Steam will now be in NZ Dollars.

[Lias]

Got this email this morning:

Dear Steam User,
Steam will soon be priced in New Zealand Dollar!
If your Steam wallet has any money in it on March 24th, 2015, your U.S. Dollar balance will be converted to New Zealand Dollar, at a conversion rate dictated by market value at the time of conversion.
To view your account balance, simply log into your Steam client or the Steam website at http://www.steampowered.com. Once you have logged in, you will see your balance in the upper-right corner next to your account name.
Thanks,
The Steam Support Team
http://support.steampowered.com

Also in other possibly related news, Steam now acknowledges it's rights and responsabilities under the CGA.
http://www.gameplanet.co.nz/news/g5508c90d8aeb1/Steam-adds-refund-clause-for-New-Zealand-subscribers/

I wonder if these things are the death knell of content that is banned in NZ being available on steam here, like Postal 2, and a forerunner of Steam honouring NZOFLC ratings (i.e. requiring proof of age for R16 games like TF2). Possibly interesting times ahead.

[Retardobot]

Meh, Amazon will still be there if banned content doesn't make it through. Not that I have ever been interested in buying banned or even filtered content (haven't even played GT5 yet).

I still buy my games from JB Hifi. Their physical copy new release titles are still (a lot of the times) cheaper than Steam (and I love cover art and being able to re-install from physical media when I want to play instead of waiting for an entire game download).

[Craigor]

That almost looks like spam

Steam will soon be priced in New Zealand Dollar!
priced in New Zealand Dollar!
Dollar

[Xenolightning]

Gota Dollah bro?

[Apostrophe Spacemonkey]

Does that mean it will be even easier for them to rip us off with regional pricing?

[Xenolightning]

Does that mean it will be even easier for them to rip us off with regional pricing?

Pretty sure that's going to be the case.

[Lias]

Does that mean it will be even easier for them to rip us off with regional pricing?

Got it in one.

[Apostrophe Spacemonkey]

Also in other possibly related news, Steam now acknowledges it's rights and responsabilities under the CGA.
http://www.gameplanet.co.nz/news/g5508c90d8aeb1/Steam-adds-refund-clause-for-New-Zealand-subscribers/

Interesting.

It will be difficult to apply the concept of 'faulty' to a digital software product.


Imo, the CGA shouldn't apply to software products.

[Retardobot]

Why not?

I'd sure as shit want the CGA to apply to video games when a dev rolls out a buggy as fuck game when they promised a fully functional product.

Or when a spate of promised features doesn't make it into the final retail copy of the game. This seems to be happening a lot.

[Apostrophe Spacemonkey]

Why not?

I'd sure as shit want the CGA to apply to video games when a dev rolls out a buggy as fuck game when they promised a fully functional product.

Or when a spate of promised features doesn't make it into the final retail copy of the game. This seems to be happening a lot.

Because it wouldn't make sense, the CGA wasn't written to cover digital products. It's for physical product, like if you buy a washing machine, and it doesn't wash clothes, then it's clearly faulty.

But a game is much more subjective, the game could crash because of the players system, that's not really the games fault.
Plus it's easy to prove a washing machine is faulty, you can send it back. Can't do that with a game.


I'm not saying there shouldn't be a refund option, I think there should. But on they other hand it wouldn't be fair if people started asking for refunds just because they didn't like a game.

After all, there are lots of ways to find out about a game before you buy it, i.e steam user reviews.

[The Demon Lord]

Why not?

I'd sure as shit want the CGA to apply to video games when a dev rolls out a buggy as fuck game when they promised a fully functional product.

Or when a spate of promised features doesn't make it into the final retail copy of the game. This seems to be happening a lot.

Because it wouldn't make sense, the CGA wasn't written to cover digital products. It's for physical product, like if you buy a washing machine, and it doesn't wash clothes, then it's clearly faulty.

But a game is much more subjective, the game could crash because of the players system, that's not really the games fault.
Plus it's easy to prove a washing machine is faulty, you can send it back. Can't do that with a game.


I'm not saying there shouldn't be a refund option, I think there should. But on they other hand it wouldn't be fair if people started asking for refunds just because they didn't like a game.

After all, there are lots of ways to find out about a game before you buy it, i.e steam user reviews.

I think it will be a matter of time till we have a watershed case on the CGA against Digital media. The only problem is that NZ is Small and no one gives a Fuck about it.

For example - with the Sims 5 release where someone couldn't login for several days in Single Player mode - I reckon under the CGA someone could make a claim - the problem is that if the ruling was in favour of the Gamer - the international Games industry wouldn't care.

[Apostrophe Spacemonkey]

Does that mean it will be even easier for them to rip us off with regional pricing?

Got it in one.

I can see where this is going.

Steam transactions in NZ dollars.

Steam games covered by the CGA

Steam games all now have GST

[Apostrophe Spacemonkey]

I think it will be a matter of time till we have a watershed case on the CGA against Digital media. The only problem is that NZ is Small and no one gives a Fuck about it.

For example - with the Sims 5 release where someone couldn't login for several days in Single Player mode - I reckon under the CGA someone could make a claim - the problem is that if the ruling was in favour of the Gamer - the international Games industry wouldn't care.

Not being able to connect to the game server doesn't indicate the game is faulty. It just could be the server is under very high load, and is usually the case on launch day.

This is why applying the CGA to digital products, especially games, doesn't make sense.

The CGA states 'THIS ACT ARE GUARANTEES WHICH INCLUDE THAT SOFTWARE IS OF ACCEPTABLE QUALITY. IF THIS GUARANTEE IS NOT MET THERE ARE ENTITLEMENTS TO HAVE THE SOFTWARE REMEDIED (WHICH MAY INCLUDE REPAIR, REPLACEMENT OR REFUND).'

The point is it's the retailers decision on which remedy to provide.

It's doesn't make sense to Replace a game.

The developers will work on bugs, you could consider that "repair". But game developers are going to fix bugs anyway, regardless of CGA, which makes the CGA pointless.

And even if they don't, the CGA only covers the contract is between us and steam, not the developer.

 

[The Demon Lord]

I think it will be a matter of time till we have a watershed case on the CGA against Digital media. The only problem is that NZ is Small and no one gives a Fuck about it.

For example - with the Sims 5 release where someone couldn't login for several days in Single Player mode - I reckon under the CGA someone could make a claim - the problem is that if the ruling was in favour of the Gamer - the international Games industry wouldn't care.

Not being able to connect to the game server doesn't indicate the game is faulty. It just could be the server is under very high load, and is usually the case on launch day.

But it does indicate that the product isn't fit for purpose if it can't be played properly

This is why applying the CGA to digital products, especially games, doesn't make sense.

I mostly agree, but I think it would be interesting to see if a case did go to court

The CGA states 'THIS ACT ARE GUARANTEES WHICH INCLUDE THAT SOFTWARE IS OF ACCEPTABLE QUALITY. IF THIS GUARANTEE IS NOT MET THERE ARE ENTITLEMENTS TO HAVE THE SOFTWARE REMEDIED (WHICH MAY INCLUDE REPAIR, REPLACEMENT OR REFUND).'

This is where it would be interesting - the Refund - say for the BF4 launch where there were so many bugs (server crashes loosing all performance) to the point where the game was unplayable - I reckon that someone could mount a case under the CGA to have a refund

The point is it's the retailers decision on which remedy to provide.

Only if the problem is minor - If the problem is serious - then you as the buyer have the right to determine whether its repaired, replaced or refunded.

The consumer can always ask for a different option, however you can't refuse a solution put forward (If minor) - for example if you return a pair of trousers to a shop with a small hole, you can't refuse their offer to repair, but you can still ask for a refund instead.

It's doesn't make sense to Replace a game.

The developers will work on bugs, you could consider that "repair". But game developers are going to fix bugs anyway, regardless of CGA, which makes the CGA pointless.

And even if they don't, the CGA only covers the contract is between us and steam, not the developer.

Correct - but it does make sense to refund a game - and with the CGA if bug fixes aren't done in a reasonable time frame (with BF4 we had to wait several months for stable servers) then you could reasonably request a refund

Also since the claim would be that the product was unfit for purpose - then under the CGA you always take that up with the retailer (Steam) instead of the Manufacturer (the Dev)

If NZ was a major market then it would actually be worth taking a Triple A release that was buggy as sin on release to a Tribunal under the CGA to get them to remedy, but since NZ is small - it won't have far reaching consequences.

[Meesham]

Has anyone been switched over to NZD yet?