The Epic Games Store now includes regional pricing for over 230 countries, which makes it almost double what was available about two weeks earlier. According to a tweet from Director of Publishing Strategy (and SteamSpy creator), Sergey Galyonkin, the update includes "a bunch of countries from Africa, Latin America, and other regions." He also added in a second tweet: "Not all games currently have regional pricing configured for these countries yet, we're still working on it. But most already do."
TechRaptor News Editor Don Parsons also asked him over Twitter about a published list for regional pricing, to which he replied: "We only have 9 currencies currently supported. As for the list - the countries are split into 36 regions, and we essentially included all of them save for Iran, North Korea and some minor territories (e.g. South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands)."
Escalating their mounting assault against a certain soft monopoly in digital distribution, Epic Games seem determined to make up for lost time and strike as many deals as possible, and as quickly as possible, to make the Store a viable market force. After announcing that they would only take a 12% revenue share back in December 2018, as opposed to the 30% standard that has stood for well over a decade, they have also offered a series of giveaways of great games such as Subnautica, Axiom Verge, Super Meat Boy, and What Remains of Edith Finch.
More recently, they have also struck what was likely the most aggressive (and controversial) move against Steam by convincing Deep Silver to make the highly anticipated Metro Exodus an Epic Games Store exclusive on PC. The uproar over this decision and its repercussions still haven't subsided, and it's unlikely to be the last of similar deals. The digital distribution platform wars are in full swing and will probably remain unabated for all of 2019.
What do you think about this and other moves by Epic Games Store to challenge Steam's supremacy? Does regional pricing affect your decision significantly when purchasing games? How comfortable are you with regional pricing that lacks local currency indicators? Let us know in the comments below.
