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Valve tweaks minimum price thresholds on Steam

Valve tweaks minimum price thresholds on Steam

Valve has made some changes to how minimum pricing on Steam.

In a post on the platform, the company wrote that it was doing this to "to adjust for some currencies drifting significantly in value over time." This follows minimum pricing being revised in October of last year.

A base game or expansion has to have an RRP of at least $0.99, while the lowest a game can be discounted to is $0.49.

As a result, developers and publishers need to check that their games are priced above the minimum RRP and check that they do not have any scheduled discounts coming up that would take their product below $0.49 or the equivalent in other currencies. If the regular price is below the minimum pricing limit then they will not be able to schedule any discounts.

"When you change the base price of your game, Steam will automatically adjust any already scheduled discounts to align with your desired discount percentage," Valve wrote.

"However, you will be unable to increase the price of your game if you have a discount scheduled within the next 30 days. Price increases generate a 30-day cooldown on discounting for all regions (even if you are just increasing the price in a single currency). Some developers choose to wait to make price changes until immediately after a discount ends, when the product is already on a cooldown between discounts."


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PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.