Buying Steam games outside of the US

[pants]

I'm confuzzled.  I'm in Australia, and was just browsing steam to see if there are any good games on there.  And the pricing confused me.

I thought all the prices were in USD - and thats what the FAQ webpage says.  Simple.  But then why is Fallout 3 $70?  And why is COD4 $89?  Those prices sound closer to AUD ripoff game prices - which makes it think Steam realises I'm in Australia, and so is charging the local price for games.  But then Farcry2 is $54 - which sounds like the US price.

Anyone outside the US run into this? 

And no, its not automatically converting USD to AUD - I know this cause COD4 was $89 about 3-4 months ago back when the AUD and USD were near parity, unlike now.

[Yoru]

Steam does do some kind of regionalization. I believe it's based on the locale/address info you give it when you sign up, as well as your IP. I know I've been unable to buy, e.g. World of Goo, since I've got a European IP while having an American credit card.

One way of working around this is to have a friend in the US/Canada purchase the game and gift it to you, then transfer currency outside the game (e.g. Paypal) to reimburse them. This is how I've worked around a couple region-locking restrictions.

[pants]

Yeah, I just did some digging - looks like all prices are in USD, and they do some regionalisation based on my IP etc.  So CoD4 is USD89 if your IP says you are in Australia.  Which is crazy crazy prices back when the AUD:USD was almost 1:1, let alone now, when its now running at about a 40% premium over buying it from the local games store.

Seems a great way to drive away customers...

[KallDrexx]

Seems a great way to drive away customers...

It's the publisher's fault not steam's.  Look back at the AU COD4 price change stories to see why