So it turns out I can’t change regional pricing on the App Store, which creates an interesting problem. I’ll use Vietnam as an example.
When EBF5 launched on Steam, a $20 game was đ188K. (still the current price of EBF5)
Today Steam suggests that $20 be localized to đ260K.
Meanwhile… today Apple says that $20 is đ500K (the actual exchange rate), and I can’t change it.
So as a result, in Vietnam EBF5 costs almost 3 times more on iOS than on Steam. To some extent this is true for many countries, but some are hit worse than others. I personally prefer Valve’s pricing model, and would like to make my games affordable for everyone.
Someone on Twitter mentioned that Apple plans to add regional pricing in 2023… so maybe I’ll lower some prices then if that becomes an option. I’m also considering adding an option to buy all the in-app purchases as a bundle with a slight discount (on iOS and Android), but I’ll have to do some more research there first.
Anyway, as I mentioned before, the prices on Steam and Android will be going up from $20 to $25 in 2023. So if you don’t own EBF5 on Steam yet, you should get it in the Christmas sale!
As for iOS and Android sales… I don’t know anything about those yet. I don’t know if those platforms make as big a deal out of sales as Steam does…
People have an expectation that games are priced the same on different platforms… but that doesn’t really work when the platforms are so different. So I’m still learning about this stuff.
