Regional pricing issue in Poland!

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EDIT: The game’s price decreased to 130 PLN! I have no idea whether this post had any impact on it but it’s still amazing!

TL; DR If you believe everyone should be able to afford Factorio on fair terms, please trust me with an upvote to help spread this message!

Hey everyone! Today, I want to bring up an issue that’s impacting Factorio fans in Poland (and probably other countries too), which is Steam regional pricing.

First off, let me be clear—I’m not here to complain about Factorio’s price increasing over time. I believe the price is fair and reflects the incredible work Wube puts into the game. Factorio keeps improving, so it makes sense that its value goes up.

But here’s the problem:

Steam’s regional pricing is supposed to make games more affordable in areas with lower average incomes, but in Poland, it’s having the opposite effect. Polish players are currently trying to address this problem by contacting developers personally and asking them to adjust their pricing manually instead of using Steam bult in calculator (If you want you can read about it more here). Given how responsive Wube has been in the past, I’m hoping they might reconsider the price for Poland so that is my way of putting a piece in this initiative. (If you have suggestions on other places where I could get this message to them, let me know in the comments!)

Getting to the point. According to Factorio price chart on Steam DB here Right now, the price for Factorio in Poland is the second-highest in the world, just after Switzerland costing 37,27€. Our minimal hourly wage in Poland is currently set to 28,10 PLN which is equal to 6,54 €. This means that, at minimum wage Polish gamer needs to work almost 6 hours to buy Factorio.

Now looking into Switzerland, we can see that price there is 42,63 €. However, the minimal wage is CHF 24,32, which is equal to 25,91 €! Over 4 times higher than Poland! Swiss gamer has to work only 1,64 hours to afford Factorio! I think you can see the difference here. Of course it is just the tip of the iceberg and you can find way more examples.

Of course, I understand that stuff like inflation impacts everyone, including developers. However, I hope that the devs can reconsider the pricing for Poland to be more fair and actually reflect our economic situation.

If you think this is a fair point and support the idea of more equitable pricing, please upvote this post. And if you have a different opinion or thoughts to share, feel free to comment below.

PS: Just to make it clear I am probably gonna buy Space Age no matter the price. However, I believe that if one of my friends, family or anyone ever wants to buy this beautiful game they deserve fair pricing!

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Hey, I suggest to get a game directly on Factorio website, its around 20% cheaper then on steam for Poland (it will use current exchange ratio) and you will still get a steam key after the purchase. In addition devs wont have to pay a steam cut so they will also earn more.

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Romanians be like: rookie numbers.

Minimal hourly wage: 2,97 euros. Factorio: 32 euros

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I started writing a comment that steam works on per-currency basis and not per-country but then I’ve checked steamdm and it’s using zloty for Poland. So yeah, devs definitely can and I think should change prices for Poland

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This make me triste (sad in BR)
Brazilian minimum wage is R$ 1400 and the base game costs on steam R$ 103.

This is a wooping 13% of a monthly salary.

A typical “triple AAA” game (like FIFA) cost around R$ 300, so it’s a fair price for Factorio.

I’m gladly paying ~ R$ 100 for the DLC but I can see why many brazilians would prefer to sail in the sea.

And last thing: I can afford the price because I make more than a minimum wage, but even so it’s make prohibitive to buy to gift my friends.

I bought Factorio for R$ 35 (at early access) and the release price in Brasil was ~ R$ 50 maybe?
I think this would be the perfect price for the base game or SA to improve sales number in Brasil.

(write in US was hard than I imagined)

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Holy crap, the Swiss get paid loads.

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Brazilians at minimum wage are working a whopping 16 hours for the game, I made a post about it some time ago and it went nowhere:
https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/s/dOeONJt4un

I’m sad about it because, historically, Factorio was affordable before they set the prices to the Steam built in calculator, it was only a $5 increase in price but a 100% increase in Brazil…

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I mean this isn’t a Factorio specific problem, for some reason a lot games are more expensive in Poland than other EU countries, sure not usually as much as factorio difference, cause… idk, reasons.

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As a Pole living in Switzerland I fully approve of this message!

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Thai price :700THB which is like 2 days of minimum wages, regional price doesnt mean similarly affordable everywhere.

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Same problem in Brazil.

Here in Brazil, our minimum wage is R$1412. Factorio is costing R$102 (7.22%), approximately 16 hours of work. I honestly don’t even know if I’ll be able to buy the dlc. I think I’ll pirate it at first and try to save up money to buy it in some future promotion, because from what I’ve seen the dlc will be the same price as the game.

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The same problem is also here in Romania.

We pay western prices while having eastern income.

Regional price is a lie and steam don’t care of people from Eastern Europe.

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if the problem is with steam regional pricing, buy the game direct from wube at their website and avoid steam.

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So i just looked at factorio price and it got updated to 130 zł!

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Totally agree with that!

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I hope that post will reach Wube

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If they sell games in Poland for less than other parts of the EU, they are legally obliged to allow people from other parts of the EU to buy the games in Poland. So then people in France can buy the game for less.

There are already a few examples of this, like frostpunk 2, they sell the game for less in Poland, but that means you can also activate that key on France. Most other developers don’t want to take the financial hit.

Edit: in an ideal world, the prices would be fair for all countries. But why are you looking at minimum wage as a benchmark? Some countries don’t even have minimum wages. Look at the medium or average wages in Poland.

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just checked the prices. Holy shit. For that price you can buy a train ticked to Ukraine, make a new account from some coffee place wifi, buy it for 5 times cheaper, and go back. Can I help you somehow from Ukraine?

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I feel that as well. Hourly minimum wage in Turkey is about 2 USD, meaning almost two days of work for the working man. Thankfully I am doing a bit better so I will grab the DLC easily. With the 300 hours I have played now, the game + DLC nets me around 0.25 USD per hour played, and that’s without the DLC.

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Factorio polish prices just changed from 160zł to 130zł!!!