Steam is changing its recommended prices heavily.
NOK 849 for a PC game is a price level we have previously hardly seen in Norway, even for brand new top games. 70 dollars in the USA has until now meant around 500 kroner here on the mountain, but that will now change.
Get ready for a solid price jump for games on Steam. Steam owner Valve has changed the recommended prices for the Norwegian market – and these changes can increase the Norwegian prices by well over 50 percent.
Brand new Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II has even gone to sleep above Steam’s recommendation and now charges NOK 849 for the base game – up from a launch price of NOK 499 for the previous game in the series.
Steam’s “recommendations” use the prices a game or an add-on package has in dollars in the US market as a basis, and then recommended prices in all other markets are set up based on that – based on, among other things, exchange rates and purchasing power.
Up until now, these recommendations have often led to games being in some cases significantly cheaper in Norwegian kroner than in US dollars, especially considering how much more expensive the US dollar has become recently – but that seems to be a change on now.
Here are some examples. The changes were first caught by SteamDB.
| NOK 7.50 | NOK 11.00 | 47 percent |
| NOK 37.00 | NOK 55.49 | 50 percent |
| NOK 72.00 | NOK 110.00 | 53 percent |
| NOK 145.00 | NOK 220.00 | 52 percent |
| NOK 207.00 | NOK 335.00 | 62 percent |
| NOK 279.00 | NOK 445.00 | 59 percent |
| NOK 352.00 | NOK 559.00 | 59 percent |
| NOK 412.00 | NOK 670.00 | 63 percent |
| NOK 495.00 | NOK 785.00 | 59 percent |
| NOK 569.00 | NOK 895.00 | 57 percent |
As you can see, the recommended prices increase by between approximately 50 and 60 per cent, with an increase from approximately NOK 7.50 to around NOK 11 per dollar – i.e. slightly above today’s dollar exchange rate of around NOK 10.30-10.40. Norway is also one of the countries where prices are increasing the most. In pounds and euros, prices increase roughly between five and 20 per cent.
– Instead of just pegging the prices to exchange rates, our process for price proposals goes deeper into what players pay for goods and services. It includes variables such as purchasing power and consumer price indices, which help compare prices and costs more broadly, across different economic sectors, Steam writes in its review of prices for developers.
It must be said that Valve’s recommended prices per market are an offer to game developers. They are not obliged to follow them, but the practice is that these are often considered standard prices in all markets since the developers do not necessarily have local knowledge of every country in which they sell their games.
The aforementioned Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II costs 69.99 dollars, while the Norwegian price is thus set at 849 kroner – above Steam’s recommendation of 785 kroner and quite a clear contrast to the previous game in the series, which was launched at 499 kroner.
For comparison, the relatively newly launched FIFA 23 costs the same 69.99 in the USA, but in Norway the price is currently NOK 699. Persona 5 Royal, which was launched on PC a couple of days ago, costs $59.99 in the US and NOK 599 in Norway.
Valve has also increased its own prices. Half-Life: Alyx costs $59.99 in the US and until recently cost NOK 412 in Norway. The price is now set at NOK 670. Portal 2 used to cost NOK 72, and is now set at NOK 110.
Baldur’s Gate 3, which is still in so-called Early Access status, costs NOK 549 in Norway until further notice. That’s more than Steam’s previous recommended price for a game that costs $60 in the US, but significantly less than the new recommended price of NOK 670.
Part of the price increase is a result of the games industry generally increasing its prices recently (top titles have gone up from 60 to 70 dollars in the US, across console and PC), but for Norwegian customers, Valve’s increase now comes at the top.
A quick look at the undersigned’s wish list on Steam may indicate that very few developers have adopted the new recommendations for now. Part of that is probably due to Steam currently having a sale going on, and according to Steam’s rules, a game cannot be put on offer until 28 days have passed after a price change.
The recommended prices will in future be adjusted much more often, Valve warns. Prices on games tend to be the same across game stores, so it is probably not unlikely that Valve’s change will also affect, for example, Epic Games Store prices.
