We have a couple of short, almost businessy, announcements for you today, first a long requested service becoming available at last and second some updates regarding War for the Overworld’s regional pricing which may see the price of the game increase to parity with Steam’s recommendations in some regions.
Geforce Now Availability
As of this week and by popular request, War for the Overworld is finally available on Geforce Now!
Geforce now is a cloud gaming platform that allows players to connect to their accounts with various PC storefronts (including Steam) and stream games that they own straight from Nvidia's servers to any compatible device!
With WFTO being added to the lineup of games available on the service you can now build your dungeons practically anywhere you can think of without needing to carry your PC with you.
We’ve heard from the people who’ve been playing this week that it handles very well and that it works great. So if you’re a Geforce Now member then be sure to check it out!
Regional Pricing Updates
Way, way back in 2017 we posted an update on War for the Overworld’s regional pricing in the name of transparency, we even accidentally leaked news of the upcoming addition of the Australian dollar! Whoops!
Today we’re returning to the topic and updating our regional prices once more and we wanted to be as transparent as possible of what this process is and how it affects you.
What is happening?
For those uninitiated, pricing on Steam is based on the USD price for any game, set by the developer and advised by Valve. The myriad of other currencies that Steam also supports are also set on the developer side and again are advised by Valve on the basis of the purchasing power of said regions vs USD.
Back in 2017 we opted to align all regions to the advised pricing given to us by Valve with a critical exception, we chose to forego any changes that would increase the price of the game in any given region.
Today we have reached a point where we must again revisit our regional pricing, this time to align it fully with Valve’s recommendations, which means many currencies will see the price of the base game and expansions increase (along with a small handful of decreases for DLC pricing in some regions). For full clarity: The base USD price is not changing, only pricing in other currencies.
Affected Currencies:
- GB Pounds (£) - 22.99 -> 24.99
- Euros (€) - 27.99 -> 28.99
- Russian Rubles (pуб) - 499 -> 1,100
- Brazillian Reals (R$) - 55.99 -> 88.99
- Japanese Yen (¥) - 2,980 -> 3,400
- Indonesian Rupiah (Rp) - 139,999 -> 245,999
- Malaysian Ringgit (RM) - 51.00 -> 72.00
- Philippine Peso (P) - 649.95 -> 910.00
- Thai Baht (฿) - 379 -> 590
- Vietnamese Dong (₫) - 249,998 -> 385,000
- Korean Won (₩) - 31,000 -> 32,000
- Turkish Lira (TL) - 49 -> 280
- Ukranian Hryvnia (₴) - 379 -> 600
- Mexican Peso (Mex$) - 269.99 -> 334.99
- Canadian Dollar (CDN$) - 32.99 -> 38.99
- Australian Dollar (A$) - 42.95 -> 43.95
- New Zealand Dollar (NZ$) - $35.99 -> 43.59
- Norwegian Krone (kr) - 200 -> 335
- Polish Zloty (zł) - 107.99 -> 138.99
- Swiss Francs (CHF) - 29 -> 33.50
- Chinese Yuan (¥) - 88 -> 108
- Indian Rupee (₹) - 699 -> 1300
- Chilean Peso (CLP$) - 11,500 -> 15,500
- Peruvian Sol (S/.) - 53 -> 63
- Colombian Peso (COL$) - 39,500 -> 70,000
- South Afriacan Rand (R) - 175 -> 270
- Hong Kong Dollar (HK$) - 129 -> 187
- Taiwanese Dollar (NT$) - 438 -> 488
- Saudi Arabian Riyal (SR) - 46.95 -> 61.49
- Argentine Peso (ARS$) - 329.99 -> 2,100.00
- Kazakhstani Tenge (₸) - 3,900 -> 7,600
- Qatari Rial (QR) - 59.99 - 64.99
- Uruguayan Peso ($U) - 619 -> 885
Why is this happening?
The root of this is changes to Steam’s minimum price thresholds that Valve put into place last month, and the recommended pricing changes published in October 2022.
War for the Overworld’s pricing in several regions has now become so divergent from Steam’s recommendations that in some cases, where markets have shifted substantially, there’s quite a substantial gap between the recommendation and the prices we have listed.
While this isn’t necessarily a big issue on the face of it, the price has dropped so low in some regions (vs USD pricing) that we can no longer discount certain products without locking some regions out of being able to buy that content at all.
It also goes without saying that WFTO is still our only released product (at least until Galacticare releases next year!) and it represents the only income stream we have, and we believe that both the game and expansions are priced very fairly - especially as we regularly run fairly deep discounts.
But in many regions this fair price is not accurately reflected, accounting for changes in markets, inflation, and purchasing power since the prices were originally set in 2015. This means that the price is “fair” in some regions and “more fair” in others.
Therefore in respect to wanting to be fair to both ourselves and our customers and to resolve the issue with not being able to offer discounts on some products we have decided the best course of action is to apply Steam’s recommendations across the board.
Of course we know that some of these swings may look quite extreme, but this is because we have maintained the price at parity with 2015 levels for so long (and refused to increase any pricing in 2017).
Edit (15/09/2023) - We wanted to confirm that we will be reviewing these prices more regularly going forwards following these increases, we'll be looking to Valve's recommendations for decreases to help allay some of these as the global market settles.
Edit (17/09/2023) - We're continuing to engage in the discussions for this topic to provide additional explanation and context on the why and how of this. If you'd like to know more be sure to check out some of our posts.
We hope that clarifies why we’ve taken this decision and we apologize for any disruption caused to those of you who shop in the affected currencies.
Final Words
If there’s anything you still want to buy and these pricing changes affect you then rest assured that the game and its DLC will be on sale again in the near future. Steam’s policy wisely prevents games going on sale for 30 days after a price adjustment, but we will be placing it on sale as soon as possible.
Finally, as we’re sure this question will be asked, for the time being we are not planning adjustments to the base game price, as mentioned above we still feel the game is fairly priced as our only revenue stream and this is especially so when it is on sale!
Hopefully that clarifies everything there is to know about the regional pricing update! If you have any questions please feel free to comment!
A Reflection on Unity
Finally as we’re here and given recent events some of you may be wondering about our relationship with Unity and how their announced changes may impact us, WFTO and Galacticare.
Our official statement went out on our socials a few hours before this post:
The impact of these changes from Unity’s side cannot be overstated, this is going to severely impact many developers who rely upon the engine for their work. It is unlikely that we will be working with Unity for the future after the release of Galacticare even if this requires significant retooling and retraining on our part.
It is not that we are opposed to paying a fair fee for the tools we use, we have been paying significant sums for Unity for the majority of our 12 years in partnership with them. But the way this is being leveraged and the failure to consider the potential risks and edge-cases in their chosen model while ignoring the concerns of the partners means we can no longer see a future with them.
We hope that our customers will continue to support the developers of games you love that have brought great experiences to you via the Unity Engine for the last decade. Many studios will be in a similar position to us and will be carefully considering their options on the road ahead.
Update 15/09/2023 - Just a small clarification that this new policy from Unity does not currently directly impact War for the Overworld in its current state, because it would fall below Unity's yearly revenue requirements. So there's no impact here for WFTO. WFTO is not going anywhere.
We are simply stating our displeasure and our intentions to move away from Unity for future projects, as stated it's not a matter of not being willing to pay a fair price, it's the principle that Unity would foist this massive change in fees upon developers and apply it retroactively to old projects, running massively deprecated versions of Unity, despite assurances this kind of thing would never happen.
It's not the idea, though the exact implementation is poorly thought out and full of holes, it's the principle that Unity is not a trust worthy partner anymore, which is deeply, deeply upsetting.
Until Next Time Underlord,
- Brightrock Games
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