Hi Wube team,
First, I fully respect your no-sale policy, and I'm not asking for a discount. I also appreciate that you already offer a regional price for MENA.
I'd like to share some purchasing power context from Egypt. Egypt has no local currency on Steam, so we pay the MENA USD price of $17. According to the Central Bank of Egypt, the rate is now about 52.4 EGP per dollar, which makes Factorio roughly 890 EGP. The minimum monthly wage in Egypt is 7,000–8,000 EGP, so the game costs about 11–13% of a full month's minimum salary.
I noticed that you already set lower prices for some regions: Ukraine is 300 UAH (about $6.66) and South Asia (SASIA) is $12. This shows you adjust prices beyond Steam's suggestions, and I'm simply asking for similar consideration for MENA. For reference, Steam's own "Purchasing power conversion only" method suggests $8.39 for MENA at the $34.99 tier, and Steam's documentation states that regional pricing is entirely the developer's decision.
I believe a lower MENA price is worth trying. Factorio doesn't rely on servers, so each extra copy sold costs you almost nothing, and many players who can't afford the current price would become new buyers instead of zero sales. Large price gaps between regions also push some players toward region switching or grey-market keys, which makes your regional sales data less accurate and hides the real demand from our region. Since you've said you think long-term, growing a bigger community in the Middle East could be valuable for Factorio's future, beyond the short-term revenue.
Since Factorio never goes on sale, the base regional price is the only way for players here to get the game. I'd kindly ask you to consider a MENA price similar to SASIA ($12) or closer to Steam's purchasing power suggestion.
Thank you for making such an amazing game, and for reading this.
Best regards
