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STEAM | May 2014 - every time improve protection Steam Guard

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Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
What are the new currencies if you don't mind me asking? Will they change the currency for some regions/countries?

AUD, NZD, CAD, MXN, JPY, and a handful in eastern europe and south-east asia, not sure which ones.

Fake edit: Googled it for you - These are all the currencies on Monday: https://i.imgur.com/yi5GPtm.jpg

Some of those countries have their own region already (like Australia has their own prices already, but just do transactions in USD instead of AUD), while some I believe are part of other regions and will get their own. Developers will probably be able to share what Valve told them once the change has occurred but I think it's NDA'd for now.
 

Sober

Member
Looking at my CC transactions for Steam/Humble/Amazon/other US vendors recently, it really seems like Canadians are effectively taxed for digital goods you buy from US vendors anyway. First you have CAD to USD then on top of that is the Foreign conversion rate, which when worked out is effectively the 13% tax in most Canadian provinces anyway.

So yeah unless Steam is going to just take actual Canadian Dollars when they charge my CC, I don't know if it'll be worth buying directly from the Steam store anymore. If they do though, it might be slightly alright since it works out to be the same but you don't get hit with the ~3% or so exchange rate fee.
 

Tenrius

Member
AUD, NZD, CAD, MXN, JPY, and a handful in eastern europe and south-east asia, not sure which ones.

Fake edit: Googled it for you - These are all the currencies on Monday: https://i.imgur.com/yi5GPtm.jpg

Some of those countries have their own region already (like Australia has their own prices already, but just do transactions in USD instead of AUD), while some I believe are part of other regions and will get their own. Developers will probably be able to share what Valve told them once the change has occurred but I think it's NDA'd for now.

Some of those currency symbols are rather peculiar, like the one right next to the yen.
 

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
Speaking of currency changes, if Valve really are introducing 12 new currencies this week and converting the existing accounts in those regions to new currencies, there will be quite a few changes that will have to happen in Enhanced Steam to make things work correctly again.

For starters, the "Total Spent" on your account page won't be correct going forward. Currently, this function doesn't capture any currency data on the transactions and just assumes that they're all in the same currency. Since it's very likely they'll keep your existing purchases in USD and only record your new purchases in whatever currency you use, it will throw the figure off significantly after you make a purchase in the new currency. For example, if you have $1,000 USD spent right now, after you purchase an item in CAD (for example), the function may show that you've spent $1,010 CAD, which would be incorrect.

Additionally, some features like the lowest price and price history functions won't show correctly until they're updated. Right now, the data file we get from IsThereAnyDeal sends the currency type, then Enhanced Steam figures out how to format that currency. If it can't figure out how to format the currency, it will show as "$x.xx", when in reality it could be "$x.xx CAD". This will be pretty easy to fix, but since I'm not privy to what the new currencies will be and how they'll be formatted, I can't fix this beforehand.

Another feature that will be affected will be the regional price comparisons. Again, this tries to match the currency type of your store page, and adjusts the other region's prices to that currency. Until it's updated, you may experience an instance where this feature doesn't work at all, or will try to convert everything to compare it to USD.

The market transaction history for users won't be correct until that function is updated. If someone buys an item from you on the market using one of the new currencies, Enhanced Steam won't know how to convert that into your local currency.

Finally, there will be a few small things here and there that may not look right or may not be formatted correctly until Enhanced Steam is updated to handle them. Things like the lowest market prices on the inventory page, average value of Steam trading cards on badge pages, approximate worth of dropped cards, and even things like Steam wallet balance in the header may not work until those functions are updated.

Of course, we'll do the best we can to get things updated as quickly as possible, I just wanted to give you guys a heads up that if your Steam currency is changing soon, expect a few issues with Enhanced Steam along the way. If you're affected by one of these issues, feel free to submit a bug report using the Enhanced Steam menu at the top of every Steam page. Also, browse through the existing bug reports in case someone has already put in the same issue, so that we don't spend all of our time weeding through the duplicates. And finally, thanks for your patience during this process.
 

fallout

Member
Bought some sweet sweet Steam credit to avoid the incoming CADpocalypse on May 12th. EBGames in Canada sells $50 for $55 CAD which is slightly above Paypal or my credit card's conversion rate, plus I will hopefully dodge the no doubt inevitable addition of 13% tax to prices plus $10 CAD price bumps for new release full price titles.
Thanks for reminding me about this. I was really enjoying the $50 USD for $50 CAD. I can only see this getting worse.
 

Nzyme32

Member
Valve is introducing 12 new currencies on Monday. I have confirmation from this because developers were contacted about it. The Steam Dev Days listed CAD as an upcoming currency. I have separately confirmed that CAD is one of the 12 currencies. I have no idea how the introduction process or conversion is going to work, so I'm just speculating and hedging my risk by buying in advance in case the currency changeover hurts us.

Ah I see. If it was well known there could be an issue of people buying as much retail steam credit to get a better amount of money if there are any conversion loop holes
 

Zafir

Member
For starters, the "Total Spent" on your account page won't be correct going forward. Currently, this function doesn't capture any currency data on the transactions and just assumes that they're all in the same currency. Since it's very likely they'll keep your existing purchases in USD and only record your new purchases in whatever currency you use, it will throw the figure off significantly after you make a purchase in the new currency. For example, if you have spent right now, after you purchase an item in CAD (for example), the function may show that you've spent CAD, which would be incorrect.
My initial purchases before they introduced pounds still show up as dollars, so the backlog will likely still show as dollars for the new currencies too.
 

Lomax

Member
Other forums are saying the DOTA key price drop is just people dumping them to get money to buy the newly released Compendium. If that's the case one would definitely expect prices to go back up over time (in fact, they are already drifting back up from where I saw them an hour ago). Even if there is a keyless crate I can't imagine valve would completely kill demand for keys, it has to be one of their biggest direct moneymakers.
 

Tizoc

Member
AUD, NZD, CAD, MXN, JPY, and a handful in eastern europe and south-east asia, not sure which ones.

Fake edit: Googled it for you - These are all the currencies on Monday: https://i.imgur.com/yi5GPtm.jpg

Some of those countries have their own region already (like Australia has their own prices already, but just do transactions in USD instead of AUD), while some I believe are part of other regions and will get their own. Developers will probably be able to share what Valve told them once the change has occurred but I think it's NDA'd for now.

Phew I'm safe as Steam'll still be charging me in USD. I thought JPY was already supported by Steam?
 

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
My initial purchases before they introduced pounds still show up as dollars, so the backlog will likely still show as dollars for the new currencies too.

Correct, meaning that your account's "Total Spent" is probably listed in pounds, but isn't correct because there are some purchases that were made in USD that aren't being converted. So if you spent $500 USD and 500 GBP, your account will say that you've spent 1,000 GBP, rather than converting the $500 to GBP and adding it to your existing GDP purchases (which would make it like 750 GBP, maybe?)

Either way, due to these currency changes, the feature will probably have to be re-written to account for converting the previous transactions, or listing each currency separately.
 

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
Looking at my CC transactions for Steam/Humble/Amazon/other US vendors recently, it really seems like Canadians are effectively taxed for digital goods you buy from US vendors anyway. First you have CAD to USD then on top of that is the Foreign conversion rate, which when worked out is effectively the 13% tax in most Canadian provinces anyway.

Typically most CC providers charge actual conversion + 2.5% to convert. Obviously if you have RBC or another firm that allows US-denominated accounts you get no conversion charge.

Overall it's close to 13% if you pretend that USD = CAD... like, $5 USD -> $5.75 CAD looks like 13%, but if there was no currency conversion then the base price could be $5.50 CAD or $6 CAD then plus the 13%.

So yeah unless Steam is going to just take actual Canadian Dollars when they charge my CC, I don't know if it'll be worth buying directly from the Steam store anymore.

They will be accepting CAD, so you'll get the 2.5% boost--but possibly suffer from the tax and/or higher base prices. Like, in Australia right now, 60 USD = 64 AUD... but Australians pay $96 AUD for Call of Duty Ghosts.
 

Tellaerin

Member
I seriously hope Valve never goes public.

Valve going public would be a nightmare. People complain about "the Valve way" sometimes, particularly when it comes to things like poor customer service and lack of communications, but I'll gladly put up with those issues if it means they'll remain privately held.
 

Stallion Free

Cock Encumbered
I really hope that new Transformers game is as good as War and Fall...

I'm like 99% sure it won't be, but it would be nice if it was decent.

10792280343_3226406a8b_o_d.gif
 

Tizoc

Member
I'm like 99% sure it won't be, but it would be nice if it was decent.

10792280343_3226406a8b_o_d.gif

Looking at its Wiki page it lists Grimlock as being playable but I wonder how they'll have him play...really hope the designs resemble the High Moon games. The Bayformers designs are like bodies with the skin removed.
 

Arthea

Member
I'm like 99% sure it won't be, but it would be nice if it was decent.

awesome.gif

I don't know why you guys keep insisting that anything transformers has to be good, that's not the point! I thought we've already established that.

edited: can someone summarize me what's going on with Valve and Dota
please understand, someone has to be lazy
 

Stallion Free

Cock Encumbered
Looking at its Wiki page it lists Grimlock as being playable but I wonder how they'll have him play...really hope the designs resemble the High Moon games. The Bayformers designs are like bodies with the skin removed.

It has both art styles supposedly for each transformer. Like 2 different skins.
 
Holy fuck Canada is getting screwed digitally now? We already have to convert to the shitty canadian dollar when we pay with credit card now we are going to get screwed on stupid "canadian" priced games...I am like an hour from the border stop fucking with me.
 

Pakkidis

Member
As a Canadian, all this currency talk is scaring me greatly. We ALWAYS ALWAYS get screwed when it comes to conversion to US dollars. Even when our dollar was equal to US a few years ago, we STILL payed higher prices.
 

mrgone

Member
Holy fuck Canada is getting screwed digitally now? We already have to convert to the shitty canadian dollar when we pay with credit card now we are going to get screwed on stupid "canadian" priced games...I am like an hour from the border stop fucking with me.

I guess the bright side is that the bundle sites, bundle site stores, GMG, and Amazon probably won't be following suit. It does mean fewer purchases (and some rage) during the big Steam sales, though.

It still blows my mind that, in the year 2014, a game sold digitally in Australia, or New Zealand, or South Africa, or wherever is somehow worth more than if purchased from the US storefront. You can even download the game from US servers if you want. It's so frustratingly artificial. And from the looks of things Valve might be phasing out keys too, so it'll become a much riskier endeavour to benefit from the reverse. Save us, capitalism.
 

Sub Zero

his body's cold as ice, but he's got a heart of gold
So a lot of game icons just disappeared from my grid view . Did this happen to anyone else?
 

Nzyme32

Member
Holy fuck Canada is getting screwed digitally now? We already have to convert to the shitty canadian dollar when we pay with credit card now we are going to get screwed on stupid "canadian" priced games...I am like an hour from the border stop fucking with me.

I'm not completely knowledgeable on the subject, but they also say they would attempt to support local pricing when they expand to those regions. Maybe it won't be so bad? The Euro is a problem because it applies to so many different regions with different circumstances and localised pricing (I think). So countries like ukraine should see a good change like brazil and russia did, but not too clear on place like australia which have typically always been over charged even in local AUD
 

Grief.exe

Member
Reminder, 2 hours left to start your Star Wars games for the Playfire awards. Potentially £2.80 on the table.

  • Star Wars Battlefront II - play for the first time - £0.20
  • Star Wars Empire at War: Gold Pack - play for the first time - £0.20
  • Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast - play for the first time - £0.20
  • Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II - play for the first time - £0.20
  • Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy - play for the first time - £0.20
  • Star Wars Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith - play for the first time - £0.20
  • Star Wars Republic Commando - play for the first time - £0.20
  • Star Wars Starfighter - play for the first time - £0.20
  • Star Wars The Clone Wars: Republic Heroes - play for the first time - £0.20
  • Star Wars The Force Unleashed II - play for the first time - £0.20
  • Star Wars The Force Unleashed Ultimate Sith Edition - play for the first time - £0.20
  • Star Wars: Dark Forces - play for the first time - £0.20
  • Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic - play for the first time - £0.20
  • Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II - play for the first time - £0.20

Theoretically, this method should work.

Basically, you just make a steam_appid.txt file in the directory containing the game's executable, fill it with nothing but the app id of another game, and then launch the executable from within the directory (this is important as launching the game through Steam itself will override the value in the text file). Here's an example I put together about six months ago:

aoe2kam3zukz.jpg
 

jediyoshi

Member
Do I sell my 11 remaining TF2 keys now in anticipation of the same happening there? Guide me, financialadvisorGAF.

Considering how much weird stuff is constantly getting tossed around as far as drops go in TF2, I'm surprised they haven't already been replaced.

They're not going anywhere.
 
Started Dark Forces II and oh my gosh the aiming is completely inverted. It's so wrong ;-;

3D acceleration seems to crash it as well so it looks hilariously bad. Not as much as the first Mysteries of the Sith cutscene did though. Any way to get them to work?

Also, how does DW8 compare to the PS4 version? Heard it was based on the last gen versions so is all that much lost?
 
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