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James Battersby avatar image
James Battersby asked

Steam Localised Price Display

Hi,

My game contains IAPs and is available on Steam (alongside other platforms). While I am able to present localised pricing on these other platforms I am currently having to show a warning that the displayed price is in USD (or alternatively cop-out and show a "Purchase" label). Reading around I've heard it's been on the roadmap (which I've not found up to date versions of yet) - what is the current state of that?

Either way, the Steam overlay continues to show USD despite being in non-US territories. Posts here suggest contacting technical support to ask for specific titles to have the "Conversion Service" enabled. I've just upgraded to the PAYG pay plan and can't find a specific technical support e-mail. So here I am - could I please have the Conversion Service enabled for my titles with IDs 429FA and 9BB38.

In-Game Economy
10 |1200

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Sarah Zhang avatar image
Sarah Zhang answered

[Edited] There is no exact ETA for the release of the conversion service. Please still keep an eye on our blog and roadmap for the latest updates.

For clarification, as this pricing page and this documentation said, the minimum required account plan of the support ticket submission is Standard Account Plan. Pay-as-you-go Plan can only access the forum support now. If you would like to submit a ticket to turn on the conversion service, you may need to upgrade the plan to enable the ticket supports.

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James Battersby avatar image James Battersby commented ·

Thanks for the reply Sarah - I must have thought that an agreement to any payment plan would have sufficed.

You mention "the external exchange rate query API" - could you please clarify which calls in particular?

In any case, I didn't feel happy with showing USD or Purchase to non-US players and I've ended up with a decent compromised working for all platforms. I could write an entire blog post about it but here's the TLDR:

  • Use Apple's pricing tiers as the authority on what the prices are for IAPs. Set these first.
  • Construct similar tiers in Google Play and apply them appropriately. If you have time to routinely alter specific currencies (as Apple's price tiers aren't linear) then all the better.
  • Using the USD pricing from Apple as the template:
    • Set the prices in Playfab for RM - that will at least convert it to it's equivalent
    • Using Steam's inventory service, create equivalent items that will never be bought and apply the same USD price in the schema
    • When the Steam client is initialised, query the inventory service for the prices of those items. They will be localised to the player's culture and you can display those to the user.
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James Battersby avatar image James Battersby James Battersby commented ·

A sample item in the Inventory Service schema JSON:

{
	"appid": <your app id here>,
	"items": [
		{
			"itemdefid": <some number less than 1,000,000>,
			"type": "item",
			"name": "Item name",
			"description": "Item description",
			"price": "1;USD<same RM cost>",
			"tradable": false,
			"marketable": false,
			"store_hidden": true,
			"granted_manually": false
		},
... }

Prevent the player from actually purchasing these items and they won't appear on the store page nor in their inventory. On additional note, if non-developer Steam accounts receive an Access Denied response when performing a RequestPrices call, the Inventory Service needs to be made publicly visible, at least during development. I think once a game is released this is no longer necessary - at worst an inventory tab for you game will appear in Steam but not have any items appear.

1 Like 1 ·
Sarah Zhang avatar image Sarah Zhang James Battersby commented ·

You can consider upgrading your account to the Standard Plan, then navigate to the Contact Us page of your Game Manager to submit the support ticket. Please check this documentation -- Paid Technical Support - PlayFab | Microsoft Docs for more information of support ticket submission.

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