You won’t need to bust your calculator and convert USD to RM when you buy your games on Steam now. Yep, now you can finally see all those games you’re going or planning on buying in our good ol’ Malaysian currency the Ringgit. There’s also one other plus point to this whole move and that’s a noticeable “discount” in what we’d usually pay for some of the games if they were to be in USD.
For example the Wasteland 2 Digital Deluxe Edition is going for US$59.99 which works out to be around RM193, give or take. However with the new Malaysian price scheme in Steam, the same title is going at RM105. That’s almost half the price from before. It’s not across the board though as some games, like those from Capcom, will still maintain a direct currency conversion, but so far, it looks like its good news for us here in Malaysia as it means that some games are going to be a lot cheaper.
However, there is a downside to this move from Steam, depending on how you’d see it. The Paypal payment option has now been removed and in its place are local payment options via MOL or eClub points. For those of us who have a preference for PayPal, this will be some sucky news. The PayPal option gave an easy and secure way to pay for games and we’re pretty sure there’s going to be a bunch of gamers out there who won’t appreciate having to switch the local options. Of course the option to just add your credit card to make purchase is still there, but it would have been nice if the PayPal option was still included.
Another hitch that we found while reading through the FAQ, is that some games might not be available until their prices get a Malaysian conversion. Now for major titles, that might not really be an issue but stuff from smaller publishers and indie labels might take a little while longer before they start showing up on the store. Hopefully though, we won’t be seeing that problem and it’ll still have the relatively same turn around time that we’ve come to expect from Steam.
Right, now where our credit card? Looks like it’s time to go on Steam powered shopping spree.
Source: Steam
