The Games That Australians Can No Longer Buy On Steam

When Steam announced support for the Australian dollar, it came with the same pre-existing condition as every other currency: if developers didn’t set a region specific price for that currency, their games couldn’t be sold in those regions.

Front-facing support for the AUD went live on Steam this morning. Naturally, quite a few developers forgot.

Update (Tuesday 0815 AEDT): Some games are coming back online:

Some Games Are Back On Steam For Aussies, But Not All Of Them Steam switched over to dollarydoos for local gamers yesterday, and while there was plenty of advance notice not everyone got the memo. The end result was that an alarmingly large list of games, from indies big and small to some notable AA games, were unavailable for purchase. But less than 24 hours later, the Steam Autumn sale has arrived - and with it, games are available for purchase once more. Read more

The first game that immediately became noticeable was Warhammer: Vermintide 2. It’s a featured deal on the Steam front page, and until AUD support was enabled Aussies could purchase the game for $US14.99.

However, once support for the AUD ticked over, something crucial was missing: the ability to buy the game.

Fatshark weren’t the only developers to forget. At the time of writing, a lot of prominent indies and larger publishers missed the memo completely: Undertale, Return of the Obra Dinn, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, Night in the Woods, Tabletop Simulator, Dream Daddy, Age of Empires 2: HD, Don’t Starve Together, Celeste, Factorio and every Konami game was unavailable for sale.

Image: Steam Client (Kotaku/Alex Walker)

Microsoft Studios apparently forgot, too. A price was set for Sunset Overdrive, but a ton of Microsoft-published games on Steam are unavailable, including Ori and the Blind Forest, Fable Anniversary, Quantum Break, and Rise of Nations.

Here’s Ori and the Blind Forest, unavailable for sale.

Here’s the extra prompt that’s shown to those in the US; you can view it for yourself through this link.

Owlcat Games, the maker of Pathfinder: Kingmaker, remembered to set a local price for their season pass – but not the game itself. So you can buy future content, just not the game that comes with it.

Here’s Hellblade as shown to audiences logging in from the United States, and what Australians will see (complete with the Enhanced Steam browser plug-in, which is fantastic):

The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth, Gunpoint, Super Hexagon, The Wolf Among Us, Sam & Max, and a good chunk of titles from German publisher Daedlic Entertainment were also affected.

EatPrayLoot also noted on Twitter that Runic Games, makers of the Torchlight series and Hob, also forgot:

Most of Runic Games too pic.twitter.com/bgjbqpoEGZ — Mr. Matt / Mr. Tuk (@EatPrayLoot) November 21, 2018

Update: Other games that also dropped from sale include Ashes Cricket (but not the earlier Don Bradman games).

My brain immediately sees that tweet and wonders whether I've made a mistake, so here's a screenshot for verification (Donny B not impacted) pic.twitter.com/UgWldbJJjz — Alex ???? at last ???? (@dippizuka) November 21, 2018

The Room Three, which released last week (after the pricing matrix changes and notices to developers were sent out), also wasn’t available for sale locally. Neither was 7 Days to Die, X-Plane 11, Oxygen Not Included, Gang Beasts, Starbound, or Assetto Corsa.

Publisher Beamdog, makers of the Planescape: Torment and Baldur’s Gate remasters, also appears to have forgotten local pricing:

Update (1700 AEDT): Other games still unavailable to Australians (provided you don’t own them already): Into the Breach, State of Mind, Phantom Doctrine, Contradiction – Spot the Liar!, Nidhogg 2, Ikaruga, Donut County, Shantae: Half-Genie Hero, Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse, the Metal Slug games, Spelunky, the Trine trilogy, The Witness and Braid, the Serious Sam Classic games and Serious Sam HD: Gold Edition (but not all of the Serious Sam games.

iRacing and Yoku’s Island Express are also unavailable, although the demo for the latter can still be downloaded locally:

We’ll keep you posted with any other major snafus. Let us know if you see any pearlers in the comments!