Blizzard Follows in Steam. Players in Argentina Despair Over Absurdly High Prices
After Steam, Blizzard is also introducing payment in dollars in Argentina, to the despair of gamers there who, in terms of earnings, have to spend absurd amounts of money on video games.
Players in Argentina, after the recent changes, can spend about half of their monthly salary on a single game, not just in Valve's store.
In November, game fans from Argentina were already saying that Steam had essentially become a dead platform for them. At that time, Valve replaced payments in Argentine and Turkish currencies with purchases in US dollars.
Of course, the old prices weren't converted, only the ones applicable to all USD-paying users were imposed. In practice, this meant a price increase of several dozen times for the residents of these countries.
Blizzard follows Valve
Unfortunately, Valve didn't reverse these changes or take any action to alleviate their consequences. What's worse, other publishers seem to be following the company's lead. Blizzard will also impose prices in US dollars in South American countries, which players learned about in January (via Reddit / official Blizzard Entertainment forum).
The company's choice may seem unexpected, as it was announced on the very same day that payments for purchases in the Battle.net store would be accepted in various currencies. All these changes were to take effect within 30 days of receiving the message.
The Wowhead site suggests that the abandonment of payments in pesos is the result of the unstable economic situation in South American countries and increasing inflation. Some online users also point out the misuse of VPN services by players from other countries to purchase games or subscriptions at lower local prices, which were significantly lower than those in Europe or the USA.
Expensive dollars and taxes
Regardless of what caused this decision, it's catastrophic for players from Argentina. In one of the Reddit threads discussing price changes to dollars, users highlight that the cost of purchase is also affected by a 60% fee for payment in foreign currencies, which was introduced in mid-December (via Englobally Latam).
There is perhaps no need to explain the impact this has on the already high game prices in dollars relative to local incomes. One of the Reddit users mentioned that purchasing the basic edition of Dragon's Dogma II would cost him 100,000 pesos (about $120). He earns 250,000 pesos per month.
The price of a World of Warcraft subscription is no less "attractive." Particularly because, even without the mentioned tax, the price is higher than in other Latin American countries or even in the USA ($14.99 to $9.99 per month).
The only consolation is the possibility of extending the subscription with tokens, which can be purchased for gold obtained in the game. In theory, this will enable you to buy a monthly subscription and then use game coins to extend it for more months.
Therefore, players from Argentina and other regions impacted by "dollarization" (as the players put it) will face significant challenges in continuing to enjoy or legally buying new games.
