Another weekend means another batch of streaming recommendations, and there's plenty of variety to choose from this week. Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke, and Mahershala Ali star in new Netflix thriller Leave the World Behind, while Todd Haynes' May December, which is already generating Oscar buzz for actor Charles Melton, has made its way to the UK via Sky Cinema. If you're in the mood for something a little more festive and lighthearted, try animated movie Merry Little Batman or Christmas rom-com Your Christmas or Mine 2, both on Prime Video.
'Today is the end of Steam': Argentina and Turkey floored by new Steam price hikes as high as 2900%
21.11.2023 - 17:09 / pcgamer.com
Valve followed through on its promise to change Steam's regional pricing for Argentina and Turkey on November 20, meaning games in those countries will now be priced in US dollars instead of the Turkish lira and Argentine peso. The goal, Valve said back in October, is to prevent game developers from having to constantly adjust their prices to keep up with the stunning volatility of the Turkish and Argentine currencies. Instead, they ought to be able to set a regionally appropriate price in USD and forget about it.
But that regionally appropriate part is harder than it sounds, and Turkish and Argentine Steam users are currently in an uproar over new prices in their territories. A quick glance at the Steam subreddit reveals a number of users lamenting the new situation, declaring «The end of Steam» for Turkish and Argentine users, announcing a return to piracy, and posting some of the most eye-watering spreadsheets mankind has ever conjured.
And to be fair, they have a point. A quick glance at the SteamDB price history for some games reveals a few absolutely staggering price increases. Far Cry 5 has gone up in price by around 240% over its previous Argentine peso cost, from a converted price of $14.12 to $48. Stardew Valley is even more stark, shooting up by 2900% in Argentina. The game's previous peso price shook out to about $0.50, but it now costs exactly the same for users in that region as it does for Americans in the US of A.
To be fair, not every game can measure its price increase in the thousands of percent, but nearly everything has gotten dearer to some extent. Take the year's biggest games, for example. Baldur's Gate 3 has gone up from a converted peso price of $28.25 to $35, an increase of 24%; Starfield has gone up by the same amount, from $33.91 to $42; and Call of Duty rounds out the hat trick with a jump from $56.52 to $70.
Those might not sound like dramatic leaps to readers in the West, but they're sizeable enough. Reliable average wage data is difficult to pin down, but the minimum wage in Turkey is around 11,000 lira, or near $400 at time of writing. Argentina's, meanwhile, is currently about 146,000 pesos, or $415. Neither economic situation is liable to improve in the foreseeable future, making even small price movements feel seismic to Argentine and Turkish buyers when measured in dollars.
Fair play to Diablo 4, frankly, which is the biggest game I could find that's actually managed to go down in price, dropping from a converted peso price of $79.13 to $70, a drop of 11%. There's probably a reason for that, though: Games that don't have a specific price set for the new USD – Latin America and USD – MENA areas (which include, incidentally, 23 countries besides Argentina and
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