Steam drops support for 2 fiat currencies over their volatlity

[hatshepsut93]

PC Gamer: Valve is dropping local currency support for Turkey and Argentina amid 'exchange rate volatility,' moving to 'regionalized USD pricing' for 25 countries

"Exchange rate volatility in Argentina and Turkey in recent years has made it hard for game developers to choose appropriate prices for their games and keep them current," Valve explained. "We have heard this loud and clear in our developer meet ups and round table chats. In addition, we have had a hard time keeping Steam payment methods up and running in these countries/territories due to the constant foreign exchange fluctuations, fees, taxes, and logistical issues.

"Pricing games in USD for Steam customers in Argentina and Turkey will help us provide greater stability and consistency for players and partners, while also enabling us to continue to offer a variety of payment methods to Steam users in those countries/territories."

"Volatility" in this case appears to be a polite way of saying that the currencies in question have all but collapsed.

The switch to US currency in Argentina and Turkey will see them included in a new "regionalized USD pricing" bloc that includes 25 countries across two regions, Latin America and Middle East/North Africa. The other countries included in the new pricing regions did not previously have local currency support.

In the past Steam dropped the option of paying with BTC via BitPay because of customer complaints over high fees, delayed transactions and problems with the processor, and Steam never had intention of accepting Bitcoin directly. Now we see that fiat currencies are not immune from getting dumped by global corportations either.

Perhaps when Bitcoin will become stable and LN will be ready for mainstream use, Bitcoin will take its place among the strongest global currencies. But for now the similar argument of price volatility can be used to reject Bitcoin from being adopted by a lot of merchants.

[1714261949]

1714261949

[adaseb]

Yeah I remember when Steam dropped bitcoin. This was nearing the top of the 2017 cycle and unlike the 2021 top, the fees on the bitcoin network then were actually very high. In 2021 the fees were low compared to 2017. The fees were bad for Ethereum instead.

It was like $20-40 to send a single 1 input and 2 output transaction. Not worth it for a small game. Also the issue with Bitpay was that you needed to pay the fees twice. First to send to a specific wallet address and then to send it to the Bitpays hot wallet. So I am not surprised they stopped accepting it. However lately they wouldn’t have these  issues but since they never re added it its most likely due to small demand.

[Poker Player]

Well, it is not surprising because of the disastrous monetary policy in Argentina and Turkey that has led to very high inflation rates. As far as it is possible, the dollar is a less bad option and this has happened in several other countries, which ended up dollarized, which is what candidate Milei wants to do in Argentina.

[Die_empty]

Perhaps when Bitcoin will become stable and LN will be ready for mainstream use, Bitcoin will take its place among the strongest global currencies. But for now, the similar argument of price volatility can be used to reject Bitcoin from being adopted by a lot of merchants.

USD for now is the most stable currency that could be used for international trade because of its relatively low volatility. Most of these corporations have to make long-term projections and using highly unstable currencies like Turkish lira or the Argentine peso to make business decisions will always lead to some economic problems. Bitcoin will be a good currency for international trade but its speculative nature has increased its volatility. However, some big companies such as AT&T Inc., Starbucks, Microsoft Corporation, etc still accept bitcoin payments. Hopefully, many top corporations will join the space when the price becomes stable in the future.

[passwordnow]

Other gaming companies like Sony(Playstation) might do the same if they can no longer cover the volatility from these countries. These companies of course have to maintain their business composure and despite that they've got players from these countries or regions, they need to prioritize the goal of the company. I just wish that Valve would recognize bitcoin again and as well as other cryptocurrencies as an alternative for these regions. They have a pilot run test from these countries to start and have it back with the crypto support and see if it's going to work on the people there so that they won't just have a few options but they'll also have a lot of options to make to pay for the games that they have. Anyway, despite the drop of support for these fiat currencies, gamers will always be gamers and as long as there are other payment options available on them, they'll use that to purchase games, in-game items and other Steam products.

[Charles-Tim]

USD for now is the most stable currency that could be used for international trade because of its relatively low volatility.

How about euro and pounds sterling. What I noticed is just that USD is more widely used and it is the most recognized.

Hopefully, many top corporations will join the space when the price becomes stable in the future.

The more this type of organization know about lightning network, the more this will not become an issue. There are many wallets and exchanges that are supporting lightning network by now.

[Hispo]

I would have not expected Steam to stop supporting the Argentina Peso, to be honest.
Argentina is obviously one of the most important markets in Latinmerica for steam, obviously, people from that country will try to find new methods to continue to buy there through the use of USA dollars, like we do here in Venezuela, our currency is not supported either.

Also, perhaps not many of you know this, but many people from around the continent take advantage of the prices in Argentina to buy games cheaper both in the Steam shop and also in the Nintendo shop. Companies are aware of the economical crisis in Argentina, so they other their games way cheaper, so what people do is to try to change their accounts settings so the company believe the user is from Argentina allowing them to buy 60$ games for 30$.
That situation is detrimental to both developers and the store, equally.

[pooya87]

From what I read here it sounds like it has nothing to do with volatility. It is about the fact that Valve couldn't (or maybe didn't want to) provide a service for its developers to automatically convert the price of their products into other currencies and they had to "hard code" it

It is possible that as an American based company didn't want to go through the process of exchange the other fiat currencies they receive to their local currency, dollar. They are jut cleaning up by removing "extra" options. Just like they did with Bitcoin!

P.S. After some google search I'm willing to bet that the fact that Turkey and Argentina combined didn't even crack the top ten countries in the list of top sources of revenues of Steam, played the key role in excluding their currencies. Percentage-wise these two countries combined won't even reach 0.1% of the total revenue
So yeah, it definitely had nothing to do with volatility...

[Yamane_Keto]

All complaints come from customers. In the end, the company wants to achieve profits, and if it finds more customers who want the option to pay in Bitcoin, it will accept that because it will convert the amount into dollars in the end and will not retain those customers, which is the reason why they are trying to stay away from currencies that are highly susceptible to inflation, as is happening in Argentina and Turkey.

If Bitcoin reaches stable levels, some people may not prefer to buy it because the price is stable and will not achieve a quick profit as is happening at the present time.

[stompix]

Well, it is not surprising because of the disastrous monetary policy in Argentina and Turkey that has led to very high inflation rates. As far as it is possible, the dollar is a less bad option and this has happened in several other countries, which ended up dollarized, which is what candidate Milei wants to do in Argentina.

But but but... de-dollarization!!!!  

Love how every politician (of course not Milei) can't stop talking about nationalism, about how to user their own currencies for everything but when it comes to companies and people they won't touch it with a 20-kilometer pole.
What Steam did is pretty understandable, why deal with shitcoins?
Furthermore, it's not just about the currency itself but about gamers cheating the system with the exchange rate, just as people buy Youtube premium accounts with Turkish virtual cards because it costs only 1.25$ same with Argentinian cards!

I would have not expected Steam to stop supporting the Argentina Peso, to be honest.
Argentina is obviously one of the most important markets in Latinmerica for steam, obviously, people from that country will try to find new methods to continue to buy there through the use of USA dollars, like we do here in Venezuela, our currency is not supported either.

It was Argentinians who dropped the pesos before Steam:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-23/inflation-at-100-has-argentines-demanding-pay-in-us-dollars
If paywall:
https://archive.ph/WsBSf

In industries such as technology and finance, skilled workers are demanding salaries be paid in dollars. Companies, including MercadoLibre, Argentina’s largest tech company, increasingly are acquiescing. Most landlords in Buenos Aires now only accept payments in dollars. Ditto for Airbnb rentals. And the list goes on and on: musical instruments, divorce lawyers, imported leather — you want it, you cough up the greenbacks.

But some fools still believe in de-dollarization!  

[pinggoki]

Yeah I remember when Steam dropped bitcoin. This was nearing the top of the 2017 cycle and unlike the 2021 top, the fees on the bitcoin network then were actually very high. In 2021 the fees were low compared to 2017. The fees were bad for Ethereum instead.

It was like $20-40 to send a single 1 input and 2 output transaction. Not worth it for a small game. Also the issue with Bitpay was that you needed to pay the fees twice. First to send to a specific wallet address and then to send it to the Bitpays hot wallet. So I am not surprised they stopped accepting it. However lately they wouldn’t have these  issues but since they never re added it its most likely due to small demand.

I didn't know that Steam supported bitcoin as a way to pay for stuff in their store, that's actually pretty cool but given the problem with the transactions, I can see why they've dropped their support pretty understandable thing, not like other companies trying to even taint bitcoin's image while dropping it. Regarding the dropping of Turkish Lira and Argentine Peso, I think it's a good news and probably a good way for Turkish and Argentinian players to make money selling stuff on the Steam market since they're going to get paid in USD, am I wrong that it's a good thing or not? Because that's what I take from this news.

[avikz]

In the past Steam dropped the option of paying with BTC via BitPay because of customer complaints over high fees, delayed transactions and problems with the processor, and Steam never had intention of accepting Bitcoin directly. Now we see that fiat currencies are not immune from getting dumped by global corportations either.

Bitcoin puritans need to understand that Bitcoin is not a solution to every problem in the fintech world. Rather when Bitcoin is compared to the mainstream financial processing gateways, it looks like coming straight out of the stone age.

Bitcoin is an excellent choice for investment due to high volatility. But at the same time Bitcoin is a very poor choice for transfer of value.

[DrBeer]

USD for now is the most stable currency that could be used for international trade because of its relatively low volatility. Most of these corporations have to make long-term projections and using highly unstable currencies like Turkish lira or the Argentine peso to make business decisions will always lead to some economic problems. Bitcoin will be a good currency for international trade but its speculative nature has increased its volatility. However, some big companies such as AT&T Inc., Starbucks, Microsoft Corporation, etc still accept bitcoin payments. Hopefully, many top corporations will join the space when the price becomes stable in the future.

It's not really fair to call the dollar the most stable currency. It's probably more correct - its instability is the most acceptable, plus it has a lot of other advantages

and the rejection of local currencies, which degrade greatly, is quite understandable and logical. The company is conditionally "doing business in dollars" and it needs the sale of the same service in any country to bring the planned profit in ... yes, dollars. If local currencies are stable (+/-) then the sold service in local currency can be easily converted into the planned price in dollars. And vice versa - high volatility - and you will receive today for a certain service not 5 dollars, but 2.... And this destroys all the planned indicators of the company, why do they need such problems?!  Therefore, the measure of value becomes the dollar, which by paying at the current exchange rate in the local currency, will give those very 5 dollars

[hatshepsut93]

I would have not expected Steam to stop supporting the Argentina Peso, to be honest.
Argentina is obviously one of the most important markets in Latinmerica for steam, obviously, people from that country will try to find new methods to continue to buy there through the use of USA dollars, like we do here in Venezuela, our currency is not supported either.

Also, perhaps not many of you know this, but many people from around the continent take advantage of the prices in Argentina to buy games cheaper both in the Steam shop and also in the Nintendo shop. Companies are aware of the economical crisis in Argentina, so they other their games way cheaper, so what people do is to try to change their accounts settings so the company believe the user is from Argentina allowing them to buy 60$ games for 30$.
That situation is detrimental to both developers and the store, equally.

Well it's not like Steam is leaving the region - the players will have to pay with USD, or their local currency will get automatically converted to USD with their banks fees, and the prices will still have regional pricing but in USD. But the costs will definitely rise for the players, unfortunately, partially because there will no be inflation effect, and partially because the store will raise the prices.

[philipma1957]

PC Gamer: Valve is dropping local currency support for Turkey and Argentina amid 'exchange rate volatility,' moving to 'regionalized USD pricing' for 25 countries

"Exchange rate volatility in Argentina and Turkey in recent years has made it hard for game developers to choose appropriate prices for their games and keep them current," Valve explained. "We have heard this loud and clear in our developer meet ups and round table chats. In addition, we have had a hard time keeping Steam payment methods up and running in these countries/territories due to the constant foreign exchange fluctuations, fees, taxes, and logistical issues.

"Pricing games in USD for Steam customers in Argentina and Turkey will help us provide greater stability and consistency for players and partners, while also enabling us to continue to offer a variety of payment methods to Steam users in those countries/territories."

"Volatility" in this case appears to be a polite way of saying that the currencies in question have all but collapsed.

The switch to US currency in Argentina and Turkey will see them included in a new "regionalized USD pricing" bloc that includes 25 countries across two regions, Latin America and Middle East/North Africa. The other countries included in the new pricing regions did not previously have local currency support.

In the past Steam dropped the option of paying with BTC via BitPay because of customer complaints over high fees, delayed transactions and problems with the processor, and Steam never had intention of accepting Bitcoin directly. Now we see that fiat currencies are not immune from getting dumped by global corportations either.

Perhaps when Bitcoin will become stable and LN will be ready for mainstream use, Bitcoin will take its place among the strongest global currencies. But for now the similar argument of price volatility can be used to reject Bitcoin from being adopted by a lot of merchants.

This is an interesting move. I would think they will go all USD and maybe

USD - Euro.

But down the road they may add BTC,

[FinneysTrueVision]

I know many people had been using VPNs to get large discounts by changing their country to one of these regions. Sometimes getting a payment method that works can be difficult but with this change it might be easier to use this workaround because USD gift cards are widely available, although you will probably have to pay a bit more than when the pricing was in Argentinian and Turkish currency.

[kingvirtus09]

That was too controversial because of the volatility. But as far as I know, Steam is not the only company that has dropped support for volatile fiat currencies. And some of those who have also provided such support are Visa and Paypal.

Now, whatever Steam did, I am pretty sure they have a valid reason for this matter. It will be able to protect their business, reduce the risk of fraud, and so on, in my opinion. However, Steam still allowed their customers to shop in whatever fiat currency they liked, right?

[tabas]

This is an interesting move. I would think they will go all USD and maybe

USD - Euro.

But down the road they may add BTC,

Hopefully that they will add Bitcoin again but before, they have added that once but eventually have it removed probably due to its volatility.

I know many people had been using VPNs to get large discounts by changing their country to one of these regions. Sometimes getting a payment method that works can be difficult but with this change it might be easier to use this workaround because USD gift cards are widely available, although you will probably have to pay a bit more than when the pricing was in Argentinian and Turkish currency.

I'm not as hardcore gamer as the others but I have read this in some other forums that they're using VPN and goes to specific region for certain discounts and better support. I guess this is one reason why it has been removed and it's not ideal for Steam to still support these currencies. Some certain features are not available in particular regions but could have been available for these regions so for those gamers that know how to switch, prolly aware of it.

[davis196]

This might be sad news for many people, who were making money by buying game keys from Turkish and Argentine Steam accounts and reselling them on platforms like G2A and G2G. Perhaps the new "regionalized" USD prices will be way lower for countries like Turkey and Argentina in comparison to the Tier 1 countries like USA, Canada and UK. I never understood why Steam/Valve allowed payments in Turkish lira and Argentinian peso in their platform. I don't believe that Valve corporation will ever allow Bitcoin/crypto payments. There's no point for them to do such thing. Their revenue won't increase and such implementation requires certain expenses.

[Porfirii]

Yeah I remember when Steam dropped bitcoin. This was nearing the top of the 2017 cycle and unlike the 2021 top, the fees on the bitcoin network then were actually very high. In 2021 the fees were low compared to 2017. The fees were bad for Ethereum instead.

It was like $20-40 to send a single 1 input and 2 output transaction. Not worth it for a small game. Also the issue with Bitpay was that you needed to pay the fees twice. First to send to a specific wallet address and then to send it to the Bitpays hot wallet. So I am not surprised they stopped accepting it. However lately they wouldn’t have these  issues but since they never re added it its most likely due to small demand.

Wouldn't it be a solution to use the the lightning network instead? For little payments, transactions are instant and almost free. From the buyers' perspective, I think that it would be perfect. In my personal case, I increasingly like to make small payments in sats, where available, and LN is the best way to do it.

I'm not sure, though, about security: if your $10 transaction get's lost along the way, it would be a hassle for the consumer, but not a tragedy. Not the same case for such a big company like Steam, at the other end, which could lose millions in revenue if something went wrong.


About inflation in Turkey, Venezuela or Argentina, wouldn't the solution be as simple as swapping the money for a less volatile fiat as soon as they get paid (or even before, during the process?).

[South Park]

snip

P.S. After some google search I'm willing to bet that the fact that Turkey and Argentina combined didn't even crack the top ten countries in the list of top sources of revenues of Steam, played the key role in excluding their currencies. Percentage-wise these two countries combined won't even reach 0.1% of the total revenue
So yeah, it definitely had nothing to do with volatility...

It seems to me this is the most likely explanation as we see this with exchanges all the time, as they simply drop some currency pairs because they do not bring them enough profits, so it is possible Steam is doing the same and the volatility of those two currencies is just an excuse to get rid of those two payment options, after all if those two markets represented a great deal of its profits I could envision Steam doing everything they could to find a way around it.

[pooya87]

after all if those two markets represented a great deal of its profits I could envision Steam doing everything they could to find a way around it.

Exactly.
From a purely economical point of view, every decision you make in your business has costs and profits. For example when you decide to work with a foreign bank on the other side of the world you are effectively adding "overhead" to your business. Not to mention the extra burden on your company and employees dealing with complains from users who had trouble depositing funds because their banks didn't work well, which needs its own dedicated department. That is all on top of the extra work needed for all the AML nonsense they would have to enforce when dealing with fiat and foreign banks.

All this overhead is only acceptable IF it is bringing a decent amount of revenue. Which it doesn't seem to be. So by removing the overhead they would just deal with American banks or payment systems (when they pay using dollar instead of their own fiat) which is so much easer (with much less overhead) for an American company.

[kryptqnick]

I've heard that some people are concerned that these might be the first steps toward gradual limitation of regional prices altogether, but I think it's too early to worry about that.
Also, the pricing for these countries will still be regional, just more stable. Bitcoin is also sort of volatile, and considering that games usually don't cost much, the fees can be significant.
I also wanted to point something out: as a person who uses local fiat to pay for games on Steam, I've noticed that the prices are only technically in local fiat and the payments are also only technically in local fiat. What actually happens is that you see the price in local fiat, but when you pay, the money is actually converted according to an unseen USD price via double conversion, so the amount withdrawn is not the amount shown as the price. I know this because, by default, our local banks block double conversion transactions, and it's something you need to specifically turn on to pay on Steam. So, as I see it, what sort of was the case already is now simply getting revealed without the pretence of local payments.

[DrBeer]

This might be sad news for many people, who were making money by buying game keys from Turkish and Argentine Steam accounts and reselling them on platforms like G2A and G2G. Perhaps the new "regionalized" USD prices will be way lower for countries like Turkey and Argentina in comparison to the Tier 1 countries like USA, Canada and UK. I never understood why Steam/Valve allowed payments in Turkish lira and Argentinian peso in their platform. I don't believe that Valve corporation will ever allow Bitcoin/crypto payments. There's no point for them to do such thing. Their revenue won't increase and such implementation requires certain expenses.

It's not really a problem at all. All the same, payments are made by card accounts, and most likely for the BUYER it will remain a payment in, for example, Turkish lira, but the banking system will automatically recalculate the right amount in dollars, and withdraw the right amount in LIRA. For example, as I pay for purchases in the EU or China - my card is charged the amount in UAH, equivalent to the amount in the currency of the seller. So technically there are no problems. The only nuance - yes, if the local currency is subject to inflation, the amount of payment in local currency will increase.

[Coyster]

Whether Steam is doing this because of volatility or because they aren't making profits off the customers of the said countries, the fact is that the U.S. dollars is far more stable and traded than most currencies around the world, and it is only normal that international businesses/companies and even some countries replace their local currencies with the U.S. dollar. With the high rate of inflation in my country for example, i for one would want to be paid in the U.S. dollar instead of my local currency in my workplace. The U.S dollar isn't free from volatility/inflation, but it is a whole lot lesser than in other parts of the world.

But down the road they may add BTC,

Steam were previously accepting Bitcoin, but they've stopped for a very long time and that's since 2017, because of high fees and volatility. Except you are saying they are going to start accepting Bitcoin again, which i don't think is going to happen.

[stompix]

About inflation in Turkey, Venezuela or Argentina, wouldn't the solution be as simple as swapping the money for a less volatile fiat as soon as they get paid (or even before, during the process?).

That's the problem, capital control, and fake exchange rates!
If companies could easily exchange pesos to USD we wouldn't have a black market rate and a government rate anywhere, but since we have restrictions on this the rates are all over the place and they are not able to get pesos or liras, they have to either keep it in the local currency which devalues by the day or use government rates when permitted and lose 50-60%.
https://bluedollar.net/tourist-dollar-rate/

This might be sad news for many people, who were making money by buying game keys from Turkish and Argentine Steam accounts and reselling them on platforms like G2A and G2G.

With the number of bans being handed lately for those resold keys, it's the people who end up with accounts locked that are to be pitied, not guys who can move thousands of dollars in and out of a ravaged country with hundreds of bank accounts!

[Fortify]

PC Gamer: Valve is dropping local currency support for Turkey and Argentina amid 'exchange rate volatility,' moving to 'regionalized USD pricing' for 25 countries

"Exchange rate volatility in Argentina and Turkey in recent years has made it hard for game developers to choose appropriate prices for their games and keep them current," Valve explained. "We have heard this loud and clear in our developer meet ups and round table chats. In addition, we have had a hard time keeping Steam payment methods up and running in these countries/territories due to the constant foreign exchange fluctuations, fees, taxes, and logistical issues.

"Pricing games in USD for Steam customers in Argentina and Turkey will help us provide greater stability and consistency for players and partners, while also enabling us to continue to offer a variety of payment methods to Steam users in those countries/territories."

"Volatility" in this case appears to be a polite way of saying that the currencies in question have all but collapsed.

The switch to US currency in Argentina and Turkey will see them included in a new "regionalized USD pricing" bloc that includes 25 countries across two regions, Latin America and Middle East/North Africa. The other countries included in the new pricing regions did not previously have local currency support.

In the past Steam dropped the option of paying with BTC via BitPay because of customer complaints over high fees, delayed transactions and problems with the processor, and Steam never had intention of accepting Bitcoin directly. Now we see that fiat currencies are not immune from getting dumped by global corportations either.

Perhaps when Bitcoin will become stable and LN will be ready for mainstream use, Bitcoin will take its place among the strongest global currencies. But for now the similar argument of price volatility can be used to reject Bitcoin from being adopted by a lot of merchants.

It's a sensible move because some of the currencies out there are such a liability to hold and the governments of these countries do themselves no favors when it comes to trying to stabilize the situation. The leader of Turkey for example, thinks he is some sort of economic guru without realizing it is simply the ingenuity and bare hard work of the average Turkish citizen that has kept his country afloat for so long. He picked arguments with the central bank, which is often meant to be a reasonably independent institution in most developed countries that will sometimes work against the desires of the politicians if it makes better economic sense and effectively undermined the real experts who were trying to dig Turkey out of the mess, it's no wonder fewer countries and companies are choosing to accept the currency.

[dothebeats]

I just looked over my emails and checked my 0.14 and 0.23 btc purchases for Steam wallet. It pains me to see those purchases, but honestly it's best for them as a business to drop bitcoin support via BitPay. It was kind of convenient to me back then, though looking at the prices now, I kinda regret spending my bitcoins for something that I don't even touch now.

They as a business need to thrive. Dropping support to those local currencies may lose them a certain market, but overall they still have a strong user base that can offset what was lost with their decision. Besides, gamers using those currencies can easily find a way to buy Steam credits if they really want to, anyway.