The price difference cannot be more than 10%.

Send them a digital gift card as there is no restriction and it converts to their currency.

Publishers don't price their games the same way. While one may be giftable, another may not. It would be nice if Steam were more transparent in this regard, but it is something to look out for.

Originally posted by rawWwRrr:

Publishers don't price their games the same way. While one may be giftable, another may not. It would be nice if Steam were more transparent in this regard, but it is something to look out for.

Doubtful Steam could be transparent as it's entirely down to the publishers. There's no one quick answer to this.

Originally posted by crunchyfrog:

Originally posted by rawWwRrr:

Publishers don't price their games the same way. While one may be giftable, another may not. It would be nice if Steam were more transparent in this regard, but it is something to look out for.

Doubtful Steam could be transparent as it's entirely down to the publishers. There's no one quick answer to this.

Transparent as in improving the checkout process. I know how to research the prices via tools like SteamDB, but most users don't, and even I run into the occasional regional price restriction at the end of the checkout process.

It should know when I'm selecting the giftee whether or not the prices are compliant. Much like it does when it recognizes ownership, it should tell me that a specific person is ineligible because of price differences. But they've built the checkout process to verify that after a friend is selected. It should be more transparent and do it upfront when checking for ownership.

It's come up plenty of times in Suggestions and I find no reason to disagree with it.

Originally posted by Nx Machina:

The price difference cannot be more than 10%.

Send them a digital gift card as there is no restriction and it converts to their currency.

and ironically the gift card would be more expensive, depending if you can choose the amount or you can only do 5-10-15 etc.

wouldn't it be simpler to just have the gift buyer confirm he's willing to pay the higher difference?

Originally posted by TRIPLE A ®™:

Originally posted by Nx Machina:

The price difference cannot be more than 10%.

Send them a digital gift card as there is no restriction and it converts to their currency.

and ironically the gift card would be more expensive, depending if you can choose the amount or you can only do 5-10-15 etc.

wouldn't it be simpler to just have the gift buyer confirm he's willing to pay the higher difference?

Steam isn't allowed to even ask. They can only charge you the price they advertised to you. That's YOUR price. Your price shouldn't change because of what you intend to do with it.

Originally posted by rawWwRrr:

Transparent as in improving the checkout process. I know how to research the prices via tools like SteamDB, but most users don't, and even I run into the occasional regional price restriction at the end of the checkout process.
.

I mean you don't select the friend until the end of the process so how would steam be more 'transparent' about it when it has no idea who you want to send the gift to until the very end? I mean it does tell you why you can't gift it to that particular person once selected. But beyond that how would you even improve it?

Originally posted by TRIPLE A ®™:

and ironically the gift card would be more expensive, depending if you can choose the amount or you can only do 5-10-15 etc.

wouldn't it be simpler to just have the gift buyer confirm he's willing to pay the higher difference?

Valve cannot charge you more than the price as shown to you at checkout based on your store region.

Originally posted by TRIPLE A ®™:

Originally posted by Nx Machina:

The price difference cannot be more than 10%.

Send them a digital gift card as there is no restriction and it converts to their currency.

and ironically the gift card would be more expensive, depending if you can choose the amount or you can only do 5-10-15 etc.

wouldn't it be simpler to just have the gift buyer confirm he's willing to pay the higher difference?

This would be considered a bait and switch, and is mega ultra illegal especially in the UK and in many other countries.

Also really think about that. Imagine you're on Amazon, you get a toaster for a wedding gift click 'check out' and then it has a popup for "hey your'e shipping this toaster to X, you need to pay an additional $100, click ok to accept". Notice how this no longer sounds 'good'.

I got the same issue as you a few months ago. I must admit I didn't know about this either until it happened to me. My bad for not being informed, I guess. There's too much to keep up with nowadays.

I tried buying a game for a buddy of mine who lives in Belgium. I live in Canada. It didn't work. He could buy me a game though, so without checking I deduced that the price in Belgium for games on Steam is more than 10% lower than that of the same games in Canada. I came to the conclusion that Steam didn't want me to buy the game at that much lower price, because there's a risk of me having a second fake account with a fake location, which would allow me to get games cheaper by gifting them to myself, to that alt account. It would've allowed me to save a lot of money through that trick, but it's also a form of theft ( although a little grey zone-ish in my slightly libertarian-ish, chaotic neutral opinion ). Putting myself in Steam's shoes, I totally understand the logic behind the move in that regard however.

I also understand this is done to prevent piracy, because some people with poorer economies can't afford the games at a high pricing and will go and get an illegal copy because of this. So, to counter that, they offer the games at a lower price. But it's not just games for them - you can also get "cheaper" real items, ressources, food, etc. at lower prices in such countries, for example. But it doesn't mean they have it any easier, because their currency is weak, after all.

As for the gift cards being at specific prices, I'm assuming it's easier on the accounting side, among other things. In any case, you can use something more flexible and more specialized, like Paypal, if you really want to send specific amount of money to someone. I did plenty of international transactions with Paypal through freelance work. It's neat. Often times I had to calculate how much I charged depending on my buyers' location and the current state of our mutual economy, quite like Steam's regional pricing. You can convert currencies among other things, have different currencies in your account at the same time, etc. I'm sure you already know about Paypal but I'm just throwing it out here anyway.

As stated by others, the gift card is the only solution on the Steam platform. I sent my friend a gift card which had more or less the same amount of money I was going to spend on the said game. Everybody was happy.

Now, if we would talk about taxes for digital services, that would be another thing to talk about, and my post would probably be a little more on the rant side.

It's a good thing that websites with sales like Humble, Fanatical and GreenMan exist... gifting/sending Steam codes from these can bypasses the whole Steam 10% problem completely (provided the key you buy is valid in their country, which it usually is). /shrug

Originally posted by Supahz:

It's a good thing that websites with sales like Humble, Fanatical and GreenMan exist... gifting/sending Steam codes from these can bypasses the whole Steam 10% problem completely (provided the key you buy is valid in their country, which it usually is). /shrug

Some keys are region locked as well. Not all though.

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Originally posted by Supahz:

It's a good thing that websites with sales like Humble, Fanatical and GreenMan exist... gifting/sending Steam codes from these can bypasses the whole Steam 10% problem completely (provided the key you buy is valid in their country, which it usually is). /shrug

Some keys are region locked as well. Not all though.

:nkCool:

True, but I check that first. I'm sending to Spain from USA, which almost always is ok for me to send.

Originally posted by Supahz:

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Some keys are region locked as well. Not all though.

:nkCool:

True, but I check that first. I'm sending to Spain from USA, which almost always is ok for me to send.

No, regions do not set values. Individual games and publishers set values.
So saying you're in one region and the other person in another and that has worked before doesn't mean anything.