Steam changed their pricing policy in relatively poor countries from localized affordable prices to strictly usd equivalent because people in other countries were using vpns to make accounts in those poor countries to get games for what would be pennies for them.

I don't remember which countries were involved in the first place, but in those countries now where they don't make as much money on average, but everything is much cheaper, some steam games can cost the equivalent of a month's salary.

That's why the store isn't viable in those countries anymore.

Edit: Here's a source

[–] lowleveldata@programming.dev 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Why don't Steam ban those people if they are known to exist?

[–] Seasoned_Greetings@lemm.ee 3 points 8 months ago

Once enough people do it, it like playing whack-a-mole on a grand scale. Must have been a big enough problem if they decided that locking whole countries out of the market was a solution.

[–] el_abuelo@lemmy.ml 3 points 8 months ago

That sucks. Never occured to me I could do that, now that I know the consequences I'm glad I didn't!