Regional Pricing Suggestion for MENA-USD (Addressing Purchasing Power & Region Abuse)

[Flink]

Hi Wube Team and Community,

Following a helpful conversation on Discord, I’m posting here under Ideas & Suggestions regarding the current MENA-USD pricing tier on Steam.

As a high school student from Turkey passionate about robotics and systems engineering, Factorio is a masterpiece that heavily inspires me. However, the current price tag of $17.00 USD is prohibitive for students and average gamers in Turkey due to low purchasing power and extreme local currency devaluation.

After discussing this with the community, I wanted to outline a quick Pros & Cons / Risk Analysis regarding a potential price adjustment for the MENA-USD region:

Pros for Wube:

Reduces Piracy: Right now, high pricing drives a massive portion of local players toward cracked versions. A more realistic price point converts potential pirates into paying customers.

Increases Net Revenue: Earning $7–$10 per copy from a market currently paying $0 generates significantly higher net income overall.

Community Growth: Supports a passionate community that actively contributes to mods, blueprints, and discussions.

Cons & Risk Mitigation:

Risk of Region Abuse (VPN / Region Hopping): The primary concern with lower regional prices is players from high-income regions exploiting the system.

Mitigation: Steam’s MENA-USD framework requires regional payment methods and enforces strict account locks. With USD as the base currency and Valve’s current region-lock mechanisms, exploitability is drastically lower compared to the old native-currency store models.

For comparison, similar low-purchasing-power regions like Ukraine currently have the game priced around $6.70 USD. Adjusting the MENA-USD tier to a similar accessible range would be a win-win for both Wube and the local community.

Thank you for your time, consideration, and continued work on this amazing game!

Best regards,
Flink

[worph]

Comparing Turkiye to Ukraine and arguing their economies should be categorized similarly(equally) is a bit macabre in my humble opinion.
But the core argument and everything else makes a lot of sense to me.

[eugenekay]

135754
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102895 (Special mention: the only thread that has resulted in a change!)
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And a bonus: FFF-247

I hope that we don’t need any MORE threads on regional pricing.

[Flink]

Totally fair point, I get what you mean! I only mentioned it because of Steam’s pricing tiers, but you’re right. Thanks for your replies.

[Flink]

I really appreciate you sharing all those links. I took the time to read through them, and I can see that this topic has come up many times before—from G2A/GOG price differences to regional feedback from Brazilian players—and that Wube’s position on pricing has stayed very consistent over the years.

So I understand that it’s unlikely anything will change. Still, I wanted to share how it feels from the perspective of a student in Turkey. At the current regional price, the game is simply out of reach for many local players, and I think it’s still worth saying that accessibility matters to us.

Thanks again for taking the time to provide all that context.

[pioruns]

Not this bs again please.

[Flink]

Don't worry anymore, I'm pretty sure this isn't going anywhere anyway. Maybe in another Universe, if I buy Wube Software one day, I will fix it...

have good day