My review landed in China!

Well well.

My review of the AKG 450 reached a chinese forum. I got quite suprised and it’s quite fun to know even the chinese look at my reviews

So if anyone from that forum reads this: Yes i know my English is so bad your translators go bananas

European Gamers: Boycott Steam!

A separate website that deals with the Steam “feature” of localized currencies for continental Europe and the United Kingdom has been created: steamunpowered.eu

For the last years since the start of the service in 2003 Valve’s Steam store offered games exclusively in the U.S. dollar currency. With an exchange rate averaging about 1 EUR : 1.4 USD over the last year this aspect made it very attractive for Europeans in the Eurozone to buy their games online from Valve, which typically sold a few percent below normal retail prices.

No more, they say, for this year’s Christmas (the timing must be a coincidence)! Valve decided to silently move all European customers – except for UK citizens, who will be billed in Pounds Sterling form now on – over to a now Euro-based  version of their store. Why is this bad for the European people, you may wonder? Finally, your credit card company won’t cheat you with bad exchange rates and processing fees anymore, you might say? Well, here are a few points you should think about:

• Valve decided to use a 1 : 1 exchange rate for the new Euro pricetags of most of the games in the Steam store. This means that games that used to be sold for 9,99 $ now cost 9,99 €, which yields an increase in costs of more than 25% for European customers at the current exchange rate of EUR : USD. More examples are given in this post over at the Steam forums, e.g. COD4 now sells for about 80$ instead of 49,99$ as can be seen here. Interestingly enough, prices for customers for the UK are well below USD or EUR prices. People on the Steam forums smell a violation of EU law there!
• Even Europeans that live outside of the Eurozone, e.g. citizens of Sweden or Denmark, are also billed in Euros from now on. Intentional, so that Valve can make a little extra cash in times of economic recession? Or just incompetence by failing to realize that not all EU member states actually have the Euro as a currency.

What can YOU do against this?

1. Don’t buy from Steam until this issue is resolved. You are the customer, you decide where you spend your money. Most games are less expensive when you buy them from Amazon or from your local retail store and also include a manual, a box and an installation medium (DVD/CD)!
2. File a complaint at the website of the European Commission (Deutsch, Français, Italiano, Español, and in other languages by selecting them from the top-right of the page). Here’s an example of how to fill out the form in English. At the end of this article you’ll see what I submitted to the Consumer Liaison Office in German. Go ahead and use it as a template for your complaint!
3. Let Valve know that you are irritated by this business decision by posting in their forums and by joining the 1€ ≠ 1$ group.

As far as I’m concerned, Left 4 Dead was definitely the last game I bought from Steam (then with U.S. Dollars) until Valve returns to a fairer billing scheme!

Original post at : http://stephanreiter.info/2008/12/european-gamers-boycott-steam/