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Buying games on Steam is about to get more expensive – report

If you regularly purchase games through Steam you might have noticed that the section marked “VAT” has been blank for the longest time.

That space is soon to be filled with a 14% charge as Valve prepares to increase prices to fall in line with tax laws in 10 countries including South Africa. That increase will be effective from March 2017 according to an email seen by Gamespot.

For those wondering how big an increase this is: Counter Strike Global Offensive which currently retails for R159 would retail for R181.26 after tax is applied.

A brand new triple-A title such as For Honor currently retails for R799. After the increase this game would retail for R910.86.

It’s unclear at this stage whether Valve will simply add VAT onto the existing cost of the game as we have in our examples, or whether pricing will be adjusted slightly.

More increases in other nations

South Africans are not the only gamers that will be affected by this. Prices on the Steam store front will increase for the following nations come March.

  • Switzerland – 8%
  • South Korea – 10%
  • Japan – 8%
  • New Zealand – 15%
  • Iceland – 24%
  • India – 15%

Valve also plans to increase prices in Serbia (20%), Taiwan (5%) and Australia (10%) in April, May and June respectively.

To offer a bit of clarity this VAT charge will be included in the advertised price on Steam so you won’t need to break out your calculator when it Steam sales roll around.

Related to that, we have a suspicion that Steam sales are about to become a lot more popular.

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