Regional Price Adjustment - January 2024

[Brynjar]

This time, the price adjustment will come into effect on the 16th of January 2024.

There are also currencies that will see no price changes: USD, EUR, GBP, NOK, PLN, CHF, ILS, AUD, NZD as well as MENA USD and LATAM USD.

So, what happened to the "no price changes" for NOK for titles in active development? Below is the price for Victoria 3. If you are going to make these kinds of announcements, at least get them right.

Voice of the people:

Melodies of the masses:

 

[pjerbezukhov]

I will just put here a parable about another greedy publisher (with +- the same audience), who also turned his back on Russian players and put money above people's love.
Spoiler: this didn't help them, but it was the beginning of their slow death.

Spoiler: Spoiler

I suggest you learn from the mistakes of your ancestors and double check the mentioned prices benchmark.
If you have even lied about prices adjustments in Norway as @Brynjar writes above, then your behavioral pattern is very similar to SEGA, and I really don't want the same results for you.

How many releases with mostly negative reviews does it take for you to realize that your current financial strategy is wrong?
They mostly write to you there not about the content quality, but about the fact that it does not correspond to the requested price..

 

[Brynjar]

If you have even lied about prices adjustments in Norway as @Brynjar writes above, then your behavioral pattern is very similar to SEGA, and I really don't want the same results for you.

I wouldn't necessarily call it a lie. The adjustment only seems to have affected Vic 3, which for some reason released between the price point of CK3 at the time, and the 2023 price adjustment for Vic 3. It seems more like a case of not putting all the cards on the table, which makes this kind of thread seem a bit pointless.

 

[Archael90]

Paradoxu pricing policy is... Inefficient... At least.
If we convert prices in PLN to USD it turnes out that in Poland we pay MORE than in US, even tho avarage salary in Poland is 1/3rd of avarage US salary.
I believe its because all of this shipping costs through ocean...

 

[Kosaki MacTavish]

Same as HoI4's DLCs, Rupiah got 97% devaluation, making its contents twice as expensive now, even the one that came out from two years ago has affected by it.

I pre-ordered this one, by the way: HoI4 No Step Back. And currently i'm holding off to buy Arms Against Tyranny and Battle for the Bosporus because of the price hikes.

 

[Brynjar]

Same as HoI4's DLCs, Rupiah got 97% devaluation, making its contents twice as expensive now, even the one that came out from two years ago has affected by it.

I pre-ordered this one, by the way: HoI4 No Step Back. And currently i'm holding off to buy Arms Against Tyranny and Battle for the Bosporus because of the price hikes.

View attachment 1110846

That is working exactly as intended by Paradox. When the value of the Rupiah drops, it means Paradox gets less money in the currency they pay their expenses with from sales in the currency dropping. As a result they want to increase the price in the currency, in this case Rupiah, to make up for the drop.

 

[Kosaki MacTavish]

That is working exactly as intended by Paradox. When the value of the Rupiah drops, it means Paradox gets less money in the currency they pay their expenses with from sales in the currency dropping. As a result they want to increase the price in the currency, in this case Rupiah, to make up for the drop.

In exchange of making the game and its contents less available for us Indonesians.

I shelved my plans to buy two more DLCs because the price is too high.

Shame because they are good enough that i wanted to buy them in the first place.

 

[MyD00m]

I wanted to buy Stellaris, but the price has doubled. Although the developers said that the price will increase by 40-70%. Thank you for your honesty. I will never buy paradox games again.

The developers wanted to make more money, but after the price increase, your income will most likely decrease.

"That's a great plan, Walter. . ."

 

[Gamshud]

Although the developers said that the price will increase by 40-70%. Thank you for your honesty.

And they said it honestly.

This time around, we'll see an increase of about 40% to 70% on average or more

40-70% or more, but how much more is not important, maybe 100%, maybe 200%, or maybe even more. It will be as much as they want. Everything is fair.

 

[MyD00m]

And they said it honestly.


40-70% or more, but how much more is not important, maybe 100%, maybe 200%, or maybe even more. It will be as much as they want. Everything is fair.

They said the price would go up 70% max, but the price went up 110%. What kind of honesty are you talking about?

 

[Gamshud]

They said the price would go up 70% max, but the price went up 110%. What kind of honesty are you talking about?

40% to 70% on average or more

Which means that the price can rise in the range from 40% to 70%, but maybe higher. So technically, in this situation, it would not be a lie even if the price were raised by 999% or more. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[elektrizikekswerk]

Besides of the "or more" part there's also the "on average" part...

 

[MyD00m]

Okay, I get it. But their income probably won't go up much. Because they've "scared" off some of the potential buyers.

P. S. They can bring back the price, but they won't be able to regain the trust of the majority of players who turned away from Paradox.

 

[pjerbezukhov]

Another funny comparison:

Try to guess what a product with ~the same price does a random goy choose?

1) The worst DLC in Stellaris history (based on its reviews)?

Spoiler

2) Or a story-driven RPG with good visuals and an original (still, despite Rusofobia) concept?

Spoiler

RUB diff is ~20%, EUR diff is ~40% (without the discount).

Are you sure that you understand the concept of regional prices correctly? Their idea is to allign prices with other products in a region. But you sell it with the price relatively higher than in your home region.
You should expect that your audience can do such simple analysis, if you develop such games with a lot of metrics.
Just try to understand how it looks for an ordinary person (especially who used to pay 500-700 Rub for your best DLCs expansions) and you will understand that your audience is not toxic, we just want a fair relation to us.

Such actions don't look like a fair relation:

1. +60% increasing prices for 2 years in a row during a financial crisis peak
2. Justifying this by currency rate change, which is actually just+10% higher now than 3 years ago
3. Not putting 2 y.o. DLCs to the most expensive edition and doing that only after the last prices raise, when winter sale is finished
4. Saying that people who don't like the things listed above are toxic

 

[Radekl2]

Hello, could you please review your games/DLC prices in Poland (Polish zloty, PLN)? At the moment the prices are 2nd most expensive (we are right behind Switzerland).
I don't think we have more money than France or Germany colleagues.

Personally I do have all DLCs for EUIV, Crusader Kings 3 and almost all for Stellaris, but I've bought all from stores from UK/other UE countries (in EUR) as that was cheaper.
I would like to buy them directly from Steam in PLN, but paying 10-20% more than in USD/EUR for every single DLC is stupid.

 

[Archael90]

Hello, could you please review your games/DLC prices in Poland (Polish zloty, PLN)? At the moment the prices are 2nd most expensive (we are right behind Switzerland).
I don't think we have more money than France or Germany colleagues.

Personally I do have all DLCs for EUIV, Crusader Kings 3 and almost all for Stellaris, but I've bought all from stores from UK/other UE countries (in EUR) as that was cheaper.
I would like to buy them directly from Steam in PLN, but paying 10-20% more than in USD/EUR for every single DLC is stupid.

Yeah. Prices in PLN are higher than in USD, but Polish avarage wage is 1/3rd of US

 

[Gamshud]

I made a small calculation of some countries, their average salaries according to the statistics that Google produces upon request. Prices for the game are taken from Steam DB (base price without discounts). Well, actually I just calculated the percentage of number B from number A.
I'm a little unsure about some salaries in some countries, and it's also worth considering that the "average salary" shows purchasing power only in countries with minimal corruption, while countries with high corruption can live according to the principle that 99% receive $1000 and 1% receive $100K. And the “average value” in statistics will be higher than it actually is. So these are just approximate numbers, but Paradox could at least take these numbers into account. (They could have, but they didn't, lol.)

A country​	Monthly salary​	Price for "Crusader Kings 3"​	Percentage of salary​
Switzerland​	6665 CHF​	55 CHF​	0.83%​
USA​	6228 US​	50 USD​	0.80%​
Poland​	7590 PLN​	232 PLN​	3.06%​
Ukraine​	14577 UAH​	1219 UAH​	8.36%​
China​	29300 CNY​	218 CNY​	0.74%​
Russia​	51083 RUB​	2769 RUB​	5.42%​
United Kingdom​	2334 GBP​	42 GBP​	1.80%​
Kazakhstan​	342083 KZT​	16500 KZT​	4.82%​
South Korea​	3890000 KRW​	55000 KRW​	1.41%​
Indonesia​	4600000 IDR​	537000 IDR​	11.67%​
Norway​	47000 NOK​	559 NOK​	1.19%​

In any case, am I the only one who thinks that the price for a base game above 5% of a monthly salary is quite a lot? And especially for a game like this where you have to pay more for all the existing DLC + pay the cost of the game every year to get new content for a year. Most often, for games from Paradox, you can safely multiply the price by 3-4 times to understand the real cost of the game. (But I was too lazy to count it)
No matter how pleasantly Paradox talks about the “balance” between paid and free, there is no such balance and there will not be such a monetization model.

P.S. I don't claim to be 100% accurate, these are just rough estimates.

 

[Maffey]

Hi, Poland seriously needs the adjustment of prices. Current ones are incredibly high - it's either #1 or #2 most expensive currency to buy the game with. This is especially terrible considering the standard of living of Polish people and average purchasing power.

 

[pjerbezukhov]

@Gamshud
You are a legend man, someone should have done such analysis.

A country​	Monthly salary​	Price for "Crusader Kings 3"​	Percentage of salary​
Switzerland​	6665 CHF​	55 CHF​	0.83%​
USA​	6228 US​	50 USD​	0.80%​
Poland​	7590 PLN​	232 PLN​	3.06%​
Ukraine​	14577 UAH​	1219 UAH​	8.36%​
China​	29300 CNY​	218 CNY​	0.74%​
Russia​	51083 RUB​	2769 RUB​	5.42%​
United Kingdom​	2334 GBP​	42 GBP​	1.80%​
Kazakhstan​	342083 KZT​	16500 KZT​	4.82%​
South Korea​	3890000 KRW​	55000 KRW​	1.41%​
Norway​	47000 NOK​	559 NOK​	1.19%​

@paradoxes
Why don't you like Slavic nations and our brothers Kazakhs so much?
We are already poor, better increase prices in EUR and USD regions

 

[Kosaki MacTavish]

A country​	Monthly salary​	Price for "Crusader Kings 3"​	Percentage of salary​
Switzerland​	6665 CHF​	55 CHF​	0.83%​
USA​	6228 US​	50 USD​	0.80%​
Poland​	7590 PLN​	232 PLN​	3.06%​
Ukraine​	14577 UAH​	1219 UAH​	8.36%​
China​	29300 CNY​	218 CNY​	0.74%​
Russia​	51083 RUB​	2769 RUB​	5.42%​
United Kingdom​	2334 GBP​	42 GBP​	1.80%​
Kazakhstan​	342083 KZT​	16500 KZT​	4.82%​
South Korea​	3890000 KRW​	55000 KRW​	1.41%​
Norway​	47000 NOK​	559 NOK​	1.19%​

Never thought about it that way, but i'll do it now.

For Indonesia, the average monthly wage is around 4.6 million Rupiahs, or 4630k Rupiahs. Then HoI4's price here is at 643k Rupiahs. So it would be around 13.8% of our monthly wage. With the current discount, the price is cut to 257k Rupiahs, around 5.5% of our monthly salary.

I do have a bottled water price comparison here for the price hike between 2021 and 2024, but it's not that relevant here.