Some out of protest, others maybe out of necessity.
If you’ve been watching the news lately you may be vaguely aware of the war crimes being committed by the Russian military in its invasion of the Ukraine. Or you’ve been doomscrolling Twitter and reading about it that way. Regardless, there’s some bad stuff happening in the world right now and people are suffering for the actions of a criminal regime.
Over on Steam however, some developers are responding in their own way. With the Ruble crashing in value, some developers are starting to hike their prices in the Russian currency. Some more out of protest of the Russian government.
The game Ebony Spire: Heresy for instance has raised its price to 14099829.08 Ruble. That amounts to $142,783.07 USD. It also may very well make it one of the most expensive games on Steam. Space Mercs raised its price to 9999259 Ruble, or $101,258.31. Goldmine incidentally raised the prices in Ruble, Rupee, and Yuan with the highest being in Yuan at $158k USD. Accompanying the price hike, Goldmine developer Alaric von Teplitz posted a statement about the price change.
Other developers have gone for smaller, yet still significant price hikes in Russia including Foxtail ($101.25) whose developer is apparently Ukrainian. The price hikes and various charity pledges have been met here and there with negative reviews predominately from Russian and Chinese Steam users.
Valve’s systems suggest prices based on regional currency, but developers are in no way obligated to folflow those suggestions. While the Ruble has fallen to record lows, it doesn’t appear that Valve has altered its suggestions to match the current value. Only a small handful of games have actually raised their Ruble prices over the last few days, with a subset of that actually making a public statement about their motivation.
MMO Fallout 