A few days ago, Valve announced that Steam would now support the local currency of AED for UAE users, instead of showing game prices in USD. The same change has been made for Saudi Arabia, as well. This should be good news for Steam users as they can now purchase games knowing exactly what they will be paying for, and on top of that, Steam now supports additional pre-paid card services like CashU and Onecard, both of which are available in the region. However, the currency switch hasn't been met with the kind of fanfare as you might have expected, and instead there is a petition started by the folks at the /r/dubai subreddit to revert Steam back to its previous state.

As a regular Steam user, the change felt unnecessary although I am sure there were some factors into play that made Valve adopt the local currencies. It's all a bit disconcerting now though, where I am unable to judge the value of a game based on its price in AED, than I was before when the prices were in USD. It's strange because I am paying the same price regardless, but there was something about seeing a '$10' in front of a game and understanding that this was an affordable price instead of seeing AED 50 and hesitating a bit. It's a simple mind association, and the high exposure of online prices being in USD has made it weirdly difficult for me to the judge a game's price. I find myself using a calculator to convert the AED to USD to see if I am paying the same amount as I was before.

But this is something I believe will be second nature as time goes on and I become more accustomed to the prices in AED (or 'DH' as Steam incorrectly abbreviates the currency to). However, there are a number of other problems that needs immediate attention, so let me break them down:

Price increase:

Some games are now priced $10 or $20 higher than they were before the currency switch. For example, Fallout 4, which would have cost AED 220 ($60 x 3.673 conversion rate), now cost AED 299 ($81). Similarly, Call of Duty: Black Ops III cost AED 249 ($68) on Steam rather than the standard price of AED 220/$60. Ditto for Grand Theft Auto V and other full-priced triple-A titles. In all fairness though, this is not entirely Steam’s fault - the prices are set by publishers and not Valve, and disappointingly some of them are using this opportunity to bump the prices.

No PayPal:

As absurd as this may sound, Steam no longer supports PayPal to make purchases! Instead, Steam now supports pre-paid card services like CashU, Webmoney and Onecard. PayPal is supported in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, so why is it no longer supported by Steam? This omission is downright strange.

Gifting Lock:

Some users have found that they can no longer gift games to friends outside of UAE or Saudi Arabia. I understand that the region lock is in place to protect itself from being exploited due to the varying prices of games around the world (for example, games in Russia cost significantly less to combat piracy), but this is also affecting legit customers who simply would like to exchange or gift games to their friends abroad. This is especially annoying since the UAE is a highly expat-driven country with gamers who may have family and friends all over the world.

These changes are worrisome, and for me, the increase in prices and the removal of PayPal are a huge disappointment. Thankfully, there are other sites that offers Steam games for cheap, such as Green Man Gaming which currently has Fallout 4 for the standard price of $60, and regularly feature discount vouchers for new releases. There are plenty of CD-Key sites as well that often offer Steam game keys for a price much lower than the standard RRP. So it seems that with this switch over to local currency, Steam is causing a bit of a stir with gamers in the region.

Are these regional changes on Steam a concern for you? Let us know in the comments below!