Sqrl said:
What's more likely? That a company that gives away free weekend demos of games, massive free content updates, phenomenal weekend deals like this one, etc... A) Decided to charge Europeans more in order to give other customers a better price (which is self-defeating since the abused market just stops taking the abuse). OR B) Steam is passing on a EU tax levied against them to the consumer thus proving the point that businesses don't pay taxes, consumers do.
I like option B, but I'm certainly biased as I have a high regard for Valve and their customer service. It could always be option C "something else" but I'd honestly be surprised if it was option A.
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You don't understand, before we were paying the US price, to which the VAT was added depending on where the costumer lived. Now thanks to Valve's 1$=1€ convergence rate, we pay more than before.
The VAT is now included in the price, however, we have no idea how much we are paying, seeing that the prices are the same, but each country has a different VAT, people from Norway suffer the most, because they don't have VAT for digital distributed goods, but still have to pay.
Let's take a few example's:
Left 4 Dead
US $49.99
UK £26.99=$38.19
EU 44,99€=$56.55
The Orange Box
US $29.99
UK £16.99=$24.04
EU 29,99€=$37.70
Dead Space
US $39.99
UK not available
EU 44,99€=$56.55
Before you say this is the fault of EA, I can get this from Direct2Drive for £19.95=$28,23.
There are some games that are cheaper for Europeans, like say Beyond Good and Evil, but for the grand majority we pay the most. Also, most games are more expensive than retail as well.
