collect fines
I have to admit, it's a pretty nice racket.
>UMM IT APPEARS YOU VIOLATED SECTION 3 - 1 MARK 5287 WHERE IS SAYS YOU CAN'T SPRANGLE WHENYOU DANGLE THAT WILL BE 28 MILLIONS DOLLARS THANK YOU
>deliver cheaper prices to thirdies
>get fined and are forced to stop
>YAAAAAS
Customer executes globalism on Steam
Valve: BANNED, this is not allowed!!!
valve will continue its monopoly business as normal and reddit chungus buddies will still consume its slop.
nothing to see here
Serious question, how are you as an EU citizen being benefitted from this? No mental gymnastics.
They're not there's a reason why brexit won and the UK left, being in the EU is a detriment.
>no replies
People benefit from the concept of the single market. You can freely buy and sell goods between the countries, and a local monopoly cannot interfere with that. Imagine that living in the US, you couldn't order goods from a vendor in another state or you could not receive customer support for goods bought in another state.
>one entity has the final say on what constitutes an economic region with everyone forced to comply with this one ruling and this is not a monopoly somehow
You need to work on your own reading comprehension and understanding of how regional keys and purchases work on Steam because EU's ruling is leading to the exact opposite effect of what you think it is.
Benefit?
We aren't properly represented in that fricking pony show there. All sorts of randos get elected for those seats and most of the population has no idea who they are and what they are up to. This is mostly due to the EU voting system where you don't get a voter ballot with clearly distinct options to pick from and you only get to vote down the party line or write in your independent candidates. And they absolutely abuse this by advocating for all sorts of wild agendas that don't follow along a cohesive political block of interest of any kind. Even inside of their parties the EU MPs are usually the wild cards, because they are somewhat recognisable names locally so they look good on a voting ballot, but they are also usually the undesirables ones to the local leaderships for one reason or another.
>The EU wins a hard-fought battle to harm its own members!
Wow! Uh... t-thanks?
Why does Tim pay poos to try and defame Valve on social media instead of just paying them to make his store less shit?
>Epic Games controls the EU
Steamies on suicide watch
>the EU is making all these anti-Steam threads
Pajeet
>you can't make threads about lawsuits against my beloved Valve
This is an anti-EU thread, not anti-Steam. Only EU citizens are the ones getting fricked over by this.
If you care about making use of regional prices you would just be using an argentine VPN, no EU country is the cheapest.
it's anti-EU as well as anti-Steam
region locking should not exist
I'll keep enjoying my cheaper games thanks to thirdie prices while you EU bootlickers get fricked.
keep subscribing, Steamie
I love my turkish Account combined with family share.
Revolut and FUPS is the key in Europe
Last time I checked Revolut was blocked from adding funds to my turk $team account.
>FUPS
I will give that a try.
You should change your money into Turkish Lira and than to fups
I have set TL as steam currency already, but getting account topped is another thing.
I just bought steam cards via key resellers in the past but right now they went over 100% up in price.
>only shitty 1.9m fine
kek they abused literally system and got away with it they gladly pay up 2m
absolutely pathetic
They still have to comply with the ruling.
Also, get fricked newbie.
OH NO
THEY HAVE TO
COMPLY WITH LE
RULING
OH NO WHAT WILL THEY DO NOW?????????????????????
fricking moron Black person
>average redditor
>average israelite
Ameribros... the europoors are bullying our millionaire companies again...
>EU Law
>forced to take in millions of migrants per year in your european country
>Internet censorship and forbidden to criticize the EU oligarchs
>Give billions for LGBT and woke anti-police propaganda
>catholic countries fined for being too catholic
>give billions to the rabbis and nazis in ukraine every year
>give billion to pfizer for their toxic product that does nothing (Oh BTW Ursula Von Dre Leyen and her husband are heavily compromised with pfizer)
>destroy europe for the benefit of the american deep states and israel
Alright ruskiebro, I'll keep that in mind. Try to avoid the next draft.
>People calling Valve paying 1.9 Million USD as a unironic win
That's like $5 for a rich corporation like Valve.
>OH NO NO NO VALVE BTFO
Valve has more money than god. They could pay a 50 billion dollar fine and still have more money than god, and all of their customers won't give a shit. i don't think you understand just how much people are essentially sheep that can talk.
And now those countries have to pay the same amount of money Germany does. Bravo, what a win for consumers.
>Hungary
i'm from hungary. I've never seen a steam game being offered cheaper than in other EU countries, we always pay full price.
pic related, looked up a capcom game specifically to make sure.
I'm there too and I only ever see huge discounts.
what? show me one game that sells cheaper in you view it from a hungarian account than another EU one
I didn't compare them, I just always get a discount every time I buy some shitty indie game.
But right now Cyberpunk is -40% off or me.
You said "always", that was my only point.
i meant we always pay full euro price, never gotten any regional discount. cyberpunk is discounted everywhere right now, not a regional thing
Well I'm sure Valve isn't getting sued over something that's not happening or else they would've pointed that out already.
>1.9 mil
Spare change
I personally approve all trolling the EU does to US companies. It's the only fun thing about this continent.
Why can't Europe make any competitive companies and just litigates like a butthurt woman?
these threads are funny because nobody understands business or what any of this really means, they're just going to shit themselves over valve losing regardless of the anon in question supporting or not supporting valve
>ok mr smart guy so what does it REALLY mean?
it means that the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary and Latvia are going to continue pirating video games
I just want Valve to implement a proper age verification system so I can see all the porn games again.
Is that too much to ask for?
can I get cheap Turkey key?
Google buy Turkish Account
Fups
>want to give chronic poorgays cheaper prices
>no, says the EU
Good job morons.
>HELP HELP A PERSON IS NOT WHITE THEY WILL RAPE ALL THE WOMEN HELP HE AUSTRIAN MAN
Meds.
Doesn't that just mean I can buy my games cheap as frick again?
Nowhere does it say they're gonna apply the same prices across the board, since people in poorer regions won't be able to afford games anymore.
Not being allowed to set up regional prices means no more regional prices, it's that simple. They already didn't have regional prices within the eurozone but this is now expanding to the non-euro EU countries.
Isn't this case just about geo-blocking activation keys?
Region locking keys is a predicate to regional pricing, if they can't be blocked then they aren't regional to begin with and will be part of the one Eurozone region.
Love the EU. It's the only thing fricking corporations in the ass.
>we're giving people in poorer countries cheaper prices adjusted to their economy
>NOOO YOU CAN'T DO THAT
>okay fine, everyone pays 1st world country prices and the poor can go frick themselves
>YES ANOTHER WIN FOR THE CONSUMERS THANKS EUROPE
And this also increases piracy in those poor countries and publishers might even end up earning less. So no winners here.
go shill somehwere else, i am from the poorest EU country and Valve does not give us any discounts so go frick yourself
What's the poorest EU country? I have friends from turkey and they used to get games cheap like I could give them 5e gift card and they get lots of games with that. But now they've been increasing in price to unacceptable levels because of these laws.
>I have friends from turkey
Not in the EU.
There is no fluctuations. We pay full price in Euros even tho we don't even have Euros as our official currency. Valve are greedy assgays and their shills should kys.
What country are you even talking about moron? Non-euro countries have their own prices.
no. everyone in the EU except the poles pay in euros. but only like 17 member countries use the euro out of 27.
>Non-euro countries have their own prices.
No, they don't. All EU countries pay the same even those that don't have the Euro currency in. I don't expect dumb Amerilards to understand.
Stop posting, dumbass.
Eй пeдepac ти eбa тъпaтa кpaтyнa. Имaм Cтиим твopeн в мoмeнтa.
Switzerland and Norway are not members of the EU.
So the EU is handing Valve a fine for something that they didn't actually do?
Feels great, hopefully they fine them more. Valve is cancer.
i think the article author is just full moronic tbh. just look at regional pricing on steamdb and none of the mentioned countries get regional discounts at all. MAYBE poles did but even that's doubious. they most likely got fined for some entirely different thing that has nothing to do with the author's imagination
For something that they actually *did* do; but stopped doing a while back.
This was actually Valve's original defense in court: that they shouldn't be found guilty for breaking the law, because they had already stopped breaking it before they were brought to court over it.
Luckily for everyone, that's not how the law works.
This EU market law is so moronic. Like just think for a second. In somewhere like Turkey their currency is in shambles so if they pay 60 euros for a game that's like half of their monthly pay. And ~~*EU*~~ wants that to happen.....
Turkey is not EU.
>it's the beginning of the end of regional pricing
TURDIES ON SUICIDE WATCH
>EU mandates that products should cost the same across the union
>It does not mandate that people should be payed the same wage
Explain that, eurocucks
>EU mandates that products should cost the same across the union
it doesn't. it just says that a company can't discriminate you based on location within the EU and not sell you the version of the product made for X country because you live in Y. it's literally only about region lock (it's another thing that in practice this results in same price for digital goods)
Buying real estate in my country costs too much. I can buy so much cheaper from greece and turkey. Why doesn't EU help me out here?
Are you moronic? It's literally the same. If a company can't discriminate based on location, then it has to charge everyone the same price. How can you defend this shit?
>If a company can't discriminate based on location, then it has to charge everyone the same price
this should apply globally.
unless valve can appeal and revert this it will apply globally
It isn't the same.
A company is allowed to sell a product cheap in region A and expensive in region B. That's perfectly legal and even encouraged.
It just is not allowed to prevent people from region B to then buy that product in region A at the cheap pricing.
What *is* allowed is for the trader to refuse to ship the product from region A to region B in case of a physical product; or refusing to service it on site in case of defects. And in case of services - including digital services - it is allowed for the trader to refuse to offer performance of the service anywhere but its original intended region A.
The whole region-locking problem here is that Valve was geo-blocking the activation of *externally purchased* keys.
At that point they are *not* the trader and they don't get to set those rules.
Why is Valve so anti-consumer?
they are controlled by a fat frick
>Bandai Namco, Capcom, Focus Home, Koch Media and ZeniMax
I'm surprised Take2 didn't get in on it.
>all the Stam shills lying out of their ass right now
I guess Gabe paid up a pajeet company to try and generate public outrage, thing is i am from the EU and old enough and Valve have never had discounts for us, GOG had a system where they gave us back a portion of the money but that was before Epic dropped
Eurozone countries always had their own prices but it never fluctuates much compared to USD outside like 5% up or down, what this change does is frick over the poorer non-euro EU countries, essentially expanding the eurozone within Steam.
>$1.9 million
They made this back off cs go items in 5 minutes.
Wait. Eastern Europeans actually buy games? I thought anything past the Oder was pirate-land
Russians are by far the biggest steam users per capita, I'm not sure by revenue but they do engage a lot with stuff like the steam market.
Russia is not part of the EU.
The EU is not Europe.
this decision is for the whole world not just EU
if steam allows argies to pay less for games they are going to get fricked with fines
Than this is even better, frick RussBlack folk and everyone else, if i have to pay 70 euros in my poor country so shall you, get fricked.
>this whole thread is filled with Russians crying about having to pay as much as the poorest country in the EU
Cry me a river. You big bad strong Russia, right. You have the money. No get fricked.
P.S. CЛABA УКPAЙHA!
Nothing that the EU does is enforced in other countries, EU users have their own UI on Steam for some things and at this pace they might as well have their own China-style walled garden Steam ecosystem. Don't overestimate the reach of your shithole lol.
>Nothing that the EU does is enforced in other countries
If steam wants to keep being available in the EU they have no choice but enforce this worldwide.
>It does not, the EU has no business controlling an american company and cannot dictate what happens outside its borders
see above
>Epic already offers better regional prices
last time I checked this wasn't true
not that it would matter since people barely even use epic for free games
Haven't russians been blocked for using any payment method on steam for a year now?
>Haven't russians been blocked for using any payment method on steam for a year now?
Nope. Greedy Gaben needs all the money he can get.
Payments from Russian processors are blocked on Steam. But payment via non Russian processors are not. Though 90% of game publishers blocked sales in steam for Russia. But. You can activate non Russian steam keys and send game gifts to Russian accounts.
>Haven't russians been blocked for using any payment method on steam for a year now?
Its piss easy to circumvent because Belarus and Kazakhstan are not.
You still pay at least 10-15% more in general because currency exchange fees. Epic on the other hand still accepts local payment processors and somehow have cheaper prices on average, except for deliberate trolling.
I pay zero fees with local payment processors and there's not a single game that is cheaper on Epic than Steam for me.
I don't know about Russia but I'm surprised you guys even have payment processors considering how much israeli bankers tried to sabotage your country.
>join one economic bloc specifically designed to consolidate power and leech from the poorer members
>clap when that bloc fricks you over
I'll never understand
>and that copyright law didn't apply.
Most based thing any court of law could possibly say in any case under any circumstances
The EU is a bankrupt corrupt bureaucracy and they survive by fleecing wealthy American companies. This is nothing new
>euros are so poor their entire economy is based around fining foreign companies
and fricking with third worlders
this is won't make any real difference for steam but it's going to destroy regional pricing
No it's not, the original case is some moronic technicality that didn't even include any countries with different regional prices already, it's just clueless boomer bureaucrats being moronic as usual and it only applies within the EU.
yes it is
this ruling means they can no longer due regional blocking for keys without getting fined
so either they kill regional pricing entirely for actual poor countries or everybody is going to buy their keys from argentina
>they can no longer do*
fricking autocorrect
Within in the EU, which already mostly has the same price except for a few non-eurozone countries and the stipulations of the fine already specify that it's only wihin EU countries. The world does not care about what the EU does within the EU, get that through your thick skull.
>Within in the EU
wrong
the decision forbids regional blocking of keys entirely not just within the EU
Post where it says that.
in the ruling
there is nothing in there at all that suggest that it applies only to EU members
you're confusing what sparked this thing with the actual ruling
The "ruling" was done years ago and yes it was only about the EU1 and EU2 split, moron.
It used to be cheaper until the EU stepped in and disallowed them from offering cheaper regional prices.
Valve drones pretending to be from eastern euro countries larping as if they ever made games cheaper here. In reality they sold them at either the same or sometimes even higher prices. Based EU fixing foreigner greedy paws again
>foreigner greedy paws
But this decision only fricks over the actual poor gamers outside the EU
EU laws for EU people, not my problem their law makers let that greedy shit happen
The case is about EU1 and EU2 which used to be different Steam key regions, which were merged 7 years ago. It's purely a legacy thing that doesn't apply anymore and nothing about this fine will change anything since they don't do what they were fined for anymore, euros already got fricked long ago.
https://twitter.com/jorgenpt/status/700172998112718848
>enforce one unified euro regional pricing
>but not one unified euro minimum wage
hmm...
do you think germany would let you become as rich as them poleBlack person?
Ach ach ach ach
You are just needed to build those BMW part for cheap and shut up, peasant, stay in your role.
And take your Black person migrants, chud. We don't see enough interracial couples in your population, this is problematic
all this means is that gamers on Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary and Latvia are going to get fricked on prices.
Same happened to south american gamers, who used to get cheaper prices since their currencies are all on the verge of collapsing, but since greedy first worlders just kept faking their locations so they could buy the keys cheaper, valve just started charging the same price there.
Maybe EU should increase wages in these regions now too?
They should just leave the EU and join the winning side
China?
EU2 was removed 7 years ago and SA prices are still a thing but the latest update brought down the differences a bit.
The amount of blind misinformation in this thread is hilarious, you guys are absolutely stupid especially the ones praising the removal of EU2 that happened a long time ago without you even realizing it.
>EU2
I don't even know what eu2 is
but I think it's safe to assume none of this shit matters to 99% of people posting on Ganker.
None of you are czechs or whatever.
Here are the old EU2 region countries that got fricked over by this by the way.