In Russia, Games Buy You - Steam Adds Rubles Currency

[Hectic Glenn]

As Steam growth continues (including in Russia), Valve have announced today the addition of Rubles and local pricing for customers using Steam in Russia. Before now other payment methods such as WebMoney, Visa, Mastercard and ClickandBuy had to be used.

"PC Gaming has always been strong in Russia, and we're excited to help improve the experience for Steam customers." said Jason Holtman, Director of Business Development "We're hoping to make gamers happy over the coming months by improving their access to great games."

 

[Ennui]

Cool. Should give Russian gamers an alternative to pirated / bootleg warez... a lot of the stuff sold in stores over there is actually warez.

 

[Krynn72]

In Soviet Russia...

 

[lord_raken]

Stopping Piracy by presenting those who have no choice with a viable alternative to piracy..... Brilliant!

How ever did someone think of such a strange idea? *obvious sarcasm*

Wasn't there anther article on here a while ago about Valve's choice to go into Russia? If I remember right, all the other developers told Valve that they were crazy, that it was all piracy and that they would never make any real money from them. Only to have Russia become a major source of income for Valve in Europe.

I'm not even sure its possible for Valve to make a bad move anymore. Its just been so long since I could say anything bad about them. The closest recent event I can come to is the Hat flood in TF2, but even that was brilliant from a business standpoint. The last real shortcoming of Valve was when the HL2 episodic model failed.

I mean come on. Guys sit outside protesting and they get a tour. People who submit designs in TF2 that get used get money from their idte sales. Daily/weekly/weekend deals, giving indi-developers access to the market, Portal 2 Portal 2 Portal 2.

Am I right, or am I right?