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[LoSboccacc]

It is illegal in most eu, new zeland and canada at the very least, either as price gauging or false advertising.

But it's mostly a dick move and people should not encourage them.

[BigD145]

Steam can always just allow such pricing in regions where it's not illegal. They have regional pricing anyway.

[nenjin]

It's absolutely illegal in Australia: http://www.comcom.govt.nz/fair-trading/fair-trading-act-fact-sheets/pricing/

And yes, the US has laws on this too, and a Federal Trade Commission for exactly stuff like this.

(a) One of the most commonly used forms of bargain advertising is to offer a reduction from the advertiser's own former price for an article. If the former price is the actual, bona fide price at which the article was offered to the public on a regular basis for a reasonably substantial period of time, it provides a legitimate basis for the advertising of a price comparison. Where the former price is genuine, the bargain being advertised is a true one. If, on the other hand, the former price being advertised is not bona fide but fictitious -- for example, where an artificial, inflated price was established for the purpose of enabling the subsequent offer of a large reduction -- the "bargain'' being advertised is a false one; the purchaser is not receiving the unusual value he expects. In such a case, the "reduced" price is, in reality, probably just the seller's regular price.

(b) A former price is not necessarily fictitious merely because no sales at the advertised price were made. The advertiser should be especially careful, however, in such a case, that the price is one at which the product was openly and actively offered for sale, for a reasonably substantial period of time, in the recent, regular course of his business, honestly and in good faith -- and, of course, not for the purpose of establishing a fictitious higher price on which a deceptive comparison might be based. And the advertiser should scrupulously avoid any implication that a former price is a selling, not an asking price (for example, by use of such language as, ``Formerly sold at $XXX''), unless substantial sales at that price were actually made.

(c) The following is an example of a price comparison based on a fictitious former price. John Doe is a retailer of Brand X fountain pens, which cost him $5 each. His usual markup is 50 percent over cost; that is, his regular retail price is $7.50. In order subsequently to offer an unusual ``bargain'', Doe begins offering Brand X at $10 per pen. He realizes that he will be able to sell no, or very few, pens at this inflated price. But he doesn't care, for he maintains that price for only a few days. Then he "cuts'' the price to its usual level -- $7.50 -- and advertises: "Terrific Bargain: X Pens, Were $10, Now Only $7.50!'' This is obviously a false claim. The advertised "bargain'' is not genuine.

https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/rules/rulemaking-regulatory-reform-proceedings/guides-against-deceptive-pricing

You can thank "Those reddit kids trying to start some shit" for doing the thinking, searching and, apparently, CARING, for you.

Steam can always just allow such pricing in regions where it's not illegal. They have regional pricing anyway.

This has nothing to do with regional pricing. And since the US, EU and half a dozen other developed nations have laws and rules on the books for this, who are they going to allow it for? The entire world understands this is an abusive business practice, and as usual, it's Valve that is the reason it continues to go on, because Valve only follows the laws people make them follow. But do go on giving them a free pass.

[Toaster]

Also, the case against JC Penny in the US doing the exact same thing.

[BigD145]

Giving them a free pass? Not even. They do that for themselves. That's how businesses work. That's how they maximize profits.

What sucks is that it's not very easy to use the Steam price trackers to find price hikes, just current cuts from whatever the "regular" price is.

[aristabulus]

Prices change all the time, for all sorts of reasons.  In this instance, it's because some russian gamedevs think they will make more money in the upcoming sale.  I don't suggest that anyone help them out with that.

But seriously, how would you even try to take them to task over it?  Russian devs, on an American digital storefront based in Washington, selling an entertainment product, trying to squeeze a few extra bucks out of a seasonal sale.  The DA is gonna laugh you out of their office, and good luck finding a lawyer dumb & rabid enough to chase that class action suit.

Y'all believe whatever you want to believe.  Enjoy being footsoldiers in the army of a butthurt redditor, I guess.

[nenjin]

But seriously, how would you even try to take them to task over it?  Russian devs, on an American digital storefront based in Washington, selling an entertainment product, trying to squeeze a few extra bucks out of a seasonal sale.  The DA is gonna laugh you out of their office, and good luck finding a lawyer dumb & rabid enough to chase that class action suit.

Gee, I dunno, maybe Steam with its massive database, tools and metrics can very easily see when a game's base price just magically jump 150% a day before the sale starts. Maybe they could care as much about protecting the people that pump money into their business as the people profiting from it. Maybe they could take their administration responsibilities seriously instead of relying on the apathy demonstrated in this thread to make sure they don't have to. Who cares, as long as you get that 50% off from a game you like, right?

I say this as someone who works for a company who maintains multiple e-commerce portals, who have to juggle our vendors playing pricing games with our customers and putting ourselves in the position of saying "No, you cannot do that with our platform." Then again, we don't take a slice of the profits from this kind of shitty behavior like Valve does.

Enjoy being footsoldiers in the army of a butthurt redditor, I guess.

I don't even fucking read Reddit. But if you want to continue hating on Reddit despite the fact they're entirely correct, I guess that's your prerogative to do so, despite it not being the point whatsoever.

[nenjin]

There are links that in Reddit thread for 3rd party websites that can do it.

[Tellemurius]

So arguments I don't give a shit about aside, is there any actual way to check the history of a game's price to see if it's gone up before the sale?

https://steamdb.info
SteamDB can track prices for upto 6 months on games

[forsaken1111]

I'm curious why exactly so many people expect STEAM to police this? Steam is just a distribution platform which accepts payment. Amazon doesn't police the pricing of the goods they sell. If a company is performing an illegal action, it isn't up to Steam to police them. That is the job of the actual police.

[BigD145]

It's bad PR for Steam.
But any PR is good PR.
But Steam is big enough not to give any shits.

[LoSboccacc]

we expect storefront to respect laws.

but I don't care about steam policing, I am just voting with my wallet, and exposing the facts as they are so likely minded people might reach the same conclusion. I'm not here to 'win' an argument. To each their own.

[nenjin]

I'm curious why exactly so many people expect STEAM to police this? Steam is just a distribution platform which accepts payment. Amazon doesn't police the pricing of the goods they sell. If a company is performing an illegal action, it isn't up to Steam to police them. That is the job of the actual police.

Plenty of people are pissed about getting scammed on Amazon, too, and Amazon telling them it's not their problem, despite it being their site.

I don't believe being a retailer absolves you from caring what happens on your platform. Especially when you are profiting from the behavior of others on your portal. You are arguably as bad as they if you know it's happening, profit from it, and do nothing about it.

It's the same story with refunds. Steam IMO was complicit in scamming people by taking their 30% from games that were complete garbage, using stolen assets, were broken, etc.... The EU felt the same way. Gaben always wants to act like he just doesn't want to interfere in the creative/market processes, but the longer this goes on, the more I'm starting to believe he doesn't want to invest in something that will ultimately lose him money, despite it being the right thing to do.

[Toaster]

Stop arguing and start looking at sales

[Metalax]

So arguments I don't give a shit about aside, is there any actual way to check the history of a game's price to see if it's gone up before the sale?

https://www.steamprices.com/uk/tracker is a good one for tracking changes.

Stop arguing and start looking at sales

You mean start watching a black screen as Steam crashes under the load, as usual, right?