Steam has switched its Turkish and Argentinian stores to USD instead of the original lira and peso. This means that changing your location using a VPN to benefit from lower game prices may no longer be worth it.
For those unfamiliar, you could previously switch your Steam region to Argentina, Turkey, or any country with preferential pricing. Steam only asked you to input a local address, which is very easy to find. You only needed a VPN when switching localisation for the first time, then you could shop without hinderance.
After changing your region, you could use your local credit cards, no questions asked. And, since the Argentine Peso suffered from extreme fluctuation, pricing in the country was very low. To get an idea, £1 is worth 447 Peso and stretched a lot further when used abroad.
From now on, Steam will count Argentina in the LATAM region and Turkey in MENA. A total of 25 territories in Latin America, the Middle East, and North Africa will receive regionalised USD pricing for the first time. Some will have their prices go up and some will see theirs go down depending on the price that the developers set prior to this change. If a developer does not enter prices for these new regions, US pricing will be used as default.
Accounts with Argentine peso or Turkish lira Steam wallet balance will be converted to USD using the US Bank exchange rate on November 20.
This change is partly due to the high volatility of the Argentine peso and Turkish lira devaluation. Developers had to constantly be on the lookout to adequately update pricing each time the money value changed. Some developers reduced the price of their games to reflect low income regions, making them more accessible. The ones that didn’t left titles unobtainable, as prices climbed too high. Volatility also makes it difficult to conduct sales, as the chosen percentage decrease is global.
To get an idea of these price changes, we looked at some of the games we recommended on our Steam Sale list. For example, BattleBit Remastered and Hogwarts Legacy now cost $11.99 and $35.99 which is similar to the USA pricing. Meanwhile, Dave the Diver is a bit cheaper at $10.39 against $15.99 for the USA, and Far Cry 6 sits at $11.99 against $14.99.
Clearly, the ones who are suffering from these modifications are Turkish and Argentinian citizens who truly could not afford to spend this much on a single game. This could and probably will push more users toward pirated games, which is an unfortunate loss.
